Our main tent, said to be 100 yards long and capable of holding 10,000
people, was often full in the evening.
| Introduction | The Scene | Ratha-yatra | Main Tent | Temple Tent | Other Tents | Highlights | Impressions | Epilogue | Links |
Krishna's Village of Peace 2002
by Krishna-kripa Dasa
Our main tent, said to be 100 yards long and capable of holding 10,000
people, was often full in the evening.
The main tent had a stage at one end with Krishna conscious entertainment scheduled from noon to midnight for three days. In reality the stage show ended at 2:00, 3:00, and on the final night, 3:30 a.m. Although Woodstock is two days, the devotees' festival lasts three, beginning the day before. Our professional sound system spread the transcendental vibrations several hundred yards in all directions. The stage show included devotional singing accompanied by traditional instruments, a Ramayana drama, a puppet show of Krishna's pastimes, Indian dances, a pantomime on reincarnation, martial arts, and a variety of bands—from the reggae, Village of Peace, to the hard core, Shelter—playing songs with devotional lyrics, and much more.
Indradyumna Swami chants melodious bhajanas on stage.
This is The Age of Kali drama on the stage.
In this Syama dance, one girl dresses as Krishna (in yellow) and the rest
as gopis.
This is a pantomime on stage.
No stage show is complete without Indian dancers.
The Hare Krishna reggae band, Village of Peace, plays on stage with their
new lead singer, Medhavi Dasa, from Ireland.
Village of Peace had songs describing the spiritual world, telling how chanting the holy name brings us together, about not killing animals, about how we are spirits living in a material world, as well as several attractive Hare Krishna tunes.
My friend Devala got to do his rendition of Boy George's "Bow Down
Mister,"
assisted by colorful festival dancers in the background, and the crowd
loved it.
In general, whenever any of the bands played on our main stage, people
in the crowd would
dance, sometimes by the tens, sometimes by the hundreds, and sometimes
by the thousands.
| The last band of the evening played traditional devotional music, and on the final evening when we ended at 3:00 a.m. the listeners crowding the our main tent did not want us to stop and shouted "more, more" in Polish until Sri Prahlada (right) promised that we would continue as long as they agreed to sing and dance. |  |
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| Introduction | The Scene | Ratha-yatra | Main Tent | Temple Tent | Other Tents | Highlights | Impressions | Epilogue | Links |