A 1960s flashback

Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

Peace, love and experimental drug use were the calling cards of the free-spirited hippies who crammed onto Max Yasgur’s muddy dairy farm in upstate New York to listen to rock music from Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Santana and other notable artists.

The four-day event, called the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, advertised on posters featuring a dove perched on a guitar, was a rainy affair that jammed surrounding highways and drew more than 400,000 spectators.

Looking back at the festival, whose opening was 40 years ago today, it is easy to see why Woodstock came to be viewed as an enduring symbol of the turbulent 1960s. Cast against the Vietnam War, race riots and high-profile assassinations of American leaders, Woodstock represented the happier, creative side of the decade.

There was plenty of music, much of it in the mind-expanding, psychedelic vein. There were also bright colors and beads galore. But there was also a sense of togetherness that stood in stark contrast to the war, which bitterly divided the nation.

Vietnam had its gut-wrenching photos. The cover of the Woodstock soundtrack album featured a young couple hugging as they were draped by a blanket.

Young Americans entered the 1960s wearing conservative clothes and hair styles. By the time Woodstock rolled around, the dress code was anything goes. The hairdos were such that a significant percentage of Baby Boomers never visited a barbershop.

The 1960s, though, would soon come to an end. Hendrix died a year after Woodstock and the hippies gave way to the disco era.

While Americans still have bitter memories about the war, the civil rights movement and the untimely deaths of President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, it’s comforting to know that there was also a Woodstock that represented to its participants a celebration of life.