My Generation

For some time, it seems as if, apart from the mud and the permanent grin on organiser Michael Lang’s face, nothing is the same at the three different Woodstock festivals in 1969, 1994 and 1999. The pioneers of the legendary first Woodstock also organised the festivals in 1994 and 1999, but in their complaints about the youngsters of today they sound like their own parents thirty years ago. Back then, they were looking for higher things like love and peace, in the years 1994 and 1999 youngsters are looking for Pepsi and fun, or worse: for nothing in particular. They are angry, but do not know why, actress Rosie Perez notes in the film. These views put the contemporary generation X diametrically opposite the resistance generation of the sixties. But director Barbara Kopple also shows in her film that the desire for music, oneness and rituals equally nurtured all three festivals.