Before Woodstock, there was this Northwest music festival

And Mossback was there.

Knute Berger

Knute Berger Jul 7, 2025

Jan 30, 2019

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          <article>
            <header>
              <hgroup>
                <h1>Before Woodstock, there was this Northwest music festival </h1>
                <h2><p>And Mossback was there.</p></h2>
              </hgroup>
               <p>By <a href="/author/knute-berger-crosscut-com/">Knute Berger</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Jan 30, 2019</time></p>
            </header>
            <p>Hippies, mud dancing, big name rock and roll bands — you’ve heard about Woodstock, but what about the music festival that came before? Knute Berger takes a trip down memory lane to the mother of all music festivals in the Pacific Northwest. Over Labor Day weekend of 1968, the sleepy logging town of Sultan, Washington played host to the Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair. Tens of thousands of hippies showed up.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://player.pbs.org/partnerplayer/0B7dHXabz5dy1u3v4JqIJg==/?start=0&amp;end=0&amp;topbar=false&amp;autoplay=false&amp;endscreen=false" width="100%"></iframe></figure>
          </article>

Hippies, mud dancing, big name rock and roll bands — you’ve heard about Woodstock, but what about the music festival that came before? Knute Berger takes a trip down memory lane to the mother of all music festivals in the Pacific Northwest. Over Labor Day weekend of 1968, the sleepy logging town of Sultan, Washington played host to the Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair. Tens of thousands of hippies showed up.

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By Knute Berger

Knute “Mossback” Berger is an editor-at-large and host of "Mossback’s Northwest" at Cascade PBS. He writes about politics and regional heritage.