Woodstock Stage Discovered

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Woodstock Stage Discovered

The most common question visitors to the Woodstock field ask is “Where was the stage?”

It is a simply enough question to answer when standing at the top of the field or in the field’s corner near Wayne Saward‘s monument: at the bottom toward the gravelly northeast section of the field.

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts has plans to erect a permanent marking of the stage area and the 2019 special exhibit in the Museum used some of the original stage’s plywood.

Where’s the Woodstock wood been?

Not where you’d think.

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Money not nostalgia

In the afterglow of the most famous festival in American (the world?) history, Woodstock Ventures wanted to clean up and move on as quickly as possible. Money worries and lawsuits were upon them and warranted their time.

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Steve Gold

Steve Gold was 15 in 1969 and had attended the concert. Five weeks later he was visiting the Robi-Lane bungalow colony his girlfriend Robin’s father owned in  nearby Woodbourne, NY. Dad asked him to help unload wood panels from his truck. No fool Steve and knowing how to keep on both Robin’s Dad and Robin’s good side, Steve said sure.

Dad also happened to mention that the wood had come from the Woodstock Music and Art Fair stage.

Luckily, the story only sort of ends there.

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Reminiscences 

As with many Woodstock alum, the Fair’s upcoming golden anniversary spurred old memories.  And Steve Gold remembered unloading wood.

Entertainment had become part of his life. His professional career  included stints as a concert promoter, entertainment marketing executive, a managing executive of The Saint, home of the famed Fillmore East and what was once the largest dance club in New York City, and executive director of the Palladium.

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Upstate trip

Woodstock Stage Discovered

He and a friend took a ride to the site of the now sold bungalow colony. He thought he remembered where the wood  would be, but it wasn’t there.

After a search around, they found what they were looking for. A  paddle ball court.

Yup. That’s what the Robin’s Dad had used the wood for. The outside of the plywood was well-worn, but after removing nails and getting to the unexposed sides, Steve became surer and surer he had hit gold.

Woodstock Stage Discovered

We removed several panels to look for stage markings we had seen in hundreds of festival pictures and the Woodstock movie to identify it was the real deal,” he recounts.  “I knew it had to be because of the Weyerhaeuser (lumber company) logos etched into the stage floor panels and because of the distinctively-colored paint splatters.

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Confirmation

Weyerhaeuser tested some samples, they reported that the age of the pieces matched those of 1969.

Gold also took some of the panels to Wood Science Consulting, a  company specializing in the engineering uses of wood and wood-based products.  And after much testing, the wood was authenticated as the original flooring of the Woodstock stage.

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Charitable help

Gold and his two partners, Dave Marks and Randy Garcia, are selling pieces of the stage and some of the proceeds will be donated to charities benefiting Vietnam veterans, the homeless and the hungry, and gun law reform efforts established by families of mass shooting victims.

Woodstock Stage Discovered

Link to Poughkeepsie Journal article on Gold w video.

11 thoughts on “Woodstock Stage Discovered”

  1. I came so close to going, but I was 13 and asked the guys who offered to take me if we’d be home by dinner time. I always wonder what would have happened if I had just jumped in the car – in those days before cell phones!

  2. I became fascinated with Woodstock in 1986 when I got the movie,……it turned me into a teenaged hippie.
    I have viewed it hundreds if not a thousand times.
    I always wondered what happened to the stage,
    I also always noticed the Weyerhaeuser logo under
    Richie Havens’ foot as he stomped out the rhythm while performing. now I have a piece if it in a pendant.
    thanx for remembering and thanx for finding it Mr. Gold
    another owner of a piece of stage imagined the vibrations of all the music from aug. 1969 going through the wood on the stage,
    that is an awesome thought. ….Dave in NC 🙂 peace.

    1. Dave Read the book Pilgrims of Woodstock you will see ties with the movie pretty cool also very interesting where the title of book comes from

  3. I had just turned 16 and declined my older friends invitation to go. Big mistake. My sister also went. I immediately regretted my decision and became a Woodstock buff. I’ve been to 4 reunions, now own a Peace of The Stage. The spirit lives on.

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