...in fact I as in the first 10 people there. Not the first 10 concert attendees...the first 10 people standing around in a field wondering if we found the right place. Ten...I counted. It was surreal from the start...My best friend Malcolm Knight and I drove up in his 1960 black triumph tr3. Thats a two seat sports car...we must have looked good driving up the interstate from Madison with the top down. Two not too long haired 20 year olds looking for adventure...and work. We were hired by another best friend Pauly Cuccia to build the stage and help get this thing off the ground. He somehow knew Ken Adamany the promoter...Ken is legend still. Bringing Hendrix to Madison and starting his career with Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs. He still is associated with Cheap Tricks success or was..
We finally found the place after several attempts or we might have been the first standing in that field...I knew some of the other 10 and we wistfully looked at each new car driving into the middle of the field hoping it was someone knowing what was going on. It wasn't...nobody seemed to know until a truck load of lumber was dropped off. It was a week before the rock fest started...that much time to build a stage and sound system. A couple other best friends showed up who knew more and so did Pauly. He knew everything...but, at least between the three of them I had hope this event might happen and was not just a wild goose chase. Actually, I needed the money...but, thats another story.
We had all really enjoyed ourselves at the Poynette fest a short time earlier. The grateful dead headlined but, the highlight of that was the Siegal Schwall band. I digress...the fun of that good times made us hopeful for another. Our youth and all...Viet Nam raged and we needed an escape from Madisons state street and its boarded up windows...and tear gas. Goin' up the country...got to get way. Digressing more that ride up to Iola was one of the best rides of my life...and that says something. Free at last...it was not a good thing to be a draft age male at that time. School or the military was the only option...unless you were wealthy enough to buy a national guard spot. It really was that way...who you knew. I needed the money for school in the fall...
So...at about 50 of us a big black limousine pulls into the field. I knew that car...it was Adamanys. I had seen it on the Madison scene often. The top end...I was bottom of the chain. Pauly and Russel Cook knew Ken and he informed them that it would happen and to settle in and set up camp. That was maybe the best part of the 10 days...discovering friends as they arrived and showing them around. We were almost big shots ourselves at first...having been there first. And, since we were working we only had to have a tent and sleeping bag. The free food tent for us was a chance to visit with the pretty hippy girls...ya know, we never thought of ourselves as hippies. Never...
Over the next few days the stage slowly went up...there were so many better carpenters than me that I was mostly an odd job person. Hanging around the stage there was always something to do and if I wanted I could simply walk away and do something else. There really wasn't much else to do...the usual counterculture stuff, sure. But, it really wasn't like that either...it was a matter of keeping clean, not easy, and simply surviving in an atmosphere of nobody really seemed to know what was going on. And that stage...it was going slow. Not like anybody was in charge and the usual too many chiefs was the problem. It did go up though along with the scaffold for the speakers. The sound system was a mystery to us all and we wondered what it would sound like with such a large frame. Jeff Cook showed up...a Marantz stereo designer who was going to build the system on the spot. I had seen Jeff around bands with the womens panties on his head...his trademark. I wondered but his history to San Francisco and Osley was legend we all believed. He was in charge and you could see his red hair everywhere. With the panties...
That week before the concert was uneventful but for the wood ticks everywhere...that getting clean thing and we found a gas station in Iola with a good bathroom and a daily visit was mandatory. Malcom was born in Scotland and both parents researchers at the UW...good stock. We started to look forward to that daily trip...some privacy. When did people ever lose the value of privacy...and here I am pulling my panties down. The stage was finished...and the speakers arrived. Jeff Cook ran around ordering parts for the boards as gossip filtered down to us in the workers area and the crowd grew to several thousand. They seemed as bored as us working those last days before the show opened on Friday night..
Chaos began to rule with the steady influx...we were given wrist bands to pass anywhere. Some more important than others by color and Pauly shows up with a armful. He says to sell them out front and keep the money. It was our pay...we did. But, so many were just walking in that only the foolish were buying them. More and more showed up every day and we sold them quickly. I was given a stage pass wrist band and spent most of my time watching the stage finish. But those speakers...we hadn't heard them yet. It was going to be great...or so we thought.
Friday afternoon just before the show was to start the whole system was rushing to sound. Then we heard it..;for two seconds. As loud as I have ever heard...and then it blew. Nothing...for hours. A rush on a part was in order...and we believed in Jeff Cook. With the panties on his head...later that day I was told to go park cars as the influx of people was at its peak. At first Malcolm and I had it under control. But as dusk came and the sound system made spurts of noise...we began to lose it. Cars everywhere...too many to even see us and they parked where they wanted. Flashlights in the dark did little other than to help us sell wrist bands to those in the dark who didn't know what was going on. Although buying bands from us did get better parking. Finally it became too hectic and we bailed on the cars. It may have been self induced but 40 thousand people showed up that night...
And the sound system could only muster a little of it...those giant towers of speakers could at best come up with a club sized sound. It was fine for those in front but for way back or to the sides the music seemed just noise. I made my way to the stage with my pass...it was the happening place to be and somehow I ended up as security for the stage. You didn't get on stage but by me...of course I knew who not to hassle. But, many tried to get up the stair in back of it and I was bribed and took some. With discretion...I had it made. Buffy St Marie showed up in Adamanys limo...somebody in the crowd showed up with some really beautiful wildflowers nicely arranged and wanted to give them to her. I remember saying they couldn't...that was my job...to keep folks away from the stars. I took the flowers to miss St Marie in the limo and her door opened and she smiled at me and took them. I even got a hug...
She played as did the others...while I sat by the stairs in back of the stage and watched. I was only 20 and it was more power than I had ever had. I got smiles from all and was as gracious as I could be to all. I was only 20...the late nights though...I could keep up with the best of them. I would stumble into my tent and sleep all day for the stage at night. I had already been there a week...and it was work. The hygiene started to slip...for everyone there. Saturday night had the Amboy Dukes and Ted...his performance that night made him on my list of posers forever. His hunting traditions and skills are mute to me...phony and to use Fred Bear. My boss shortly before this hunted with fred and owned the archery range in Madison. Ted had nothing then or now. His pretending to be wasted and fall into the crowd was drawing my ire as I watched and but for the beautiful topless girl in sequined pants on stage...I might have pushed him over the edge my self. Chaos was ruling on stage and people were everywhere...it was somebody elses turn to watch the stairs. I was watching the show...and the front of the crowd. A melee of wasted wapituli containing everything hard under the sun was front and center. Literally, a trash can of drink and drugs made its way around. I only tasted it...The best part of Saturday night was the topless girl coming up to me and throwing her arms around me...she whispered in my ear, "do you want to do it?" I looked both ways on that crowded stage and decided on the spot yes...she replied, "on stage." I politely declined...but, thanks. Several more of her attempts found a donor and when he slipped his pants off standing on stage in front of 50,000 people, she walked away leaving him there. I laughed and left...for a tour through the crowd just for the pure savagery. The stage had gotten old after Ted...
I was approached again that night by another beautiful hippy girl in the late late night or early morning as I made it to my tent in the safe area behind the stage. We tried but a 10 day burnout was not pro active to trysts...we just watched the sunrise. Four or five hours later I heard shots and commotion throughout the crowd. Bikers had opened up on the crowd...after days of taking abuse from the self appointed security of the fest the crowd began to retaliate. I had seen plenty of their abuse and had learned on stage to give them some leaway. You learned quickly who the good guys were and who you needed to placate. I had placated plenty of bikers while on stage but managed to stay them off. My friend at the poker table in the previous post with the cigarette in his mouth was famous for his woodstock days and being interviewed in the movie...ran up against them when we were together and found a large knife against his throat. He was the fastest talker I knew and was able to friend them off with biker talk. I wish I had the chance to confront the bikers that morning...this shooting along with the Sterling hall bombing seemed to be the end of this kind of event. There were plenty of folks trying to blame the antiwar movement on this or this on the anti war movement. Both were just wrong. It was the bikers. Three people got shot but survived.
One last point I remember...throughout the 10 days there were numerous adults who were generous and kind and offering assistance. An event of this somewhat organized chaos couldn't happen without hidden forces and there were many. One of the finest examples of altruism I have ever seen firsthand was the family from Stevens point. I believe he was a professor at UW Point and was a regular from the beginning. His advice and guidance were especially important to those that worked there. Where to go in town or just a kind word was enough...but, his family out did themselves. They invited all the workers to their family vacation home on a private lake. The lake was deep and clear and all private but for a small piece owned by the college. His large summer home and outbuildings were opened to us and he fed several hundred...not all were workers but he sure didn't mind. That generosity stayed with me to this day. We ate good food and used his bathrooms and went swimming out to his raft where at any one time there could be 100 people and half of those naked. It seemed irrelevent at the time. After 10 days...
I woke up to the shooting on sunday and we decided it was time to get out...fast. Police were everywhere and not happy. Somehow, Malcolm maneuvered the triumph through the cars in the parking lot to the road to Iola and its police lined streets. Like all the hippies were going to invade the town. They got the blame...but, our trip was uneventful and we made our way back to the highway. The ride back was without the same feeling on the way up...optimism gave way to reality. We had made some money but needed more. School would start in the fall and it was money or viet nam...
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