It's hard to believe the Woodstock Music & Art Fair happened nearly 50 years ago considering its influence can still be seen at outdoor music festivals like Bonnaroo, Coachella and Lollapalooza.
Woodstock showed the live music loving world that hundreds of thousands of people could gather at an outdoor music festival without food, water or proper bathroom facilities and survive to tell the tale.
But it also taught concert promoters what not to do, and even though Woodstock 1999 was a total disaster it would have been far worse without the lessons taught by Woodstock '69.
These rarely seen photos taken by LIFE photographer John Dominis reveal those three days of madness in glorious color, shedding some light on all the other stuff that was going on while the flower children danced on sunshine.
See 40 Rare And Unseen Color Photos Of The Woodstock Music & Art Fair here