How to Throw a Woodstock Party
- 1
Decide if you want this to be an indoor or outdoor affair. Having a bunch of friends over to camp in your backyard and hose them down at some point has it's virtue, but if you don't want to see and feed everybody the next morning, you may just want to make it an afternoon or evening thing. If it's outdoor have them bring some gear, some blankets, tents, etc. - 2
If you want to get fancy and send out invitations, the original Woodstock ticket is online here: http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/content/images/vintage-tickets/370x120/Woodstock-Ticket.jpg
If not, just call your friends, tell them it's a Woodstock party, so dig out their hippie gear. Cutoffs, tie dyed shirts, flag fashion, etc. Nudity was also a big thing at the original, but you know your crowd better than I do. - 3). The tune main ingredients for this groovy commemorative happening are tunes and food. If you want to go authentic, there were lots of hot dogs and hamburgers. People complained that hot dogs cost a dollar. But on that first day, 500,000 hamburgers and frankfurters were consumed. Skew your menu so that quite a few people don't get anything to eat. (Just kidding!!)
The other concoction on the Woodstock menu was a compote slapped together by members of the Hog Farm Commune. They served 51 cauldrons of a rice-carrot-raisin dish. Make the rice as you normally would (my favorite ratio is 1 3/4 cups water per 1 cup rice--figure a third of a cup of rice for each person), throw in a handful of raisins and a half handful of shaved or chopped carrots, a fourth of a cup of honey, and simmer until it is all gooey. Yum! - 4
The tunes are going to be very important. If you are doing this outside, find a boombox or something that can be pretty loud just to please the neighbors. Here's what you should look for for your soundtrack.
*Woodstock and Woodstock 2 - Digitally remastered double CDs of the original 3-LP sets. Great performances by Jimi Hendrix, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Sly and the Family Stone, etc etc.
*The Woodstock Experience: The folks at RCA Legacy have released five reasonably priced 2-CD sets. 1 disc is of the band's performance at Woodstock (long overdue), the other is a remaster of whatever album they had out at the time. And they are priced like on disc, so it really is a good value. These exist for Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana, Johnny Winter, and Janis Joplin. I listed them in the order I prefer, but go with your tastes. They are really good.
*Woodstock: 40 Years On, Back to Yasgur's Farm: Rhino's 6-CD set with everybody who would/could give legal clearance in 2009.
*Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock - A double CD from the 90s which covers his full, fabulous performance that was done on Monday morning Aug 18 after 320,000 concert goers had gone home. - 5). This could easily turn into a movie party. The crew originally shot 120 combined hours of film. The new director's cut has some performances that weren't in the original 1970 release. It's the kind of movie your friends can talk all the way through and nobody will miss any plot.
- 6
Need a party game? Write band names on sticky notes, then stick them to your friend's back on arrival. They have to ask for clues from other party members to try and figure out what band they are. Here's the list of who was there, in the order that they played!
Richie Havens
Sweetwater
The Incredible String Band
Bert Sommer
Tim Hardin,
Ravi Shankar
Melanie
Arlo Guthrie
Joan Baez
Quill
Keef Hartley Band
Country Joe McDonald
John Sebastian
Santana
Canned Heat
Mountain
Grateful Dead
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Janis Joplin with The Kozmic Blues Band
Sly & the Family Stone
The Who
Jefferson Airplane
Joe Cocker
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Johnny Winter
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Sha-Na-Na
Jimi Hendrix - 7). Think outside the tent. You can play music all night, deprive people of sleep, then start early the next morning. You can set the sprinkler to go off at an inopportune time if you want, but that could put a damper on things. You could also make getting wet a voluntary thing, set up a slip and slide, put on Santana's "Soul Sacrifice" and let her rip.
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