Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life

Summary

Adapted into a major motion picture by Academy Award®–winning director Ang Lee, Taking Woodstock is the extraordinary, behind-the-scenes tale of how a pipe dream turned into the most iconic rock concert of all time.

Elliot Tiber was an aspiring interior designer and artist in the 1960s who roamed the Greenwich Village bars by night and had liaisons with famous artists like Robert Mapplethorpe. He also helped his parents run a hotel deep in the Catskills and was head of his local chamber of commerce. With a yearly permit to hold summer music concerts in hand, Tiber brought organizers to Bethel, New York—and over half-a-million people followed. The rest, as they say, is history.

Taking Woodstock goes beyond the peace and love to offer a firsthand account—filled with lawyers, mobsters, and satchels full of cash—of a festival that changed the world forever.