Woodstock: LIFE's Best Photos

Forty years ago, LIFE's photographers and reporters were on the scene when half a million young people -- "lured by music, the country and some strange kind of magic" -- came together on a dairy farm in upstate New York. From Aug. 15-18 of 1969, they created a colorful, amazingly functional community whose ideals would reverberate for much longer than those three days. To celebrate the anniversary of Woodstock, LIFE.com presents the best photos from the festival -- shots that evoke its spirit of peace, love, music, and mud. Pictured: His hair flying, one of the 500,000 bangs a drum at Woodstock.