Legendary festival Woodstock could be set to return this year for its 40th anniversary.
Woodstock originally took place in 1969 and had a seismic affect on global culture. A gathering of the emerging counter culture it helped galvanise liberal and humanitarian forces in America. A free festival, no exact attendance figure is known however organisers claimed over 500,000 people made their way to the New York state site.
Amongst the iconic moments at the festival were Joni Mitchell’s spell binding set, Sly And The Family Stone taking some funk along with them and guitar legend Jimi Hendrix’s improvisational take on ‘The Star Spangled Banner’.
Now Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang has claimed in a new interview that he is aiming to bring back the event this summer.
“We want to have as small a carbon imprint as we can and use as many green techniques as we can,” he told Billboard.
“There would be a lot of legacy bands – The Who, Santana, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joe Cocker maybe. And it would be people like Steve Earle and Ben Harper. There’s certainly room for the (Red Hot) Chili Peppers and Dave Matthews…That would be the shape of the music.”
Woodstock returned in the late 90s, but was widely criticised for using excessive commercial branding. Accused of exploiting fans, during a performance by Limp Bizkit the audience rioted causing widespread damage.
However Lang told press at the SXSW event that he doesn’t believe the 1999 disturbances have affected the festival’s reputation. “I think it always hearkens back to the ’69 event, somehow,” he said.
“When people think they don’t think ’99 or ’94. They think [of] the ’69 event. I think (1999 evet) has its ramifications, but I don’t think it did any real damage in that sense.”