Today in History –The Woodstock Music Festival Opens for First time

CAIRO – 15 August 2017: Today, August 15, marks the 48th anniversary of The Woodstock Music and Art Festival, a revolutionary rock festival held on a humble patch of farmland in the New York town of Bethel, were music history was made.

'Woodstock' does not refer to where it actually took place; its original location, Woodstock, New York, could not hold the concert.

Promoted by four men; John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang, the festival was originally their way of raising funds for a rock studio.

The event was billed as 'Three Days of Peace and Music', an appeal to the anti-war ideology that was popular at the time.

The festival was originally supposed to hold an estimated 200,000 people, the number surpassed all expectations as 500,000 young idealistic hippies visited, crowding the concert full.

People without tickets just walked in through fence gaps. Amazingly, there was virtually no violence whatsoever, although drug use was rampant and there were two deaths.

Musicians such as the legendary Jim Hendrix and 'The Who' performed at the festival to cheers and awe, and were believed to be their absolute greatest performances.

Although the festival almost left its promoters bankrupt, the 1970 film on the festival named 'Woodstock' directed by Michael Wadleigh became such a massive hit that it made up for the costs of the festival.

The cultural legacy of Woodstock is still felt to this day, and its mark in the annals of music history unmistakably.