Woodstock's Last Gasp?

Woodstock created the cosmic-scale rock festival; Altamont butchered it and Mary Sol may have killed it. Some 30,000 youths in regimental beads and headbands set out for Puerto Rico during Easter Holy Week for a bash thrown by the tireless festival promoter, Atlanta's Alex Cooley. For their $149 they got hopelessly inadequate transportation, a generally tepid show, exorbitant concession prices, scant drinking water, little emergency medical care, poor sanitary conditions and the tragedy of four deaths, one of them violent.

The first sour notes of Mary Sol (Sea and Sun) were struck in the airports of New York, Boston and other cities, where the charter flights could not accommodate the tribes of ticket holders. Once there, they were harassed by the scorching sun, poison ivy and voyeurs, but the kids remained largely cheerful throughout the festival, waiting in long lines for food, water and toilets. They stripped down and took to the sea, which in turn claimed three lives (two of them Puerto Rican). Although there was less evidence of drugs than usual at youth festivals, one youth was knifed to death, reportedly while peddling mescaline.

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