The Death Of Woodstock Nation

As we all know, Altamont was the concert that represented the end of the Sixties with the chaos caused by the Hell's Angels. So, my question is:

What if they had been used at Woodstock instead?

Discuss...
 
It's a good thing Country Joe and the Fish played on Saturday at Woodstock. I say that because in OTL at Altamont the Hell's Angels were paid in beer. I'd hate to see the consequences of a bunch of drunk, patriotic bikers getting incensed over the Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag, what with its anti-Vietnam War message.

On the other hand, maybe they wouldn't recognizes its tongue-in-cheek delivery, and take it to be a pro-war song. :rolleyes:
 
Wasn't Woodstock the turning point of the Vietnam War?

Anyway, biker gangs at a hippy concert. Seeing how Hell's Angels was started by WWII vet (or was that another motorcycle outfit?) I don't think they would mix well with the hippies.
 
I guess that means Ho Chi Minh wasn't rocking out-- yes I know what it was. That was suppose to be a joke, obviously not a very funny one.


No, that's the Tet offensive. Big diff. Woodstock itself had no impact on the actual war. Just as a countercultural semi-statement.
 

The Sandman

Banned
As we all know, Altamont was the concert that represented the end of the Sixties with the chaos caused by the Hell's Angels. So, my question is:

What if they had been used at Woodstock instead?

Discuss...

This would have required the organizers being stupid enough to do so.

As best as I can tell, they weren't.

Of course, if you want an ugly Woodstock POD, have Nelson Rockefeller ignore the organizers and send 10,000 National Guardsmen up there. I figure that a massacre is all but guaranteed.
 
Maybe not a massacre but a lot of heads busted and trampling deaths from the ensuing panic, far worse than the later Who concert in Ohio. It'd have a chilling effect even greater than Kent State. The hippie movement might be remembered as something crushed by state violence.
 
Of course, if you want an ugly Woodstock POD, have Nelson Rockefeller ignore the organizers and send 10,000 National Guardsmen up there. I figure that a massacre is all but guaranteed.

It would not happen. Woodstock was a commercial venture on private property. What would the authorities do, respond with force to reports of illegal drugs? The three day event would be over by then. Kent State was the culmination of days of protest at a public university, with demonstrators in defiance of authority.
 

The Sandman

Banned
It would not happen. Woodstock was a commercial venture on private property. What would the authorities do, respond with force to reports of illegal drugs? The three day event would be over by then. Kent State was the culmination of days of protest at a public university, with demonstrators in defiance of authority.

Rockefeller intended to send the Guardsmen up there. He called the organisers to tell them this. They had to plead with him not to do something so guaranteed to be catastrophic.

So it definitely could have happened.
 
Maybe the organisers decide to hold the Festival in some city rather than some rural farmland. The conservative populace of the said city might take an exception to it while it is happening. Something like Chicago '68 part II.
 
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