I left Washington DC early Thursday morning with my friends (4 of them) in a van that had no real interior like beds or chairs, just that common steel floor you find in all unfinished vans made today. It was a dreary wet day yet filled with excitement not felt by me since I began going to concerts in the DC area. Everyone that was anyone in the music buisness was going to be there.
As we got closer to the Woodstock site the traffic slowed to a crawl then stopped intermitently. When we did stop we were able to inquire where others in our traffic jam had come from. Seeing that we came from the southern part of the US, many told of traveling to this location from as far as Florida and Bermuda.
The common recorded music players in vehicles in 1969 was the 8 track. We had one rigged into our van and the speakers we used were 2 low power full range 12 inch woffers. We didn't have many 8 track tapes in our selection
(some Janis, Hendrix, Moody blues, BB King) as I recall, but we cranked the music up with those 12 in. woffers sitting on top of our van aimed at the line of traffic. We also went down the line of traffic to trade 8 tracks to treat those waiting in this enormus line to different sounds.
Many, as you can see in the picture brlow, walked or hitched rides for hundreds even thousands of miles, some starting two weeks before this event, to enjoy the greatest outdoor concert of all time.
Peace, David Craig |
