The 20 Most Iconic Sets at the Legendary 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair

When we think about the first Woodstock Music and Art Fair we think about the hippies. The mud. The brown acid. The helicopters. The chaos that became a utopia and a definitive statement for the ideals of the 60s counterculture.

And, oh yeah, the music.

The artists — three days of ’em — were, of course, the primary draw to the festival, and Woodstock boasted a lineup of formidable names, some of which were already historic, others that were on their way there and some who would use the festival to launch their careers. “We wanted the biggest and the best, and we worked hard to get them,” the late Woodstock producer Michael Lang told us in 2009, while preparing to celebrate its 40th anniversary. He acknowledged that it took a minute for the festival to be viewed seriously by booking agents and managers, but once Creedence Clearwater Revival signed on, interest was stoked and the gets became easier.

Thirty-three bands played in total, and there was even an impressive list of could’ve-beens: Lang made a run at the Beatles, for instance, but could only get John Lennon to offer a basically non-existent Plastic Ono Band, which wound up making its debut a month later at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival. Bob Dylan was invited but never showed. The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, The Doors, The Moody Blues, The Guess Who, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and Love were among acts that turned down offers. The Jeff Beck Group canceled its slated performance after breaking up shortly before it. Iron Butterfly attempted to change the day it would perform at the last minute and never made it to the site.

But nobody at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, N.Y. was complaining about what they did get to hear.

“I guess by Saturday, when everybody had arrived or everybody who was gonna get there arrived, we knew that this was gonna be a historic moment,” Lang said. “Nobody ever thought about or how it would resonate, but we knew that this was extraordinary. I knew that we were all freaks and there were many of us out there and we were disbursed around the country and around the world really, so it was like a gathering of the tribes if you will.”

Through the Academy Award-winning 1970 documentary and an array of music releases — both individual titles and multi-disc compilations, including the Woodstock Back to the Garden — 50th Anniversary Experience in 2019 — we’ve come to know their sets well, which has kept a little whiff of The Garden fresh during the ensuing decades. They demonstrate that even amidst turbulent conditions, there were amazing — and also, again, historic — performances all the way through the extra, unplanned Monday morning.

With Woodstock turning 55 on Aug. 15, these are our picks for the 20 most iconic sets on that fateful weekend…