📅 On this day
18 August
1969 · Woodstock ended with Jimi Hendrix playing to a half-empty field
The festival had been billed for three days and overran into a fourth. By the time Hendrix took the stage on the Monday morning, most of the audience had gone home to work, and the famous performance of the American national anthem was played to a fraction of the crowd that had been there on Saturday night.
It was muddy, badly organised, and free by accident once the fences came down — and it turned into the festival every festival since has been measured against.
Your turn
What was the first festival or big outdoor gig you ever went to?