Woodstock Monument

The Woodstock festival did not take place in Woodstock -- it took place on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, about 70 miles southwest. Between August 15-18, 1969, an estimated 400,000 people converged on those 600 acres of Catskill farmland for 'Three Days of Peace and Music', creating one of the defining cultural events of the twentieth century. The lineup included Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, Joe Cocker, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young -- many of them at the peak of their powers.

A monument now marks the original stage site at what has become the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts at 200 Hurd Road. The site includes the Museum at Bethel Woods, which documents the festival and its cultural context in considerable detail. The museum opened in 2008, built into the hillside near the original stage location so as to minimise the visual impact on the historic field. The field itself -- where half a million people stood and sat in the rain and the mud -- is preserved as an open green space.

The Bethel Woods Center operates as a performing arts venue, hosting a summer concert season that uses the natural amphitheatre of the original Woodstock site. Seeing a show here carries the obvious charge of standing where it all happened. The monument on the property marks the spot of the original stage with appropriate solemnity. Getting there requires a car -- Bethel is rural -- but for anyone serious about the history of rock music, the pilgrimage is worth the effort.