The Woodstock Music and Art Fair is easily one of the most recognizable events representing the unique and colorful time in our country's history that was the 1960s. With performances now considered nothing short of legendary by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, and Janis Joplin, just to name a few, the festival itself was an incredible demonstration of a time defined by revolution, rock music, free love, and no small amount of mind-altering substances. The film Taking Woodstock, coming out just weeks after the forty-year anniversary of the actual festival, reflects upon the spirit and energy of these changing times and their transformative effect on one young man in particular through his experience in bringing Woodstock into his community, home, and family.

Based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber (Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life), the film does not actually focus on the center of the festival itself. Many of the famous events that Woodstock is known for are never even shown. What we see a clearer picture of are the events that occurred on the periphery of the festival, surrounding Elliot and his mother and father.

In the beginning of the film Elliot is a quiet and unassuming young man who is at a point of major change in his life. He is working as a designer in New York City but also splits his time between the city and White Lake, a small town in the Catskills in upstate New York where his parents live and run the El Monaco, a rundown motel, long past its prime, and headed into foreclosure. Although Elliot longs to break free from the obligations he feels to his parents and go out and explore the country and enjoy his life as a young man, with the bank closing in on the motel he feels he needs to stay behind and help do what he can to save the property.

When Elliot learns that the nearby community of Wallkill has pulled the plug on a three day music festival put on by an entity called Woodstock Ventures, leaving hundreds of hippies without a place to gather for "Three Days of Peace and Music," he sees an opportunity to generate some much needed income into the El Monaco. He contacts Michael Lang, famed Woodstock organizer, and with the coveted and required concert permit in hand (obtained through his position as White Lake Chamber of Commerce President), puts him in contact with the now equally famed Max Yasgur, proprietor of the large farm lands where the actual festival would take place. After some intense negotiations between Max Yasgur, Michael Lang, and the rest of the Woodstock Ventures team, an agreement is made and the series of events that will soon bring one of the largest gatherings of young people in history into the small quiet town of Bethel, New York is set in motion.

Sweeping changes suddenly begin to occur around the El Monaco and the entire White Lake community as the massive festival is prepared for and put on. These changes share striking similarities to the transformational changes that Elliot himself begins to go through along with his mother and father. Young people, all from very different walks of life, begin arriving by the thousands every single day, bringing with them not just enough money to sustain the El Monaco for the rest of its existence, but new ideas and changes that begin to take root in the community and in Elliot's own life. He begins to break out of the shadow of his parents and what his life at home was and begins to explore what his identity is as a human.

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