One of the many things that I love about San Francisco are the outdoor festivals that seem to be going on throughout the year. This past weekend, hundreds of San Francisco stars and musical luminaries performed at Speedway Meadows for West Fest, commemorating the 40th anniversary of Woodstock Festival.
I was volunteering for the health fair that was being held at the concert site in the morning, and I didn't think that I was going to miss out on much, figuring that the bigger events will be going on later on during the day. The two things that I was looking forward to seeing was the tribute to Jimi Hendrix, who headlined the festival in 1969 (3,000 guitar players were going to try to break the World's Record for the Largest Guitar Ensemble playing "Purple Haze"), and Ray Manzanek from the Doors; unfortunately, both went on stage while I was volunteering for the health fair.
Serves me right for not looking up the lineup online.
I did get to hear Native American folk/rock artist Jeremy Goodfeather, who's apparently up for a Grammy for Best New Folk Artist. I'm a sucker for acoustic sounds, and he had that rock-star-soothing voice. I also got to listen to some sick afro-beats while I was dancing with a hoop. At first, I couldn't do it for longer than a few seconds, but I got the hang of it as the song wore on.
The weather cooperated quite beautifully with the event. It's the classic San Francisco October, our own version of the summer. While testing people's blood glucose levels, I felt that my face was burning up because our tent was exposed to the always-welcomed presence of the sun.
I also got a chance to look around the festival to see what was going on. One of the more curiously interesting displays they had was a replica of the "Love Bus", complete with a complementary oatmeal raisin cookie! I overheard a conversation with the "Love Bus" owner and one of the inquisitive festival-goer, and it seemed that the "Love Bus" owner had a little bit too much of the "60's experience" to be cognitively coherent. There were a variety of booths catering to the "hippie" crowd: legalize marijuana petition, henna painting, hemp products and the like. There were also some entrepreneurial people selling their home-made brownies, hemp clothing and accessories and drug paraphernalia. There was also a banana-costumed man passing out Jamba Juice coupons, and a tin-man posing for photos with whoever was interested.
For part of the health fair, I had a box of condoms, and I was handing them out to fellow festival goers. If I have to do a hair sample drug test, I'm almost positive that I'll fail due to the immense second hand exposure that I've managed to accrue while I was walking around.
Which got me thinking, to what extent does this festival reflect on the original spirit of Woodstock? How relevant is this festival today? As it is now, the '60s were turbulent times; Woodstock was that pivotal moment of realization not just for that generation but for the country as a whole. Artists were empowered to make a difference and spread that message through the masses through their music. Have we gotten too complacent in the world that we currently live in? As I watched over the crowd as the performers spat out their generic message of love and peace, I saw glazed looks. Yes, I think that festivals like West Fest are great in bringing like-minded people together but I'm not sure the result is what I expected. It's probably too much to ask that the Woodstock spirit be re-captured, even with 3,000 guitars on hand, channeling Jimi Hendrix.
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