Woodstock Festival 1969 Trivia Quiz

Answer: August 15 to August 18

Woodstock was a three day music festival that took place from August 15, 1969 until August 18, 1969. It took place in upstate New York. Many now legendary bands and musicians took part in the event. It was a mudfest almost the entire time. I lived in New York on Staten Island at the time the fest took place. I have no recollection of ever even hearing about it but was probably because I was 12 and a few days shy of turning 13. If I had only been a few years older...When I go to my grave I'll still wish I had been able to attend. I'd give up the extra years of my life now to have gone.

Answer: $18.00 in advance and $24.00 at the gate

The set prices for buying a three day pass for three days of music and fun at Woodstock was $18.00 in advance and $24.00 at the gate. There were no tickets sold at the gate. Everyone walked, ran, climbed and snuck in every way possible. Finally, it was announced to everyone that Woodstock was now a free festival.

Answer: run over by a tractor

The stage was very high as one performer recalled. He actually said that it was so high that it made him dizzy. Nobody fell from the stage causing a death though. There were ponds nearby but nobody drowned. One poor guy was run over in his sleeping bag by a farmer in his tractor. The farmer was never located.

Answer: Sweetwater

Sweetwater was late due to being stuck in a massive traffic jam. They were still the first "band" to open the festival. There was one solo performer that played before them. Sweetwater played at 6:15 PM. They were supposed to be the next Jefferson Airplane but their lead singer, Nansi Nevins, had her vocal chords damaged in an automobile accident.

She never sounded the same. I would highly recommend Sweetwater's first album with Nansi singing.

Answer: Richie Havens

Richie Havens rose to the occasion and had the prestigious honor of being the performer to kick off the Woodstock festival. When his set was over and he attempted to leave the stage he was asked to stay on because the next band was not ready yet. He totally improvised on a song that wound up being titled "Freedom" and became a worldwide hit.

Answer: Swami Satchidananda

Wavy Gravy was the toothless ex-Beatnik comic and peace activist, Ravi Shankar was the brilliant sitar master from India and Michael Lang was the producer of the Woodstock festival. Swami Satchidananda was the person who gave the 15 minute speech just before Sweetwater performed. H. H. Sri Swami Satchidananda (Sri Gurudev) was an Indian religious figure, spiritual teacher and yoga adept who was also the founder of Integral Yoga.

He was popular in the US and gave many speeches all over the world that usually included the two sentences: "The dedicated ever enjoy Supreme Peace.

Therefore, live only to serve." He had many disciples here in the West. The most well known were Alice Coltrane, John Fahey, Allen Ginsberg, Jeff Goldblum, Carole King and a few others.

Answer: Bethel

Woodstock 1969 posters originally advertised that the festival would be held in Wallkill, New York. Just weeks before the opening date of Woodstock, the town of Wallkill pulled the permits. So at the last minute the producer Michael Lang, who was also a Miami head shop owner, found a place in the town of Bethel at White Lake.

It was in the alfalfa field of Max Yasgur's farm. The townspeople of Bethel were opposed to the festival. There were signs all over proclaiming "Buy No Milk. Stop Max's Hippy Music Festival." The people had been told there would be no more than 50,000 festival attendees.

It was a bold faced lie since they had sold 186,000 tickets in advance.

Answer: Lang's company was named Woodstock Ventures

Michael Lang, Joel Roseman, John Roberts and Artie Kornfeld, who were the men that planned the festival, were trying to think of a name to call their venture group. In Chapter three of Michael Lang's book titled "The Road to Woodstock", Michael wrote that the original goal was for John Roberts and Joel Rosenman to help him and Artie Kornfeld finance a recording studio in Woodstock NY, supplemented by a "Music & Arts Festival" which ultimately became the main focus. Woodstock was known for summer concerts called "Soundouts", and it was there a building was targeted for the recording studio, and a place called Winston Farm for the Festival.

Michael's book says - "After a few additional meetings, John agreed to finance the festival and the studio...and because the projects were based in Woodstock, we decided to call our company Woodstock Ventures."

Answer: Iron Butterfly

Iron Butterfly got stuck at the airport so they never made it to Woodstock. There was supposed to be a helicopter pick them up and fly them to the festival site but it never arrived. It was most likely on purpose. The festival organizers believed that their hippie, heavy metal type music would cause outbreaks of violence.

Answer: A guitar string broke

While Jimi was playing the song "Red House", the E string on his guitar broke. He then proceeded to play the rest of the song with only five strings which was a really incredible task for him to have been able to pull off, or for anyone else for that matter.

Answer: $32,000.00

Jimi Hendrix was the highest paid performer at $32,000.00 for playing the Woodstock festival. It also stated in his contract that no other band would follow his performance. One could only imagine what he would be paid in the year 2009 for a festival of the same magnitude.

In 1970 my parents bought a split level home in a nice town in Illinois. The cost was right around $22,000.00. That gives you an idea of the value of the dollar back then.

Answer: $1,500.00

Santana was a fairly new band when invited to play at Woodstock in 1969. Other lesser known bands were paid less though. The drummer from Sha Na Na recalls that they were paid $350.00 for playing Woodstock. Later they were paid $1.00 for movie rights.

The drummer, John "Jocko" Marcellino, says he made .08 cents out of that dollar. The little known band Quill was paid $375.00 for their Woodstock performance.

Answer: 5:07 PM

Richie Havens was definitely not first choice for opening up the Woodstock festival. He began playing at 5:07 PM and wrapped it up at 6:00 PM. The song "Freedom" was made up on the spot. It was complete improvisation that wound up to be a huge hit. When I hear that version of the song, Woodstock immediately comes into mind.

It was one of the best, if not the best, feats of improvisation ever accomplished.

Answer: 10:30 AM

Jimi Hendrix ended his set at 10:30 AM on Monday morning the 18th of August.
The fact that he insisted on being the final performer may have been a mistake on his part. Of the 400,00 plus people that attended the festival, no more than 80,000 were left to hear his performance. That's a shame because his playing of the "Star Spangled Banner" may have been the single greatest moment in rock & roll history. It was certainly the defining moment of Woodstock.

Answer: 30,000

Food For Love was hired to provide food for the Woodstock festival. They planned on 30,000 loaves of bread, which would have been enough, had the so called estimate of 50,000 people attended. They also planned on 10,000 bags of marshmallows, 1,500 pounds of peanut butter, 600,000 napkins, 20,000 gallons of milk, 5,000 pounds of cheese, 2,000 pounds of coffee, 900,000 plastic eating utensils and 450,000 pounds of ice. Since over 400,000 people attended the fest that is roughly 8 1/2 times the original estimate so times all the above figures by 8.5 and you will come up with figures that will be more accurate.

Answer: 90%

According to an article in the Friday September 26, 1969 issue of "Time", an incredible nine out of ten people who attended Woodstock were reported to have smoked pot on the site. The state health department documented 5,162 medical cases. Of those, 797 were instances of drug abuse.

Answer: She sang her song "Beautiful People" to security guards

Melanie was really "freaked out" by the whole festival to the point of being scared. What made matters worse was that her mother was stuck at the airport so she had nobody to support her. That probably all contributed to her forgetting to procure her performers pass.

After singing "Beautiful People" to the security guards she was let backstage. Apparently she got past her fears and was said to have given a really great performance. She described it as an "out of body experience." Melanie later proclaimed that she was never a hippie. That's odd because she turned out to be the enduring icon of the Woodstock festival.

Answer: John Sebastian

John Sebastian, lead singer for the Lovin' Spoonful, said that Woodstock was his lousiest performance because he was simply too stoned to perform. He was also known for making another announcement at the microphone. He said "Some cat's old lady just had a baby, a kid destined to be far out!" The first night at the festival he slept in an eight foot by eight foot tent along with the Incredible String Band, all of their instruments and a bunch of other people. John thought the whole thing was just hilarious.

Answer: He was in Canada and the US government refused him a visa

When John Lennon met Artie Kornfeld, one of Woodstock's promoters, he expressed an interest in playing at Woodstock. He was in Canada however and the US government would not issue him a visa. That surely had something to do with the fact that Richard Nixon was president at the time and didn't want Lennon in the country.

There was a different "story" going around that was determined to be an "urban legend." It was that Beatles promoters got a hold of John Lennon to talk about a Beatles performance at Woodstock. Lennon said that the Beatles would not play at Woodstock unless Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono band was invited as well.

He was turned down.

Answer: Chip Monck

Chip Monck was actually the lighting man for the festival. Being that the promoters forgot to hire an MC, Monck got the job. I as well as many others thought that his announcement was "Don't eat the brown acid." In fact it was phrased "The warning that I've received, you may take it with however many grains of salt you wish, is that the brown acid that is circulating around us is not specifically too good.

It's suggested that you do stay away from that. Of course, it's your own trip, so be my guest, but please be advised that there is a warning on that one, OK"? I believe there were several uhs in between words. Probably out of nervousness. You can hear the actual announcement on many websites as well as on the "Woodstock" album.

Answer: They believed Woodstock would be a second-class festival

Initially the Doors did agree to play the Woodstock festival. However, they later backed out telling promoters that they thought it would be a "second class repeat of Monterey Pop Festival." They later regretted that decision. The above reason in quotes came directly from the Doors' guitar player, Robby Krieger.

It can be confirmed in Wikipedia. There were rumors that Morrison was afraid that someone might take a shot at him, that he didn't like playing outdoors and that it was somehow related to his earlier arrest for indecent exposure while performing at an outdoor concert.

Answer: Tommy James And The Shondells

According to Tommy James himself "We could have just kicked ourselves. We were in Hawaii, and my secretary called and said, 'Yeah, listen, there's this pig farmer in upstate New York that wants you to play in his field.' That's how it was put to me. So we passed, and we realized what we'd missed a couple of days later." You're fired honey! The above quote as I stated came from Tommy James himself.

It can be confirmed by going to Wikipedia - Woodstock festival. I Googled Woodstock refused Tommy James and it can be confirmed on many other sites as well.

Answer: A weekend in the country

Initially Woodstock was promoted as "A Weekend In The Country" temporary commune. The slogan was "Three Days Of Peace And Music." The site was in the alfalfa field on Max Yasgur's 600 acre farm in Bethel, New York in Sullivan County. The ads, posters etc. went on to advertise Woodstock as "Woodstock Music And Art Fair Presents An Aquarian Exposition In Wallkill, N.Y." Then when the Wallkill site fell through the ads read "In White Lake, N.Y." The final head count was close to 500,000 festival goers.

The smell of pot and hashish permeated the air. Vendors sold headbands, pipes, rolling papers and other drug paraphernalia. There was marijuana available everywhere for $15.00 a lid or ounce. LSD and mescaline was sold for $4.00 a hit. The number of festival goers that freaked out on bad LSD trips numbered 400. Numbers vary greatly but there were quite a few arrests which were almost all for drugs.

As I stated in another question's interesting information, 90% of festival goers smoked pot while there. Nurses who treated 6,000 patients numbered at 36 and doctors were at 18.

The traffic jams were so bad that the average walk to the festival site was 15 miles after leaving your car. Food was in need as were more portable bathroom facilities. Eventually the site was one huge mud bath. With all of this in mind, there was NO violence...

Answer: Roy Rogers

Hard to believe that Roy Rogers almost closed out Woodstock singing his trademark song "Happy Trails To You." Thank goodness his manager said no to the idea. Years later Roy Rogers admitted "I would have been booed off stage by all those goddam hippies." You can read about this in Michael Lang's new book "The Road To Woodstock." I believe I mentioned earlier that he was one of the producers of the Woodstock festival. there is a website called Random Anything that has an article on it titled 40 Random Facts about Woodstock.

It lists the Roy Rogers quote.

Answer: Good wishes, good day and a good life

Jimi Hendrix's amazing, electrifying performance had just ended. It was Monday August 18th and it was the very break of dawn. Chip Monck saddled up to the microphone on stage. Everyone sadly realized that Woodstock was over. Chip officially ended the festival with one simple sentence. "Good wishes, good day and a good life." Hendrix's incredible version of the Star Spangled Banner had changed rock music forever.

It may have offended some but he put his soul into playing that song. I still get chills when I hear it. Jimi would be dead 13 months later, to the day, September 18, 1970. Time Magazine called Woodstock "The greatest peaceful event in history." Reportedly 250,000 people never made it to the site.

It was estimated that 320,000 people left before Hendrix went on stage.