Music festivals can be cultural boiling points. The lineups at these events highlight the best of the best of whatever era they are held in, and naturally, the sympathies of that era bleed through. This makes them the most succinct examples of what a particular year must have been like. The three festivals below are among the most iconic (or infamous) of all time. Revisit these era-defining billings.
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Woodstock
We have to start here. No festival is more a part of our collective consciousness than Woodstock. Coming at the end of the ’60s, this festival encapsulated the spirit of the era. Though the “Summer of Love” happened a few years earlier, Woodstock captured the movement’s takeaways: a sense of unity amidst unrest.
While the vibe of Woodstock was iconic, the performances were too. The short list includes one of the first performances from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (with the latter in the lineup), Janis Joplin’s lightening-in-a-bottle voice, and Jimi Hendrix’s iconic version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Woodstock ’99
In contrast to its namesake, Woodstock ’99 was a hot mess. The organizers attempted to rehash some of the festival’s iconography from the ’69 version, but failed to account for the changing sympathies of music fans at the time.
Listening to Korn or Limp Bizkit elicits a very different response from the crowd than listening to Joan Baez and other similar acts. That, paired with the poor planning and hazardous conditions, made Woodstock ’99 one of the most infamous music festivals of all time.
Monterey Pop Festival 1967
Backtracking to the “Summer of Love,” we have what some consider its official kickoff: the Monterey Pop Festival 1967. This festival captured the many emotions swirling through the American counterculture at the time. Before this moment, there wasn’t a central sounding board for these ideas. The artists who performed at this festival stepped up to serve as the movement’s mouthpiece.
Several moments from this festival rewrote the history of music. Hendrix put rock on a new path when he lit fire to his guitar, and Joplin made a name for herself on this stage. It was a festival lineup that couldn’t have happened at any other time. It was the true definition of an era-defining moment.
[RELATED: 4 Moments From the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival That I’ll Never Forget]
(Photo by Howard Arnold Collection/Getty Images)
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