What occurred was a figurative remake of the film Escape From New York, but without Snake Plissken to save the day. To prevent gate-crashing, promoters erected 12’ plywood and steel fences to keep out interlopers, and 500 New York State Police troopers were hired for security…nope, nothing could go wrong there. The festival was held at the former Griffiss Air Force Base, an environmental disaster that was named a ‘Superfund’ site due to the presence of hazardous chemicals. Prepared, somewhat, for the 400,000 people that showed up for the event, the promoters seemed to have learned the wrong lessons from their previous fiascos. Undaunted by the meager success of the 1994 event, Lang et al went for another bite of the apple in 1999, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original Woodstock with a festival held in Rome, New York. VIDEO: Nine Inch Nails perform “Head Like A Hole” at Woodstock ’94
Although the promoters took a bath on the actual festival, they staved off bankruptcy with the profitable release of the Academy Award-winning Woodstock film and a pair of best-selling soundtrack albums. A total of 32 acts performed, launching talents like Melanie, Arlo Guthrie, and Crosby, Stills & Nash to stardom while cementing the legacies of artists like The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Jimi Hendrix. In spite of the festival’s drawbacks, it’s fondly remembered as a historic cultural event. On top of the logistical nightmare of the event’s overpopulation, torrential rains interrupted the music, delayed performances, and made the field a muddy mosh-pit. When over 400,000 young music fans showed up, most without tickets, choking off the highway, busting down the meager fencing surrounding the field and taxing the resources of the festival staff, Woodstock was proclaimed a “free festival.” Nearly 186,000 advance tickets were sold, and promoters expected a crowd of around 200,000 souls. Ambitious even by the expectations of the era, the festival was held on Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York – some 40 miles south of the actual town of Woodstock.
That historic event celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, with the festival’s co-promoter Michael Lang trying in vain to hold a 2019 event to rival the original. The most notorious festival of them all, however, is the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, held in August 1969. VIDEO: The Stooges at the Goose Lake International Music Festival 1970 These are outliers, however, the vast majority of ‘60s and ‘70s-era events like the Monterey Pop Festival (1967), the Miami Pop Festival (1968), the Atlanta International Pop Festival (1969), or the Goose Lake International Music Festival (1970) were all one or two-time affairs that temporarily made a big splash only to be eclipsed by the next big event. England’s legendary Reading Festival was launched in 1961, the promoters adding a second event in Leeds in 1999 that runs concurrent with the older festival. The Newport Jazz Festival, founded in 1954, is perhaps the granddaddy of them all, still running and vital to this day. It wasn’t always like this, however – music festivals came of age during the restless decade of the 1960s, when a generation of youth had the leisure time and disposable income to support the promotion of massive events. There are so many of the damn things these days that festival memories often fade beneath the clamor of rapidly-changing pop culture unless something goes horribly wrong. have become old hat, offering up a diverse menu of music and related activities and attracting tens of thousands of attendees. Woodstock ’99 – the calm before the stormĪs we rapidly approach the third decade of the 21st century, and 50 years removed from the original Woodstock, music festivals have become embroidered into the fabric of our lives as fans.Įvents like Coachella and Bonnaroo in the U.S.
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