When bombers turned into butterflies

When bombers turned into butterflies

There have been an increasing number of news events lately serving as reminders that I am a bit on the ancient side. Last month it was the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing and it was rather disturbing that most of my colleagues were either too young to remember it, or in most cases hadn't even been born.

Now there's another occasion to make me feel like an old fossil. This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the most famous rock festival ever. It was billed as "three days of peace and music" and considering the massive crowds, it lived up to its name with surprisingly little trouble.

It was the time when Vietnam War protests were at their height and the authorities feared the concert might disintegrate into an ugly riot. But all that the estimated 400,000 people attending wanted to do was simply listen to great music and get stoned, not necessarily in that order.

I couldn't have been much further away from Yasgur's Farm at that time, having recently arrived in Thailand, and first read about it in the Bangkok Post, which carried a photo of the huge crowd.

After the festival, the event was immortalised by the song Woodstock, written by Joni Mitchell and recorded by Crosby, Stills Nash and Young, who sang of dreaming about "bomber jet planes turning into butterflies".

It was also the time of the iconic T-shirt "Make Love Not War" which seemed to make a lot of sense then … and still does.

The deep end

Someone who deserved a medal for bravery was Richie Havens who, though scheduled to go on fifth, found himself opening the concert because the other bands had been delayed by the traffic chaos. Havens' initial response, "I'm not going out there first, they'll kill me," was understandable as the concert was already hours late and a few hundred thousand fans were getting restless. No pressure then, Richie.

But he got up there and sang his heart out, before improvising with a powerful number called Freedom, which set the tone for the next few days.

The gas fitter's mate

I saw the movie of the festival in 1970 at a rundown cinema in Bangkok's Chinatown where the rats and cockroaches probably outnumbered the audience. The most lasting memory was of the virtually unknown Joe Cocker twitching his way to fame with a stirring interpretation of With A Little Help From My Friends. His passionate performance won him many fans and deservedly set him up for life -- not bad for a fellow who not long before had been a gas fitter's mate in Sheffield.

Among many other performances to savour were Sly and the Family Stone, Santana and of course Jimi Hendrix. Then there was the newly-formed Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young going up on stage and with refreshing candour, a nervous Stephen Stills admitting they were "scared shitless".

Morning has broken

Hendrix famously closed the festival in front of a depleted and extremely soggy audience at the uninviting hour of 8.30am on the fourth morning. Even so, with a makeshift band, the Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, it was a memorable set and no one had heard the Star Spangled Banner played in such a fashion before … or since. It was also the only time he had performed in the morning. Despite not having slept for days, Hendrix even gave an encore of Hey Joe. It was hardly surprising that when he left the stage he collapsed from exhaustion.

It was amazing the number of big names Woodstock attracted in that single weekend. On the Saturday alone the performers included, Santana, Canned Heat, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who and Jefferson Airplane. That's not a bad line-up.

The great unwashed

Not everyone was enthused by the prospect of performing at Woodstock, however. Jethro Tull turned it down, band leader Ian Anderson explaining afterwards: "I didn't want to spend the weekend in a field of unwashed hippies."

He probably had a point.

Those were the flower power days, even in Thailand, and it was hard to get through the day here without hearing the strains of If You're Going to San Francisco.

At that time the Bangkok street kids would call any foreign traveller with long hair a "hippie" or rather "hippEE!" At least it made a change from "hey you one baht", the common greeting from Bangkok's loveable urchins.

What hippies there were in those days used to hang out at the Atlanta Hotel at the bottom of Sukhumvit Soi 2. The place was the target of periodic drug raids by Sgt Nop's flying squad, which were always accompanied by much flushing of toilets.

Female hippies tended to attract the most attention in Thailand, possibly due to their penchant for not bothering with bras, which did not go unnoticed by the male population.

Lethal weapon

At that time you could go down the road from Pattaya to U-tapao air base to watch the B-52 bombers taking off on their missions to North Vietnam. It was both awesome and frightening and they made a deafening racket when they took off. The bombers had some time to go before they turned into Joni Mitchell's butterflies.

Thankfully, the only B-52 you will come across in Thailand these days is a cocktail named after the bombers … and almost as lethal.


Contact PostScript via email at oldcrutch@hotmail.com

Roger Crutchley

Bangkok Post columnist

A long time popular Bangkok Post columnist. In 1994 he won the Ayumongkol Literary Award. For many years he was Sports Editor at the Bangkok Post.

Email : oldcrutch@gmail.com

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