The spirit of Woodstock lives on, 50 years after the most famous rock festival ever drew between 400,000 and 500,000 young rock music fans to a farm in upstate New York on a mid-August weekend in 1969.

Together, they made history, overcoming rain, mud and an alarming lack of any infrastructure. They were fueled by a palpable sense of “we-areone” unity — and performances by nearly three dozen acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Santana. […]

Skateboard legend Tony Hawk is equally aware of Woodstock's impact, even though he was only a year old when the festival took place.

“It was definitely a very perfect storm of musical talent, political movement and unrest,” Hawk, 51, said. “So it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Those sentiments are shared by two Woodstock veterans — Tijuana-bred guitarist Carlos Santana and Sha Na Na leader John “Jocko” Marcellino, who was just 19 when his band played the festival.

“I tell people Woodstock was the best of times and the worst of times,” said La Jolla resident Marcellino. “All these people cooperated and made what could have been a disaster into a great success. It was the birth of ‘Woodstock Nation'.”

“Woodstock changed my life,” said Santana, 71. […] “Because of Woodstock, I was able to witness firsthand that a mass number of humans can co-exist in harmony,” Santana said.

“The festival took place at the end of a strong, volatile decade in American culture, with the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and John and Robert Kennedy, the mass protests against the war in Vietnam, the police violence in Chicago […], the women's liberation movement. That was when ‘Woodstock Nation' was born.” […]

But with or without a festival next month, Woodstock's 50^th anniversary is already being commemorated in multiple ways.