After the show, the large crowd poured out onto Granville Street and stood, loitering, on the sidewalk in front of the theatre. A police car pulled over. Two cops got out and began to push people along. People didn’t like being pushed and quite quickly they became angry and the scene turned ugly.
The police arrested a young woman for drinking in public. A paddy wagon and several more police cruisers pulled up. Ron, the speed dealer cum heroin addict friend of ours, attempted to rescue her. While they stuffed the young woman into the paddy wagon Ron and another friend ran out into the intersection at Dunsmuir Street and took on the whole squad. After a short but heroic battle they were subdued and tossed in the wagon. Someone in the crowd threw a beer bottle that smashed into the side of the wagon. The cops retaliated, rushing into the mob and grabbing two people even though they had nothing to do with it. Into the paddy wagon they went as well.
Jeff, Geoff, Lindsay, Steve and Terry were leaving the theatre by the stage door which was around the corner on Dunsmuir Street. They heard the ruckus, came around, looked in the wagon and saw Ron‘s face behind the bars. Jeff tried to reason with the officers but was told to butt out. The wagon took off for the city jail.
Jeff, Geoff, Lindsay, Steve and Terry jumped into the Datsun and tore off after the paddy wagon with a legion of irate hippies marching towards the jail on foot. Everybody knew they would be taken to Police Headquarters at 321 Main Street at Hastings Street.
The car pulled up in front and parked on the street. The mob arrived shortly after on foot. They rushed up the two flights of stairs and through the glass doors into the foyer of the police station. The Sergeant refused to talk to the mob so Jeff, Geoff and their friend, Davy stayed on to negotiate a release while the rest waited in the hall. Lindsay’s father was a Justice of the Peace so Lindsay telephoned him from the payphone on the landing half way down the stairs.
He related the story and the injustice of it all.
“Get out of there now!” screamed Lindsay’s father. “They won’t put up with it!”
The glass doors crashed open and the riot squad marched down the stairs six abreast with batons banging on shields. Lindsay backed down the stairs but Terry and others did not. They were scooped up and incarcerated. The whole works poured out onto the sidewalk where the battle escalated. Three cops had a hold of Geoff and bashed his head on a parking meter before throwing him in the tank. It really wasn’t much of a battle. The Chief read them the riot act and told everyone to go home.
Davy, in a fit of nobility, threatened, “Then take me too.”
They did.
Terry and Davy got off on some technicality but Geoff got thirty days for damaging a parking meter.
On that very weekend, on a farm in upstate New York a phenomenon called Woodstock was spinning gloriously out-of-control. What had begun as a concert venture by two promoters had developed into a city of a half million people; most of whom were half-naked and covered in mud. Many of the world’s most popular bands showed up to play; The Who, Ten Years After, Sly & The Family Stone, Santana, Joe Cocker and my old friends, Country Joe & The Fish.
Joe McDonald summed up the sentiment of an entire generation of young Americans with his eloquent mantra, Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag:
Gimme an F!
F!
Gimme an U!
U!
Gimme an C!
C!
Gimme an K!
K!
What's that spell ?
FUCK!
What's that spell ?
FUCK!
What's that spell ?
FUCK!
Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Gotta go out and get those reds —
The only good commie is the one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war a-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Richie Havens mesmerized the audience with his hypnotic guitar strumming and emotional chanting of the song, Freedom. Joan Baez sent shivers to the core of every single soul as she stood alone on the stage at night in front of five hundred thousand people singing a cappella the spiritual, Swing Low Sweet Chariot. And, never had The Star-Spangled Banner sounded more relevant than Jimi Hendrix’ searing rendition. They were going to need