Not Your Father's Woodstock

When I was in NYC a few weeks back I took a trip upstate to visit my uncle. He lives in Bethel, NY, which is where the Woodstock Festival was held in 1969. Bethel is a great little town, up in the Catskills, and visiting there you can see how a town of 5,000 would have been completely overwhelmed by half a million hippies forty years ago.
   When I was last there, fifteen years ago, my uncle took me to the site of the Woodstock festival. At the time, we just pulled off the main road onto Yasgur's cow pasture, where there was a single concrete monument commemorating that time. Nice enough, but oddly spartan for such a generational happening.
   Fast forward to a few weeks ago. My uncle once again took me to the site, and it has completely changed. Evidently the guy who once owned Cablevision had bought up the Yasgur farm and much of the surrounding property, and decided to build a performing arts center, the Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts.
   Holy cow, this place is amazing. What was once a pasture now has a huge outdoor amphitheater, a museum, a gift shop, and several more places for performances both indoor and outdoor. Being the amazingly friendly and forthright person he is, my uncle even scored us a guided tour of the place - for free - so we got to see almost everything they've built. Not even close to the muddy field covered in snow I once saw.
   While I was thoroughly impressed and wished I were in town for one of the concerts, seeing that multi-million-dollar facility built on the site of the world's largest street party got me to thinking. While it is an amazing tribute, is this world-class facility in the spirit of the Festival it's commemorating? What would the muddy, stoned, carefree people in 1969 think of this place in 2009?
   I don't think they'd appreciate the slick corporate approach, amazingly well-done though it is. But then again they'd probably be too baked to do anything about it.