NEW YORK: Fifty years ago Thursday Les Poinelli was hitch-hiking to the now storied Woodstock music festival he'd heard about on the radio - and hopped in the car where he would meet his wife.
After spending the weekend with his new sweetheart Gail, the teenagers walked around the back of the stage, as Joe Cocker began to play, to say goodbye before she headed back to Long Island, New York and he returned to Connecticut. Despite the mud and warnings of bad acid, the symbol of Woodstock lives - the festival is venerated as a beacon of hope that emerged out of the tumultuous 1960s, rife with assassinations and riots as the Vietnam War raged.
Its 50th anniversary commemoration kicks off Thursday with a peace-symbol lighting, after which folk mainstay Arlo Guthrie, who played in 1969 as a baby-faced 22-year-old, will perform for the masses flashing back to their youth. The main field of the original Woodstock festival site, where 50-year anniversary celebrations are underway. Pinto says he saw it all amid the chaos - but stealing a kiss from Joplin stands out.
The 1969 Woodstock festival saw 32 now-classic acts jam in the pouring rain before hundreds of thousands of youthful partiers.