Woodstock mud and China’s cultural future
- Source: Global Times
- [21:40 August 16 2009]
- Comments
Some generations are defi ned by war, others by revolution. In the US, the baby boomers are defi ned by a rock concert held 40 years ago on a farm in Berthel, New York. Woodstock represents idealism, music, money, or mud, depending on whom you ask. But its signifi cance, or mythology, is remembered dearly even today.
Woodstock took place on August 15 to 17, 1969. Over the past week, Americans have been bombarded by Woodstock memories: in stores, new releases of historical CD box set and videos, on TV, award-winning documentaries about Woodstock and its legacy, and in movie theatres, Taking Woodstock, a new fi lm directed by Ang Lee, will be played over and over again.
Forty years ago, 400,000 people braved the rain and mud for their utopian hope of peace, although everyday they had to deal with other problems: Vietnam war crimes, the ever-present draft, anti-war demonstrations. Sure, Woodstock was special as it gave the baby boomers a rallying point. But it is not just the baby boomers who have been excitedly going back to their memories 40 years ago, but many others as well.
A small story of one guitarist shows us how a historical cultural event like this can bind people together. Conrad Oberg, a teenager from Atlanta, Georgia, was selected to perform at Woodstock 2009, but felt helpless without sponsorship. A local pizza store later decided to cover all his expenses. Workers in the store also painted his car with fl owers and peace signs for ride to Woodstock.
What mattered most at Woodstock was the audience. Forty years later, when Woodstock itself has been relegated to museums and history books, it is the massive numbers of the unknown public that have kept the legend alive.
Forty years later, far away from the farm in Berthel, New York, a Chinese Woodstock was staged from August 7 to 9 on the vast prairie of Zhangbei, a county of 370,000 people northwest of Beijing. While o_ ering our congratulations to the organizers for finally pulling of such a concert, which must have been hard to get official approval for, one can clearly be disappointed by the lack of discussion about the legend of Woodstock, or even the music itself; all that was talked about was show commercially viable such a festival would be in China.
