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RUSH: No, I didn\u2019t attempt to go to Woodstock. I was 18. (laughing)<\/p>\nRUSH: We\u2019ve got a call about Woodstock from Millbourne, Pennsylvania. I\u2019m going to grab it up there. Chris, great to have you, sir, on the EIB Network on Open Line Friday. Hi.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Peace, man.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Hey, cool, dude. Cool, dude, yes.<\/p>\n
CALLER: So, I figure you were 18 probably 50 years ago. So were you tempted to go to Woodstock? What did you think?<\/p>\n
RUSH: No, I didn\u2019t attempt to go to Woodstock. I was 18. (laughing)<\/p>\n
CALLER: Did you grow your hair long?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Nope, never did. In fact, back then I did everything I could to avoid looking like I was in my generation.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah, a lot of people did.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I did not grow my hair long. I didn\u2019t blow up bank buildings. I didn\u2019t join protests. I didn\u2019t play —<\/p>\n
CALLER: But what did you think of it, though? It must have been something that was, you know —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, I was a D.J. then. I was already working on the radio. I was playing tunes by the people that were there, the acts that were at Woodstock. It was August of 1969. I was 18. I\u2019m trying to think, I was just out of high school, so it was a great summer. The drudgery of going to college was right around the corner, so that was the only negative to it. When I finally saw pictures of it, I just thanked God I was not there.<\/p>\n
CALLER: What do you think about it now, 50 years later?<\/p>\n
RUSH: A historical event that was, I think, especially exemplary of the generation of that era. I think it\u2019s one of the greatest illustrations of who young people were in that era and what was important to them. The Vietnam War was raging, and that was a central theme of the whole thing.<\/p>\n
But, look, I\u2019m hem-hawing here because I\u2019m down now to 10 seconds, but I promise you I\u2019ll address this. If you want to hang on, feel free to hang on if you want to weigh in on this. But I\u2019ve got to take a break here. Be patient and be cool, and we\u2019ll be back and move on before you know it.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: It\u2019s Open Line Friday, and we have a really great Open Line Friday caller. This is Chris in Millbourne, Pennsylvania, asking my impressions of Woodstock at the time.<\/p>\n
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And you know, I haven\u2019t thought about this in a long time, even with all the Woodstock stuff on TV. I was watching during show prep today CNN had Carlos Santana on. And Carlos Santana was reliving what it was like to go on stage at 2.00 a.m., way earlier than he had been told because another band couldn\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n
And they were talking about the logistics nightmare of getting in and out of there with that many people and all the rain and the mud and the muck and the bad LSD that was rolling around. I had a bunch of memories cascading back, but you know something, Chris? I mentioned to you earlier that back then the counter-culture \u201960s were such that I made an active decision in my mid-teens. I didn\u2019t want anybody to think that I was part of that generation, that group.<\/p>\n
As such, I never owned a pair of blue jeans until about 10 years ago. I didn\u2019t own a pair of blue jeans and I didn\u2019t ever wear a pair. A, they weren\u2019t comfortable. B, blue jeans to me were a symbol of anti-establishmentarianism, and I didn\u2019t want anybody to see me that way. I wanted the establishment to recognize me as a solid, reliable, reasonable person. I didn\u2019t want anybody seeing me as a malcontent protester of any type.<\/p>\n
CALLER: That\u2019s interesting. I was in high school 10 years later, and I didn\u2019t even know about it. And then I went into the Army and I saw the movie for the first time when I was in the Army in \u201989.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So you didn\u2019t find out about it until years after it had happened?<\/p>\n
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CALLER: (laughing) Right. And, of course, as a veteran it\u2019s interesting because of course I\u2019m a conservative, but I enjoy that period of music. They quoted Arlo Guthrie, interestingly, he said that Woodstock was the beginning of the end and Altamont was the end of the beginning. And, if you remember, of course Altamont was the counter to Woodstock.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, Arlo Guthrie (imitating Guthrie), \u201cWoodstock was the beginning of the end.\u201d Beginning of the end of what?<\/p>\n
CALLER: The end of the summer of love period that it started, you know, like around \u201965.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I hate to tell you the summer of love was in San Francisco. It wasn\u2019t in Woodstock. Woodstock, that was 1968, summer of love.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Right. Right. Well, you know, it\u2019s interesting. I mean 50 years is an interesting period, and of course it\u2019s interesting that it\u2019s happening —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Do you find it interesting that they can\u2019t replicate it. They\u2019ve tried to do Woodstock II. They\u2019ve gone to all the acts that are still around and asked them, \u201cWould you come back and do it?\u201d I was reading, John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival — they have since disbanded over typical problems that rock bands have. But Fogerty said he was willing to go back and was signed up to go back and then the whole thing fell apart.<\/p>\n
I remember \u2013 now this is really odd — another thing I thought, when I found out this thing took place on a farm, and that the farm was owned by a guy named Max Yasgur, I asked myself, \u201cWhy would some respectable farmer turn over his land and have it become a pigsty like this?\u201d<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I mean, I\u2019m just sharing with you random thoughts I had with you at the time. But it is historic. There\u2019s no question it\u2019s historic. And I was 18 when it happened. But also, I\u2019m from the middle of the country. I\u2019m smack dab in — I\u2019m in Missouri. Nothing whatsoever in common with the people that were there. The culture was all different. The way we were raised was all different.<\/p>\n
Chris, I\u2019ll tell you, honest to God, I\u2019ve said this, too, I think if I had been born anywhere other than where I was, I may not have been a success at this radio program. If I had any other life experiences, different set of values, for example, I don\u2019t think that I would have had quite the ability I\u2019ve had to relate to mass numbers of people as I have had by growing up in the heartland of the country.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a put-down to anything. You think about these things, the what-ifs. What if I had been born in New York? You play pretend games. Could it still have happened? Would it have? And of course, there\u2019s no way of knowing because you can\u2019t change the past. But it\u2019s still something interesting to conjure.<\/p>\n
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I look at Woodstock today as an historical event that was emblematic of the era of the times, with the Vietnam War and real hatred of government because of it, distrust of government. And the \u201960s counter-culture mixing with rock the way that it did to form a cultural statement, and we are still being governed by people in that era who have grown up. Like Bill Clinton was part of that culture, a bunch of people that have grown up in the \u201960s have become elected officials in government, or did.<\/p>\n
So it has its historical relevance, but at basic it was just a gigantic rock concert. And I\u2019m fascinated, as I say, by the fact that they are not able to do take two, which makes sense. Woodstock, for all that it was, was this gigantic spontaneous event. It was a planned rock concert, but nobody ever thought it would shut down the New York throughway. Nobody ever thought it would become as gigantic as it did.<\/p>\n
Word spread, and if you were anywhere near Woodstock, you went. You tried to get there, and there was nothing that was going to stop you — mudslides, thunderstorms, lightning, rain — none of it was going to stop you. You got there. There were bad drugs all over the place. EMS people couldn\u2019t get in to help people that OD\u2019d. There was a particularly bad lot of LSD. It was so bad that they were warning people from the stage to avoid the purple packs of LSD. It was that bad. People were tripping out and injuring themselves tremendously.<\/p>\n
So they want to do it again. It\u2019s like my age-old theory: You have something that happens, a party at somebody\u2019s house or somewhere, that spontaneously comes together, not planned, and it\u2019s just great, it\u2019s such a great time. Let\u2019s do it again next Saturday. And you try and you just can\u2019t make it the same because everybody\u2019s trying to make it what it was rather than just showing up and being. And they tried to do Woodstock again and they couldn\u2019t do it. It wasn\u2019t even going to be at the original place. They were going to do it someplace else. It was a one-time thing, a one-off.<\/p>\n
The minute the music from it became available, a gigantic collection of LPs, it was albums back then, and Super 8, I had a Super 8 player in my car, 12 speakers in my car. I had two woofers in the back, the upright part of the chair in the back. I could feel the base pounding my spine. Custom install in my Pontiac LeMans, 12 speakers in there, dude, and I was jamming everywhere. And some of the music I liked. Some of it I hated. But I remember listening to it.<\/p>\n
Creedence, Stones, I love Creedence. I love Fogerty. He probably hates me. But I love John Fogerty. I just loved them. The talent they had. They were on one of those two- or three-year rolls where their creativity was limitless. It knew no bounds.<\/p>\n
And, let\u2019s see, I don\u2019t want to sit here and say who I didn\u2019t like. Jimi Hendrix, Crosstown Traffic, all Along the Watchtower — but I\u2019ll tell you who I can do without. No, I shouldn\u2019t. I\u2019m too famous. I can\u2019t say who I don\u2019t like because it gets back to them.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: By the way, back to the boring subject of Woodstock. You know, one of the reasons Woodstock was so big, I bet you have forgotten this, the promoters at Woodstock do what promoters did. They let the word out that the Beatles were going to show up. Remember that? The Beatles had already broken up by then. So there was a rumor that the Beatles were going to come back.<\/p>\n
And then when that many people showed up, based on that false premise, they had to announce from the stage the Beatles weren\u2019t coming. And that\u2019s when everything went to hell, coupled with the massive thunderstorms and so forth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: It's Open Line Friday, and we have a really great Open Line Friday caller. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":294126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n