I’ve been feeling more and more amped about the possibility of Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock (Focus Features, 8.14.09) playing at Cannes next month, and so I decided on the spur of the moment early this afternoon to rent a car and drive up to the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. You can really feel something when you first arrive and take it all in. It’s like visiting Dealey Plaza or Ground Zero. The site is located on Hurd Road right off 17B in Bethel, New York — about a two-hour drive from Manhattan.


4.11.09, 6:35 pm, facing the area where the stage sat at the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. A private security guy pulled up in the area behind the stage and told me I wasn’t supposed to be walking around on the field.

4.11.09, 6:35 pm, facing the natural amphitheatre from the area where the stage once stood.