Peace, Love, And Good Vibes—These Photos Show The Total Insanity Of The Iconic Woodstock Festival

Woodstock, which took place on 18th August 1969, is pretty much the biggest festival there ever was. I don't mean that in terms of sheer size or volume of people—although there was a lot of people, around 400,000—but just in terms of sheer spectacle.

It was the festival that begot the modern festivals we know, love, and barely remember as a blur of drink and drugs today. From Coachella to Glastonbury, from those little boutique festivals to Burning Man.

They can all be traced back to Woodstock.

It's a festival that has gone down in legend and featured many of the greatest bands of the day. And if your day includes the 1960s era of musicians, then that means it's some of the best bands and acts in the history of popular music. OK so it didn't have Dylan or The Beatles or The Doors or Joni Mitchell or The Rolling Stones. But it had a lot of others.

If you've seen the four-hour long 1970 documentary Woodstock (some footage from which is above) directed by Michael Wadleigh, whose editors included Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese, then you'll know it looked like a pretty wild time.

For such a large event it was also a mainly peaceful one, even the farmer, Max Yasgur, whose land the festival took place on sounded like a hippy when talking about it—and he wasn't a hippy. “If we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future.”

Far out. Shame none of it really amounted to peace and understanding. Instead we have Donald Trump. Never mind, we have these photos. Take a look at the pictures below to see what we all missed and how groovy it all was. 'If you remember the 60's you weren't there.'

And remember, don't eat the brown acid, man.