20 STORIES FOR 20 YEARS

Nick Ercoline: Man on the Hill

One-half of the embracing couple pictured on the Woodstock soundtrack album cover, Nick Ercoline lost his other half, his wife Bobbi, in 2023. Today the former carpenter and construction inspector discusses being a Woodstock ambassador for Bethel Woods, where he gives tours to performers and greets visitors at the Woodstock monument.

“It was Woodstock elders Duke Devlin, and Charlie Maloney, and my wife Bobbi and I who would sit at the Woodstock monument, the four of us. And I would pack a cooler with sandwiches and something to drink, because we would go up there at 10 in the morning, and wouldn’t leave until like 3 in the afternoon.

You know, when you start on top of the hill and you look out over the field, that was empty in 1969. I mean, you had Filippini Pond in the back, you barely see it now because of the trees; but you could see it then, it was absolutely beautiful.

And I think when people got to Woodstock, I think they had that feeling of this is just a peaceful, beautiful setting to be in. It's almost like a Garden of Eden.

Now at Bethel Woods, I watch people coming up Route 17 from New York City on a Friday or Saturday, and you know what traffic's like on that road. People are just white-knuckled when they get out of their car, they're all tense. But it's almost like immediate relief, opening that door and putting your foot on the ground, and you're standing at the original site, and it's like decompression time. They start to smile and everything just changes.

I think when people take that back country road, it's like, ‘We're off to see the wizard. We're going on the yellow brick road.’ The woods are kind of closed in on you when you're going up that road. And then you break out into this open field in this parking lot and it's like, look at this place. And they look at the beautiful building. And I think people just say, ‘We're here. Let's enjoy ourselves.’ This is where it is. Time to take a deep breath. Let it out. I think the ground itself has some type of holiness to it.

During Woodstock, I never witnessed a foul word. Everybody just seemed to want to get along with everybody and when you needed help you got help. People were just, ‘Here we are, we're in God's place.’ Everybody seemed to be happy just to be there and everybody was in a good mood. It was just a big party.”

I give tours to some of the artists that play the Pavilion. Michael McDonald was very gracious and very friendly. He had his 15 year old son with him. I said to him, ‘I really wanted to meet you’ and he turned around and he said, ‘No, I really wanted to meet you and your wife.’

I gave artist tours to Kidz Bop. I think it's important that Bethel Woods gets younger. I mean, some of these groups are not the big names of my day but it's about giving the tour to people that want to go and want to hear your story. I'll drive a cart with, I forgot what the name of a couple of bands were, but the kids in the band were like, 35 to 40 years old. I'd start my spiel, and then I'd turn around. I'm like, ‘Okay, so tell me what you do on stage.’ And we would just sit there and talk.

I found that the younger bands are in awe of going to this place, the sacred ground, and want to hear the stories. They had the best questions, and they were attentive and it was fun to give them the tour. And I told Bobbi, this is so much easier to do than when we go up to the monument. They want to hear what you have to say. You take somebody that was at Woodstock at the time and they have a different story to tell than I have. So they may be sitting there shaking her head. ‘Oh, that's not how I saw it. I saw it this way.’ ‘Well,I was sitting in a crowd and I was up there and I saw it this way.’ They say there were 450,000 people there at the site. There's got to be a million different stories.

Kids today don't understand that when they go through Sullivan County, that back in 1969 there was no Dunkin' Donuts on the corner, there was nothing. So I had to let these kids know the way it was. Imagine walking through the woods and not seeing anything. It's a dirt road. It was in the middle of God's country.

The 50th anniversary of Woodstock was amazing. They wanted to put us up in a little 10 by 10 pop-up tent, and I looked at it and thought, ‘Now that is not going to work.’ There was a big tent next to us, it had like two living rooms set up. So I said, ‘Come on, Bobbi, we'll go over here. We'll take over this half of this tent.’ And we did.

We had a line of 100 people at a time waiting to come to see us. Then I had to get Wade Lawrence, the museum director at the time, to bring a box of tissues. Believe it or not, some of the women on line were crying because they wanted to see Bobbi and me, and they were literally crying. I was like, ‘Oh, no. You don't have to cry, come over here. Give me a hug.’ It was so surreal.

I’ve signed thousands of Woodstock records over the years. I still get them today, usually with a note of who they are, why they're doing it, and they give me their condolences. Some people put 5 or 10 bucks to mail it back to them, but I just put it back in the envelope, and send it back to them.

This story happened the other day. I live in a small town, and I'm on my way to the puppy groomer on a back road. There's a stop sign, and I pull up to the stop sign and I look to the left, there's a clear view down there. And I don't really stop, stop, kind of like a rolling stop. I slowed right down, and as I look to my right, there's a cop sitting there, and it's too late because I've already kind of rolled through the stop sign. So he pulls me over. You know: license, registration, all that stuff, and I'm sitting there going, ‘Yeah, yeah, you're right.’ No big deal. And I just happened to mention, ‘The chief's a friend of mine,’ like that. So he said, okay, so he walked back to the car in about 2, 3 minutes later, he brings me back my license and registration. And the first words out of his mouth are, ‘You're famous, man!’

I said, ‘You got to be kidding me.’ And I started to laugh and then he gave his condolences for Bobbi passing. I said, ‘So what did the chief say? Did the chief tell you to yell at me?’ And he goes, ‘Nah, he said I should just cut you loose.’”