What Max said
by Bob on February 23, 2008
I've always tried to remember what Max Yasgur said from the stage at Woodstock ("The Woodstock Music and Art Fair") in 1969. It was held on his dairy farm and he was an interesting man. He was asked to address the huge crowd assembled. It was one of the high points of the festival. And I always remembered it. But the exact full set of words has mostly escaped me. I remembered it started something like "I'm a farmer ..." and the audience burst out in joy. Max had a great point of view but also brought the festival down to the level of the natural path of the earth we were all on, too.
Even with everyone seemingly flying into the clouds with the music or climbing on the towers or having an au natural mud bath. Or a Michael Wadleigh and his film crew all over. With a young Martin Scorsese later being one of the film's many editors before its release in 1970 as simply the documentary known as "Woodstock".
Still, Max had made his point.
In terms of the 1960s and Woodstock Nation, it was all pretty much on the slippery road down after that, insidiously slowly so, perhaps until designer jeans came into fashion and officially closed the 60s spirit without anyone having to say a single simple solitary word. Woodstock Nation had become morally, socially, musically and societally passe. The loss of the proverbial Age of Aquarius had finally unfolded.
But Max Yasgur said it all at Woodstock in 1969 to the largest live crowd every assembled to listen to music and he said it in one modernised near-Shakespearean soliloquy.
Would that we had all listened and retained the essence of the spirit of the laws of Woodstock Nation. We'd be in a different place now. But that's life. Constant, immutable human nature. And the illusion of inconsistency.
* * *
"I'm a farmer...[interrupted by cheering from the audience]...I don't know how to speak to twenty people at one time, let alone a crowd like this. But I think you people have proven something to the world — not only to the Town of Bethel, or Sullivan County, or New York State; you've proven something to the world. This is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place. We have had no idea that there would be this size group, and because of that you've had quite a few inconveniences as far as water, food, and so forth. Your producers have done a mammoth job to see that you're taken care of... they'd enjoy a vote of thanks. But above that, the important thing that you've proven to the world is that a half a million kids — and I call you kids because I have children that are older than you are — a half million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music, and I God Bless You for it!"
— Max Yasgur addressing the crowd at Woodstock on August 17, 1969