Stephen Conley

Scarlet Disko: How old were you during Woodstock? Stephen Conley: I had just turned twenty in June. SD: What were you doing at the time? SC: I was a college student going to the University of Virginia, majoring in political science. SD: Were your parents aware that you were going to Woodstock? SC: No, by that time I had been going to college for 2 or 3 years so I was living independently. SD: How did you get to Woodstock? SC: We hitchhiked from a little town called Pound in Virginia. We didn’t get far the first day, but the next day we caught a ride that took us all the way to White Lake. This guy was bringing his children from Georgia back to his wife who was a nurse in White Lake. He was driving a Mercedes Sedan, and we sat in the back drinking beer the whole way. There was a bucket in the car that him and his kids peed in so we didn’t have to stop once. When we got to White Lake to drop off his kids, we spent the night at their house and the next day his wife dropped us off about three miles from the festival on her way to work. SD: What day did you get there? SC: Mark and I got there on Tuesday and nothing was ready; we camped up on the hill, not far from the lake. The first night that we heard music we wandered around to find that it was the Hog Farm playing the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” They were playing at an open stage and that was the first time I had granola, not knowing what it was. The Hog Farm was playing it so well that we thought the Beatles were actually down there. The Hog Farm was able to recreate how the orchestra rises and rises in the song with just a few simple instruments. We were stunned by how well they performed, it was an incredible opening music act that we experienced. SD: How many friends did you go to Woodstock with? SC: There was supposed to be six of us in a station wagon going to Woodstock together. However, the guy’s dad who we were borrowing the station wagon from was worried about it breaking down on us and decided not to let us use it,...