With a little help from my friends

The enduring story of Woodstock is that more than 400,000 people jammed into an area of about a square mile without a disaster.

Nancy Nevins first saw the crowd from a helicopter: “It didn’t even look like a crowd. It looked like a carpet. It didn’t even look like people; it was a big spread, multicolored as far as you can see. And Alex (Del Zoppo, Sweetwater’s keyboardist) says to the pilot, ‘What are those crops, man?’ And he laughed and said, ‘Those aren’t crops, dude, those are people.’”

Kevin Rheden was an 18-year-old from the Hudson River Valley: “I’m meandering up through bodies, you know, smiling faces and feeling this overwhelming feeling of comfort. I can’t describe it except to say that the hillside was just like a waterfall of love. ... It’s like I’m not alone. There are other people out there that think like me, dress like me, look like me and live like me.”

Henry Diltz: “Late in the afternoon I thought, ‘You know, I’m going to walk through that crowd to the top of the hill and turn around and take a photo looking over the crowd down the hill at the stage.’ And so I did that, and it took me quite a while to get up there, and by then it was just getting dark, and I’m looking down and taking a picture, and I hear ..., ‘Ladies and gentleman, Crosby, Stills & Nash,’ And I go, ‘There’s my friends, and I’m way up here!’ It took me half the set to get back through the whole crowd and get back up on stage.”

David Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash: “I saw people tear a sandwich and share it. Being nice to each other gave us hope. There is the significant thing. For a minute, we were hopeful. For a minute we were not facing the Vietnam War. For a minute, we were not facing losing the Kennedys. For a minute, Dr. King’s death wasn’t hanging over us. For a minute, we were behaving like decent human beings.”

Annette Nanes, who drove to the festival with a college friend: “You know what they call good vibes? It was an incredible experience with all these people and was very peaceful and just listening to great music.”

Country Joe McDonald, performer: “I never saw a fight. At one point from the stage, I saw the crowd kind of separate ... and two guys were circling each other waving their fists like they were going to fight about something. And then somebody handed them a joint, and they each took a puff off the joint, and then they kind of laughed and hugged each other, and then they sat back down.”