Photo Courtesy of woodstock.com
While today marks the 45th anniversary of the famous peace, love and music festival, Woodstock, the organizers already have plans for the Woodstock 50th anniversary concert. Three of the four original organizers are still alive today, and have been collaborating to plan the festival’s revival in five years’ time – no celebration plans for the 45th anniversary to be found. Michael Lang, an organizer of the Miami Pop Festival, and one of the four original promoters for Woodstock, told Rolling Stone, “I think we’re certainly done until the 50th. We’re starting to think about it now.”
Details are still being hammered out, as Lang is hunting around for possible locations, and no bands or music artists have been signed on yet. Indeed, 2019 is far enough into the future that many tentative plans could change as details are finalized. There have been two other attempted revivals and revisitings of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, organized by Lang. The original music and arts fest was three days long, from August 15th through 18th, in Bethel, NY. 4000,000 people came to see over 30 music artists perform. Twenty-five years later, “Two More Days of Peace and Music” happened in 1994, featuring acts such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Candlebox, and Nine Inch Nails sharing the stage with some artists who performed at the original Woodstock.
In 1999, just five years later, the 30th anniversary celebration concert was much less similar than the first, and wound up more like the 1969 Rolling Stones Altamont concert; rape, riots, and arson ruined the intended peace, love and music theme of the event. Lang ceased planning Woodstock-revisited events after this. Five years ago, the Heroes of Woodstock tour was undertaken by Big Brother and the Holding Company, Canned Heat, Jefferson Starship, and Ten Years After to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. During the 2009 tour, Country Joe Mcdonald, Edgar Winter, John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful, and Quicksilver Messenger Service were among music artists who made guest appearances.
Music festival fans, check out FDRMX’s five fun facts about Woodstock on the Encyclopedia of Music here. Read about three concerts that have ended in riot, including Altamont, here.