What Woodstock and Taylor Swift have in common

In the summer of 1969, a historic musical event billed "three days of peace and music" was held in upstate New York. Known as Woodstock, the massive outdoor event attracted nearly half aa million attendees, most of them adolescents and 20-somethings excited by a festival featuring the music of their generation.

Woodstock was remarkable for its unfailing positivity, excitement and cooperation through thunderstorms, mud and a shortage of all the amenities. It seemed a one-time expression of a generation.

But a few weeks ago the city of Minneapolis welcomed an event similar in positivity, excitement and cooperation, an event also the expression of the music of a generation — the Taylor Swift concerts attracting over 100,000 attendees for two concerts plus others there to buy Swift merchandise, enjoy Swift-themed fare at several Twin Cities eateries and bars and simply be a part of the experience even if they didn't have tickets to the concerts. It was a Millennial Woodstock.

So what's made a 33-year-old country singer turned pop performer into a star bigger than the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and who's predicted to take in $1.4 billion during her Eras tour this year?

A lot of it is about her approach to being a performer. Unlike millions of young girls growing up with Taylor Swift to become the enthusiastic pack of Swifties, I was a Boomer who grew up with the rock stars and folk icons of my generation. Over the years I saw too many stars burn out on drugs and alcohol and exhibit less than admirable behavior. Nor did I see many of these stars treat their fans well or donate some of their wealth to the less fortunate.

But while contemporaries of Swift were constantly in the news for driving drunk or getting caught with drugs or just behaving badly, I never heard of Swift in such a situation. And early on I heard of how she reached out to fans at concerts, attending all the meet and greet sessions, signing autographs and taking time to talk to her fans. I remember a little girl with cancer whose dream was to meet Swift; her idol traveled to the girl's bedside and posed for a photo with her.

She early on shared the wealth. In 2011, she donated $70,000 in books to the library in her hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania, the same year she was part of a group of celebrities donating $2.5 million to UNICEF's program to get clean water to people in Third World countries.

Over the years her donations have included $4 million to begin the Taylor Swift Education Center in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville; $16 million to Louisiana flood victims; a "very sizable donation" to Houston area food shelves after Hurricane Harvey; a donation to the Joyful Heart Foundation that works to prevent child and domestic abuse and sexual assault; and in 2020 during the pandemic making sizable donations to the World Health Organization and Feeding America. That year she also contributed to the NAACP's legal defense fund after the murder of George Floyd. During the Eras tour, she will contribute to the food shelves in each city in which performs, as she did in the Twin Cities.

But most of her fans love her hard work and high energy in giving them what they came for, a party with their fellow fans. Swift gave them a three-hour and 20 minute performance with 44 songs from her 10 albums. (In her show in her 2018 concert, she performed 24 songs, for comparison.) Her audience in turn sang all the songs with her, exchanged the trademark Swiftie bracelets with each other and admired each other's often elaborate costumes commemorating their idol.

In short, it was a lot like Woodstock celebrating a generation and its music with a lot of peace and joy. Was it caused by most of those attending the weekend were women? Was it the sheer joy of packing over 60,000 happy attendees to enjoy the experience? Or was it Swift herself, proving adept at hosting the year's biggest party?

It doesn't matter. What does matter is that a lot of people had a great time and the city of Minneapolis proved it could hold again host a successful event.

This is the opinion of Times Writers Group member Lois Thielen, a dairy farmer who lives near Grey Eagle. Her column is published the first Sunday of the month.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: What Woodstock and Taylor Swift have in common