Whether you are one of those now-elite baby boomers who ran around in the rain at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 or were watching on TV and wondering what all the fuss was about, a trip to Bethel Woods for the Performing Arts in Sullivan County”™s town of Bethel can bring you back, not just to a historic era, but to one of the Northeast”™s finest concert venues, built at the site of the concert that defines for many what the ”™60s generation was all about. Men walked on the moon and nearly a half million people gathered at Bethel for the Woodstock Music and Art Festival. Both made history that summer.
Alan Gerry, former TV repairman now counted among the richest men in America, bought the famous site where the concert took place and nearly 1,800 acres surrounding it. Since spending more than $100 million to build Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in July 2006, Gerry has spared no expense in bringing the best he could find in material, talent and workmanship to the project..
On Aug. 1, Bethel hosted a doo-wop revue, with groups including Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Charlie Thomas and the Drifters, the Five Satins, the Duprees and a special appearance by Gary “U.S.” Bonds.
A bigger crowd will gather at the site this upcoming Saturday, August 15, when the 40th anniversary concert, “Legends of Woodstock,” will be held. To commemorate the famous concert, Bethel”™s lawn tickets, which are sure to be either snatched up or gone before you read this, were selling for $19.69, commemorating the year that Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and a host of other top rock performers of the day braved mud and rain and played music as well as calling for an end to the Vietnam war.
While the Center”™s museum is dedicated to the Woodstock era ”“ not just the music of the day, but the historic events occurring that decade ”“ Gerry does not foresee the venue as a monument to a bygone era. While the 1960s play a pivotal role in the Woodstock Museum, Gerry told HVBiz last year he plans for it to continue to change and grow: “It would become stagnant if it didn”™t, just like any other museum would if it never kept adding to attract new visitors,” he said.
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The Woodstock anniversary concert will no doubt draw aging original concertgoers as well as the “next gen” hippies, but don”™t be mistaken: The music venue is not just for former Woodstock attendees. It has hosted New York Philharmonic, Brad Paisley, the tween sensation Jonas Brothers and other musicians of all genres who are there for the love of art and music and have an opportunity to play in a first-class, no-expense-spared outdoor venue that is surrounded by open fields and vistas of the Catskill Mountains.
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Gerry sees Bethel Woods as eventually becoming a year-round venue and has built on that vision, one he no doubt hopes will be carried on by his children, who suggested he buy the site years ago, talking their father into overcoming his hesitation by noting the site”™s history and universal appeal. (According to local legend, Gerry was busy battling rabbit ears and keeping open his TV repair business Liberty while the three-day festival was wreaking havoc on the roads and on Max Yasgur”™s fields so that those who did not attend could follow the fuss in their living rooms.)
In addition to the regular museum”™s centerpiece, which focuses on the 1960s”™ historic events and the Woodstock concert itself, it is currently hosting an exhibit on John Lennon”™s and Yoko Ono”™s “bed-ins for peace” held in Amsterdam and Montreal, running through Sept 7. (“All we are saying ”¦ is give peace a chance.”)
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Gerry hopes Bethel Woods for the Performing Arts will be a lasting legacy to his native Sullivan county and the region and a become multi-generational place for the arts to survive and thrive.
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While the economy has hurt everyone, and construction in and around the area has slowed to a crawl, Gerry said before opening he does not expect Bethel Woods to be in the black any time soon. No doubt he”™s hopeful, as are the rest of those who are waiting for the Catskills”™ comeback, to see it truly be a destination for the country, not just the region. Drawing people to Bethel from Binghamton to as far away as Madison, Wis., on a recent Saturday, Gerry is accomplishing what he hoped to do: create a place of beauty where people enjoy the just architecturally and acoustically exquisite outdoor concert hall and visit the museum and all its offerings.
The formula worked for Tony Costa, CEO of Empire Savings Bank in Newburgh, and for A.J. Tengeres, a pharmaceutical salesman for Schering-Plough who lives in Beacon, They were there Aug. 1, Costa for the concert; Tengeres for the museum.
Unstated in the buildup to the big 40th anniversary show, but a must-have for any veteran of Woodstock: If you plan to attend, bring your raingear!
