50 Fun Facts About Woodstock Trivia for Seniors

On whose farm in upstate New York was the 1969 Woodstock festival held?

Max Yasgur. Neighbours pressed the 49-year-old to cancel and he refused, then told the crowd on day three that half a million young people had proved they could have three days of fun and music and nothing else.

Despite its name, the 1969 Woodstock festival was held not in Woodstock but in which other New York town?

Bethel. The promoters first planned a recording studio in Woodstock itself, an artists' town where Bob Dylan lived, and kept the fashionable name when the festival landed on farmland elsewhere.

Woodstock opened in mid-August, less than a month after which other headline event of that summer?

The Moon landing. Apollo 11 touched down on 20 July 1969 and the festival opened on 15 August, then overran so badly that its final act played on the morning of Monday the 18th.

How was Woodstock billed on its posters?

An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music. Arnold Skolnick was handed the job on a Thursday and delivered the bird-on-a-guitar poster the following Monday; it became one of the era's most familiar images.

Why did Woodstock become a free concert?

The fences and ticket booths were never finished. Three days out the foremen could complete the fencing or the stage, not both; the stage won, and the promoters came away about $1.4 million in debt.

Besides a post office box, advance tickets for Woodstock were sold only through which kind of New York store?

Record stores. A three-day pass cost $18 in advance and was meant to be $24 on the door, yet hardly anyone paid the door price: most of the half-million crowd simply walked in free.

Which folk singer opened Woodstock after the scheduled first act was stuck in traffic?

Richie Havens. With the next acts stuck on jammed roads he was sent back out again and again, and after running out of songs he improvised 'Freedom' around an old spiritual, the number that made his name.

Who was the last performer at Woodstock, walking on early on Monday morning after most of the crowd had left?

Jimi Hendrix. He was the festival's highest-paid act, yet rain delays pushed his set so far back that only a small fraction of the crowd, around 30,000 people, was still there to hear it.

Which piece did Woodstock's closer famously play with feedback imitating rockets and bombs?

The Star-Spangled Banner. Pundits heard a protest against the Vietnam War, but the guitarist, an Army veteran, shrugged off talk that his version was unorthodox and said simply, 'I thought it was beautiful.'

Which band was the first major act to sign a contract to play Woodstock, for $10,000?

Creedence Clearwater Revival. Their signature brought the other big names running, yet they went on after midnight to a sleepy crowd, and John Fogerty thought the set so poor he kept it out of the film.

Which British band walked on at Woodstock at five in the morning?

The Who. Their new rock opera was Tommy, released earlier that year; with the schedule running hours late they played it as dawn approached, and Pete Townshend finished by tossing his guitar into the crowd.

Which little-known Latin-rock band got onto the Woodstock bill because their manager, promoter Bill Graham, insisted?

Santana. They had no album out and were among the least-known names on the bill, yet their Saturday set, driven by 20-year-old drummer Michael Shrieve on 'Soul Sacrifice', became one of the festival's highlights.

Which gravel-voiced English singer closed his Woodstock set with a cover of 'With a Little Help from My Friends'?

Joe Cocker. He turned a gentle singalong into a seven-minute soul anthem, for which its co-writer Paul McCartney said he was forever grateful; his recording later became the theme to The Wonder Years.

Which singer-songwriter wrote 'Woodstock' without attending, after boyfriend Graham Nash described it to her?

Joni Mitchell. Her manager kept her away so she would not miss a Dick Cavett Show booking, only for acts fresh from the festival to turn up on the same programme; she wrote the song in a New York hotel room from the TV news.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's version of the song 'Woodstock' appeared on which 1970 album?

Déjà Vu. The band's rocked-up version came out a month before the songwriter's own sparse recording and became the one America knows, reaching number 11; another take of it plays over the closing credits of the Woodstock film.

What did Stephen Stills tell the Woodstock crowd at CSNY's second-ever live show?

'We're scared shitless'. It was only the quartet's second concert, played around 3 a.m. on the final night; Neil Young refused to be filmed, which is why the famous footage shows only his three bandmates.

Which director debuted with the Oscar-winning 1970 Woodstock documentary?

Michael Wadleigh. With the film deal struck only days before the festival, he hastily assembled a crew and shot some 120 miles of footage, which seven editors then cut down to a three-hour feature.

Which future Oscar-winning director worked as an editor on the Woodstock film?

Martin Scorsese. He was a recent NYU film graduate with a handful of credits, and the job paired him with fellow editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who earned an Oscar nomination for it and went on to cut his own films for decades.

Which Canned Heat song became the unofficial theme of the Woodstock film?

Going Up the Country. The hippie anthem was really a 1928 blues in disguise: record-collecting singer Alan Wilson took the tune from Henry Thomas's obscure 'Bull Doze Blues' and wrote new words for it.

Which group brought 1950s doo-wop to Woodstock, playing on the final morning?

Sha Na Na. The Columbia University glee-club offshoot had been together only a few months, yet the film's exposure helped spark a 1950s revival that put them in Grease and gave them their own TV variety series.

Which British blues-rock band's marathon 'I'm Going Home', sung by Alvin Lee, was a highlight of the Woodstock film?

Ten Years After. The 11-minute showpiece was immortalised in the 1970 film, and the band led by the Nottingham-born guitarist saw their popularity in America explode.

Which singer led the Woodstock crowd in the 'Fish Cheer' before his 'I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag'?

Country Joe McDonald. Pushed out alone to kill time, with a rope for a guitar strap, he was ignored through a whole set until he walked back on and shouted 'Give me an F!'

Which son of the 'This Land Is Your Land' writer played 'Coming into Los Angeles' at Woodstock?

Arlo Guthrie. In the film he tells the crowd that the New York State Thruway is closed, but the director of the museum on the festival site says the road never was.

Which folk singer performed at Woodstock while her husband was jailed for resisting the draft?

Her appearance and the film raised her profile worldwide. Fifty years later she turned down Woodstock 50 because her instincts said no.

Which singer's 'Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)' was inspired by the Woodstock crowd lighting candles during her set?

Melanie. She was so little known that her mother drove her to the festival, yet the song that came out of that night, recorded with the Edwin Hawkins Singers, became her first American top-ten hit.

Grace Slick called which band's early-morning Woodstock slot 'morning maniac music'?

Jefferson Airplane. Last on Saturday's bill, they finally began at about eight on Sunday morning, and two days later they carried the festival onto network television on The Dick Cavett Show.

Which singer played Woodstock in the small hours with her Kozmic Blues Band but is missing from the original 1970 film?

Janis Joplin. She went on at about two in the morning, leaned on songs from a solo album still a month from release and held 'Piece of My Heart' back for the encore.

Which group of former Bob Dylan sidemen played Woodstock on the Sunday night but appears nowhere in the 1970 film?

The Band. They lived in the town of Woodstock itself, yet Robbie Robertson said facing the festival crowd felt like being 'a bunch of preacher boys looking into purgatory'.

Which hard-rock band, known for 'Mississippi Queen', played only its third-ever gig at Woodstock?

Mountain. Forty years later guitarist Leslie West came back for the anniversary concert on the same site and got married on stage, walking his bride under a canopy of raised electric guitars.

Which former Lovin' Spoonful frontman went to Woodstock as a spectator and was pushed on stage to play an unscheduled acoustic set?

John Sebastian. Organisers needed one man and a guitar to fill a gap, and his rambling set still made the film; in 1976 he topped the American chart with the theme to Welcome Back, Kotter.

Which Indian sitar master played Woodstock in a rainstorm on its opening night?

Ravi Shankar. He was the darling of the hippies, yet he soon turned away from them, dismayed that drugs and fads were drowning out the spiritual side of his music.

With the Beatles out of reach, which Beatle did Woodstock's promoter say he invited to bring his own new band instead?

John Lennon. The offer was for his Plastic Ono Band, but by the promoter's account the American government did not want him in the country after his drug conviction and his stand on Vietnam.

Which group's guitarist Robby Krieger said they turned Woodstock down as a 'second class repeat of Monterey Pop'?

The Doors. Krieger put it bluntly in a 1996 web chat with fans: 'We never played at Woodstock because we were stupid and turned it down.'

Which counterculture figure's Hog Farm commune ran Woodstock security with 'cream pies and seltzer bottles'?

Wavy Gravy. When food ran short, his commune, hired to help keep the peace, switched to cooking, recruiting helpers on the spot and serving free meals to the crowd.

Which newspaper's editorial 'Nightmare in the Catskills' compared the Woodstock crowd to lemmings marching into the sea?

The New York Times. Its later coverage softened, passing on a local police chief's salute to 'the most courteous, considerate and well-behaved group of kids' he had met in 24 years of police work.

Why did hundreds of Woodstock ticket holders complain to New York State after the festival?

They never got in. Closed roads had kept many paying customers from ever reaching the farm, and their complaints brought a state investigation into how the tickets had been handled.

Which four men are credited with putting Woodstock together, two of them as financiers?

Lang, Kornfeld, Roberts and Rosenman. The two financiers had once advertised in the newspapers as 'young men with unlimited capital' seeking business ideas, and later made the phrase the title of their book about the festival.

Asked to host a repeat festival in 1970, the landowner refused, saying he was going back to doing what?

He refused. Yasgur died in 1973, having sold the farm for about $1,000 an acre.

Which cable-TV pioneer bought the Woodstock festival site in 1996 and turned it into a performing arts centre?

Alan Gerry. His family foundation paid for most of the centre, and when it opened in 2006 the first act on the new stage was not a rock group but the New York Philharmonic.

Which New York town hosted Woodstock '94, the rain-soaked 25th-anniversary festival nicknamed 'Mudstock'?

Saugerties. The promoters had first hoped to stage the 1969 festival on a farm there, but the plan came to nothing; twenty-five years later the town finally got its turn.

Woodstock '99, remembered for its fires and riots, was held on a former Air Force base in which upstate New York city?

Rome. The old airbase was a shadeless expanse of tarmac in a heatwave, and with bottled water selling at four dollars or more, the mood soured long before the fires.

What became of Woodstock 50, planned for Watkins Glen in 2019?

It never took place. Its main backer pulled out in April, tickets never went on sale, and after a last-ditch move to a Maryland amphitheatre it was called off less than three weeks before showtime.

Which of these gave Woodstock its opening blessing, speaking to the crowd straight after the first musical set?

An Indian yoga guru. Swami Satchidananda told the crowd that music was 'the celestial sound that controls the whole universe', and he was known ever after as the Woodstock Guru.

Which New York town's officials refused Woodstock a permit a month before showtime, forcing the festival to move?

Wallkill. Residents' opposition turned the town against the festival a month before showtime, and the promoters headed west in search of what one reporter called a warmer reception.

Which British folk-rock group took a cover of the song 'Woodstock' to number one in the UK in 1970?

Matthews Southern Comfort. Singer Iain Matthews suggested it only because a BBC radio session needed one more song, and the listeners' calls led to a single that spent three weeks at number one.

Which New York governor weighed sending the National Guard to clear the crowd from Woodstock?

Nelson Rockefeller. With roads blocked and food running short, his office threatened to declare the site a disaster area; by the organizers' accounts, they talked him out of sending in troops.

Which Hollywood studio put up the money for the Woodstock film, a gamble that repaid it handsomely?

Warner Bros. The promoters, running short of money days before the festival, turned to the studio to pay for the filming, and the documentary became one of the biggest box-office hits of 1970.

Which group missed their Woodstock slot while stranded at LaGuardia Airport?

Iron Butterfly. Their management wired a demand for a helicopter to fetch them and a slot ahead of everyone else; the production coordinator says he wired back a polite-looking refusal, and no helicopter ever came.

In 2017 the Woodstock festival site was added to which official list?

The National Register of Historic Places. Sites less than fifty years old are normally ruled out, but an exception was made for the festival field, which was then only forty-seven.

Which comedian played Elliot Tiber in the 2009 film Taking Woodstock?

Demetri Martin. The real Tiber phoned the promoters to offer land behind his parents' motel; it proved a swamp, and by the promoters' account he pointed them to a local estate agent, who found the farm they used.