Going up to the country

Woodstock was staged 80 miles northwest of New York City on a bucolic hillside owned by dairy farmer Max Yasgur. It was a great spot for peaceful vibes but miserable for handling the hordes coming in by car.

Henry Diltz, photographer: “All these hippie carpenters were sawing and hammering, building this huge plywood deck right at the bottom of this big, green hillside. It was like being on an aircraft carrier. The green alfalfa was waving in the breeze. ... It was all wonderful. It was like summer camp . ... And then suddenly one day there were people sitting up there on the hillside, and at first I thought, ‘What the hell are they doing up there?’ and then, ‘Oh, yeah, right, I forgot. There’s going to be (a concert).’”

Ilene Marder, an 18-yearold traveling up from the Bronx: “People were abandoning their cars — not on the side of the road, but on the road ... I was very responsible then, ‘You can’t just leave your car in the middle of the road!’ But everyone did . ... There was an immediate sense that something was happening that never happened before.”

Singer Nancy Nevin’s band, Sweetwater, was supposed to open Woodstock but got caught in traffic: “We got out of the car and kind of glared at each other. And there was no one in charge. You have to remember that everything about Woodstock being chaos is the truth . ... Some guy was running around with a T-shirt and walkie-talkie, and he looked like he knew what he was doing. We talked to that guy, and he said, ‘Well, I’m going to ask for helicopters.’”