Looking for something to do this weekend? Steve Weiss has an option: seeing a nearly four-hour concert documentary.
Weiss, executive director of the Valley’s No Festival Required, is screening the director’s cut of “Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music” at Phoenix Center for the Arts on Sunday in celebration of the 45th anniversary of the legendary music festival. The film, which is 3 hours and 44 minutes long, features performances from artists and bands such as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Santana, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
“In an age of irony and sarcasm and incredible international/global warfare and politics, what’s wrong with a little peace, love, and understanding?” Weiss asked.
Woodstock was a three-day festival on a 600-acre dairy farm in New York from Aug. 15-17, 1969. Sunday will mark exactly 45 years since the iconic music festival, which saw an estimated audience of 400,000 people.
“I think that it marked a turning point in the popularity of rock music and I also think that it bonded a generation together,” said Kimber Lanning, executive director of Local First Arizona and owner of Stinkweeds music shop.
The “Woodstock” film came out a year later, winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and being screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Weiss said he remembers seeing the film with friends when it came out. He was 13.
Lanning said “Woodstock” provides a snapshot of a different time and culture, one in which fans were more appreciative of the artists they listened to because music was harder to access.
“I think today people tend to treat music like a commodity –- something you consume and throw away when you’re done with it –- and I think it meant more to that generation,” Lanning said. “They had to work harder for it and they appreciated it more. When they found real talent, they appreciated it more.”
Woodstock was the starting point for the modern-day music festivals around the U.S. that span entire weekends and incorporate food, art and other forms of entertainment in addition to music.
“Vans Warped Tour, Coachella, Burning Man — none of these things would have ever occurred without Woodstock,” Weiss said. “Woodstock opened people up to the idea of a large gathering of people with food and drink and fun.”
Phoenix Center for the Arts director Joseph Benesh agreed, saying Woodstock is an example of how music can bring people together and change lives, calling it the “grandad and grandmom to them all.”
“If people like music and they like music festivals, they need to come to see where it all started,” Benesh said. “This is the first music festival of its kind and I think it’s important for people to know their history. … The impact of the arts is so huge and this is one example of that that ties us together across the age demographics.”
Weiss is hoping to attract a lot of ASU students who are back on campus for the fall semester and looking for fun activities before classes start back up again. Although most were born closer to the 25th anniversary of Woodstock, Weiss said the festival’s iconic presence in pop culture is enough to draw their interest.
“I thought that it would be a fun afternoon event on a Sunday,” Weiss said. “I loved the idea that it was just before the school (year) started. … But I also think that it’s an incredible learning experience to watch the film. It’s a great look at something that people in their teens and 20s can only glean from their parents wistfully looking around and going, ‘Yeah, ‘Woodstock,’ I saw that film. That was cool.’”
Because the film is so long, Weiss plans to hold a 30-minute intermission halfway through — the film has a designated spot for a break — during which people can share their stories about Woodstock as part of an open mic or purchase food from the Luncha Libre or The Sugared Cakery food trucks, which will be parked outside. There will also be a cash bar with beer and wine inside the theater.
“Sound is real important to the film,” Weiss said. “I will advise people that we will not play it softly. We will play it at the volume at which it was intended to be played.”
“Woodstock” will screen Sunday at Phoenix Center for the Arts, located on the corner of Moreland and Third streets. Doors open at noon with the show starting at 12:30 p.m. and running until 5 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door or $9 with a student ID or if purchased in advance.
Contact the reporter at kimberly.koerth@asu.edu
