Peace, love and music? Not | News, Sports, Jobs

Michael Lang, 24, and Artie Kornfeld, 27, created the memorable weekend of “Peace, Love, and Music.” Thanks to Kornfeld’s connections in the music industry, 32 of the best-known acts in popular music performed. From Janis Joplin to The Band, Jimi Hendrix, to Santana, nearly every band short of the Beatles and Rolling Stones was there.

I was in Saranac Lake for the weekend, and my friends and I heard the reports of the crowds, the traffic, and its strain on community support systems. State Police made it clear that it was too chaotic and that everyone should stay away.

What went through our minds? “Maybe we should drive down and see what’s going on.” But we didn’t. Then the following spring when the movie Woodstock came out, we saw it, and kicked ourselves for having missed out on the real thing.

Fast forward 30 years. I’m 50 years old and my wilderness buddy Brian McDonnell asks me to help out on “Woodstock 99.” Brian was charged with organizing camping for 300,000 people. The event was to be held at the old Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York, which closed in 1995. It was the perfect place for a Woodstock-type concert. It had concrete runways to walk on, with lots of open grassland in between for tenting. It had natural places to build stages. It had a readily available water source from the city of Rome, and hangers to have nightly raves in. What could possibly go wrong?

A souvenir bumper sticker.
(Provided photo — Jack Drury)

The camping area was about 230 acres and was broken down into eight regions, each easily identified by flags colored, red, blue, green, yellow, gray, purple, orange and teal. I was the regional captain and had eight staff responsible for the teal section. Our job was to be troubleshooters and help find answers to campers’ questions. Supervising 30,000 campers and their 10,000 tents in each region was no easy task. My staff was great, though, and managed despite little sleep, loud music, and constant chaos. Trying to sleep with bands like Metallica pounding away was impossible, even though we had ear plugs, and they were a mile and half away.

I was reminded of Dwight Eisenhower’s quote about preparing for D-day. “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is essential.” Brian and those of us who comprised his staff attended staff trainings months prior to the event, had training for our own staff, and tried as best we could to prepare. But once the concert started, like war, the plans went out the window and we had to improvise to address all the issues.

What were the issues?

They typically started with campers setting up their tents. Fourteen hours later they returned, hammered and stoned to the bone to where previously there had been 500 tents, there were now 10,000. They’d stumble to our headquarters and ask, “Hey dude, where’s my tent?” We’d say, “Oh, you mean the purple dome tent with the gray trim?” (of which there were 5,000 or more) and then I’d send one of my staff to help them find it. Without a doubt, my best tent finder was 18-year-old Justin Garwood. I’m not sure how he did it, but somehow amidst the mayhem, Justin helped the dazed, confused, intoxicated revelers to their tents. And bear in mind there were around 80,000 tents!

Thursday and Friday were about getting the campers situated in the campground. Friday and Saturday were about helping them find their tents and cope with the heat, sanitation, and crowding issues. Saturday and Sunday were helping them get out the right exit so they could, with a little luck, find their cars.

My all access pass.
(Provided photo — Jack Drury)

Staff had backstage passes, and I was looking forward to seeing some of the shows close up. An old geezer like me was hoping to perhaps see Counting Crows, Alanis Morissette, Los Lobos, or Willie Nelson. But free time was at a premium so when I finally got backstage, I got to see Offspring with a crowd-pleasing rendition of “Why don’t you get a job?”

I had never heard of either Offspring or their song, and til then I never knew how well off I’d been.

The event climaxed with a tribute to Jimi Hendrix. I’m not sure whose idea it was to hand out 100,000 candles to intoxicated young adults, but my guess is that it was Woodstock founder Michael Lang’s. But instead of lighting the candles and singing Kumbaya, they set fire to anything that would burn. The event descended into a burning inferno, and I was grateful when my staff and I snuck out of the venue inside a panel truck while state police, with sirens blaring and lights flashing, tried to regain control of the event.

Peace, love, and music it was not. More like heavy metal, violence, and destruction.

To me the original Woodstock of 1969 represented the best of the ’60s.

Woodstock 99 represented the Worst of the nineties.

You think this sounds bad? Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait ’til Chapter 2 in my next column.