I remember the talk about Woodstock 1 (69) when it happened but I was 10. Woodstock 2 (94), I went to with friends – it was a blast. Woodstock 3 (99), I went with my wife, it was great but the fires at the end were sad (although it was wild the RHCP were doing Hendrix’s fire when they started). This summer I am taking my children and their friends. Just rented a RV the event, my camping days are far gone. I am glad it will be an eclectic line-up; I am sure my kids would not want to go if it was all classic rock. Watkins Glen is a great place for it as they have a quality infrastructure. Phish has had some great shows there.
BUT – first we got the Stones in DC.

a day after the article comes out about financial and logistical issues. Billboard reports the following:

A number of artists performing at Woodstock 50 in Watkins Glen, New York have been paid in full after a brief delay and rumors that the anniversary event was in financial trouble.

With the deposits now paid, the lineup for the festival will likely be announced in the next two weeks, Billboard has learned. Artists such as Dead and Company, Santana, The Killers, Imagine Dragons and Chance the Rapper will be performing at the festival, which is taking place at the Watkins Glen International Speedway, about an hour-and-a-half east of the orginal Woodstock site, where non-profit Bethel Woods is planning its own tribute at its 15,000-person amphitheater with Live Nation.

Saw the Stones at Giants stadium then went up on Sunday on a whim to catch Dylan at Woodstock. Nice weekend!

After A Brief Delay, Woodstock 50 Organizers Wire Full Payment to Participating Artists

3/5/2019 by Dave Brooks


Michael Lang (photo: George Holz)

Organizer Michael Lang says anniversary festival will be a "once in a lifetime event."

A number of artists performing at Woodstock 50 in Watkins Glen, New York have been paid in full after a brief delay and rumors that the anniversary event was in financial trouble.

Sources tell Billboard that payment had gone out a few days later than orginally planned as financial backer Dentsu, a Japanese advertisting congolmerate, worked through attendance issues at the site in upstate New York. Woodstock 50 is expected to draw 100,000 fans for the event produced by Michael Lang, co-founder of the orginal 1969 Woodstock festival and co-owner of Woodstock Ventures, which manages the iconic festival's intellectual property.

Because the event is not being put on by a major promoter like Live Nation or AEG, most major agencies consider it to be riskier than events like Coachella and Bonnaroo, and required Lang and Densu to pay 100 percent of the artist payments upfront before the lineup was announced. While reps for some of the major headliners tell Billboard they were paid in full weeks ago, other artists had not been paid by last Friday, raising red flags with major agencies who expected the lineup to be announced in February and are now seeing it pushed into March.

On Monday (March 4), following reports that the event was having financial issues, representatives for Woodstock confirmed that organizers had wired several million dollars to several major talent agencies representing acts playing Woodstock 50, and one agency boss confirmed to Billboard that, as of Monday evening, their artists had all been paid in full. A source also confirmed to Billboard that festival organizer Superfly, which is handling the logistics of the massive camping festival, had also received full payment.

"There’s always been lots of rumors around Woodstock," Lang said in a statement to Billboard. "We have excellent partners and an incredible talent lineup of over 80 artists which will be announced within the next couple of weeks. We’re preparing a once in a lifetime event.”

With the deposits now paid, the lineup for the festival will likely be announced in the next two weeks, Billboard has learned. Artists such as Dead and Company, Santana, The Killers, Imagine Dragons and Chance the Rapper will be performing at the festival, which is taking place at the Watkins Glen International Speedway, about an hour-and-a-half east of the orginal Woodstock site, where non-profit Bethel Woods is planning its own tribute at its 15,000-person amphitheater with Live Nation.

Despite its well-known name and significant media attention, Woodstock 50 is also seen as a bit of a risk by the industry because of the amount of work and infrastructure needed to prepare the site, which has very few nearby hotels, for a 100,000-person camping festival. The weather in that part of upstate New York is also notoriously fickle in August, with rain and thunderstorms often soaking the area, creating giant mud messes at both the orginal Woodstock and Woodstock 25 in 1994. Five years ago, the Hudson Project Festival had to cancel the final day of its event because of severe thunderstorms.

There's also a larger question of how the event will fare in a crowded festival space, and whether Woodstock will be able to attract a millenial audience interested in spending three days with older music fans. One industry insider told Billboard, "The next step is to put it on sale and then see if anyone cares enough to buys tickets."

[www.billboard.com]

"A once in a lifetime event".

Such hypocrisy.

Santana has announced he is playing

One industry insider told Billboard, "the next step is to put it on sale and then see if anybody cares enough to buy tickets " Sums it up very succinctly for me !

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Cooltoplady
Santana has announced he is playing

Carlos confirmed Santana would be playing Bethel Woods. They're rumored, but not confirmed, for the Watkins Glen event.

What happened to the band list I posted and the responses?

WOODSTOCK 50: DON'T TAKE THE BROWN ACID



The Woodstock 50 headliners we previously reported—Dead & Co., The Killers, Miley Cyrus, Santana, The Black Keys, Chance the Rapper, Jay-Z, Imagine Dragons and Halsey—have been confirmed by all parties involved.

We're also told that all headliner guarantees, which range between $1-3m+ per act based on estimated festival attendance of 125k per day, have been deposited.

A controversy continues to rage, meanwhile, about the festival site, which has been approved for 75k attendees, and the moves the competition is making to stop the approval of the 125k capacity. Organizer/founder Michael Lang has assured financier Dentsu that this approval will be forthcoming, which prompted the release of aforementioned guarantees.

Insiders also say there is expected to be considerably less nudity than at Woodstock 1969.

[hitsdailydouble.com]

Jay-Z, Dead & Co., Chance the Rapper, Black Keys Among Woodstock 2019 Headliners

Robert Plant, the Raconteurs, Imagine Dragons, the Killers, Greta Van Fleet and Santana are also slated to perform.

By Chris Willman and Shirley Halperin


CREDIT: Courtesy of Tidal

The trickle of information about Woodstock 50 has been slow enough to make doubters wonder whether they’d ever see a lineup. Doubt no more: According to sources close to the situation, artists with firm offers have been wired payments and a lineup announcement is imminent. Even before that bill goes public, though, Variety has learned of more than 20 acts that are due to take part in the August 16-18 event, with the lineup full of rock and hip-hop firepower and fewer nods to nostalgia than you might expect.

Jay-Z, Dead & Co., Black Keys and Chance the Rapper are among the headliners — with two out of three nights speaking to hip-hop’s dominance 50 years after the 1969 event. Also slated to take part in the festival (all subject to change before anything is made official): The Raconteurs, Imagine Dragons, Run the Jewels, Gary Clark Jr., Cage the Elephant, the Killers, Greta Van Fleet, Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson, Portugal the Man, Dawes, the Lumineers, Bishop Briggs, Pussy Riot, Courtney Barnett and Dorothy. Halsey, Miley Cyrus, Janelle Monae and Kacey Musgraves are also said to be finalizing their commitments.

Insiders reveal that acts will perform on three stages, dubbed the Peace Stage, Love Stage and Music Stage, the three keywords used in key art for the original fest.

If the bill seems a little heavy on 21st century acts for a festival commemorating a 50th anniversary, there should be at least a couple of other heritage acts besides Dead & Co. on hand. Robert Plant, whose band Led Zeppelin did not play the original Woodstock, is believed to be headed for this one. Additionally, Santana, which has already been announced for a smaller festival commemorating the Woodstock anniversary, may try to pull double duty perform at this one, too.

(For anyone not keeping score at home, the fest that actually bears the brand name, organized by Michael Lang, co-creator of the 1969 Woodstock, will take place at Watkins Glen. Meanwhile, there’ll be a more nostalgically inclined and modest fest at the original site August 16-18, dubbed the Bethel Woods Music and Culture Festival, with original Woodstockians Arlo Guthrie and Santana being joined by Ringo Starr, Edgar Winter and the Doobie Brothers.)

The Woodstock fest taking place at Watkins Glen is indisputably the big one — but how big? That may still be an open question.The issue left to resolve for organizers is whether they’ll be permitted to have 75,000 people or 125,000. Naturally, they’d prefer the latter, a number that will still come up hundreds of thousands short of the crowd estimate at the historic ’69 gathering.

In a statement issued on March 4, co-founder Lang said: “There’s always been lots of rumors around Woodstock. We have excellent partners and an incredible talent lineup of over 80 artists which will be announced within the next couple of weeks. We’re preparing a once in a lifetime event.”

Variety has reached out to reps for the acts and the festival.

[variety.com]

er?

so we now have a woodstock 50 festival at a different site with one original act..and original promoters

and we have a festival at the original site now NOT called woodstock but Bethel?...

and they all take place on the same dates 16-18 August 2019

confused

anyway I have booked .....the Edinburgh Fringe Festial , Scotland UK for the 1st Aug - 26th Aug.....its a far better line up!!!!

I think this signals the end of the big festival....Security, Planning permission, band deposits, Health and safety ...killing it big time

I have to say the lineup is getting to be unreal, with many others not official yet (like the Raconteurs). It’s too bad it’s a massive festival (well, if they sell a lot of tix), which is an automatic nope in my book.

WOODSTOCK 50 LINEUP TO BE REVEALED THIS TUESDAY

Lisa Berigan
March 17



The lineup for Woodstock 50 -- which will be staged August 16th - 18th at Watkins Glen, New York -- will be announced Tuesday night.

Festival producer Michael Lang will be joined by John Fogerty, who performed at Woodstock in 1969 with Creedence Clearwater Revival, and rapper-actor Common at Electric Lady Studios in New York City for a panel discussion. Fogerty and Common have also promised to perform at the media event.

We can confirm that Fogerty and Common are in the festival lineup, which is rumored to also include Robert Plant, Dead & Company, Santana, The Killers, Chance the Rapper, Imagine Dragons, The Black Keys, Jay-Z, The Raconteurs, Gary Clark Jr., Cage the Elephant, Greta Van Fleet, Portugal. The Man,Dawes, The Lumineers, Miley Cyrus, Janelle Monae and Brandi Carlile. But we will not know for sure until Tuesday evening.

If you'd forgotten that Creedence played Woodstock, it's understandable -- the band chose not to appear on the soundtrack album or in the movie.

[wbig.iheart.com]

"We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn … there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud. And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: A quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic, and in the night I hear, ‘Don’t worry about it, John. We’re with you.’ I played the rest of the show for that guy." —John Fogerty recalling Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s 3:30 am start time at Woodstock?

[www.youtube.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2019-03-19 01:59 by bleedingman.

And here's Carlos and Santana drummer Michael Shrieve reminiscing:

Carlos Santana Pops LSD at WoodStock

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

[www.woodstock.com]

Sign me up for day 4!!!



_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

With the "class of '69" accounting for only around 15 percent of the performers, it's impossible to understand how anybody who is old enough to be a fan of any of those people would be able to endure this.

There is a tremendous ONE DAY festival lurking in that line-up.

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rbk
There is a tremendous ONE DAY festival lurking in that line-up.

Exactly what I thought haha. I wouldn't really ever want to go to a festival just cause its not my style, but if you got Santana, Raconteurs, Robert Plant, John Fogerty, Dead & Company, Black Keys, Gary Clark Jr, Greta Van Fleet (just to see what its like), David Crosby, Amy Helm, Hot Tuna, and the Zombies all in one day I would certainly be amused.

And while I appreciate they are there, I do crack up at Country Joe Macdonald, John Sebastian, Melanie and Canned Heat being there. Like I guess what else are they gonna do, but just funny to see those names on a Woodstock 50 poster.

I cannot decide whether I'm too old or too young for this lineup...

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Kurt
I cannot decide whether I'm too old or too young for this lineup...

Thats the issue. They're trying to attract a crowd that remembers Woodstock while also trying to get younger people wanting to feel like they are at another Woodstock. I guess thats the way to go, but I also think you do better with a Desert Trip sort of thing. Just cater to the audience that will probably appreciate it most. If you go young, its like any other festival (which is basically what this is) and if you go old its a little pathetic but the whole thing is predicated on a 50 year old institution. So I'd think it makes more sense to just play right into that than try and do a hybrid. Because in the hybrid, the younger people win, as is evidenced by almost every headliner besides Dead & Co and Santana. And in that respect, its not gonna be "Woodstock", its basically just Bonaroo.

In terms of classic rock, you couldn't do much better than Desert Trip though.

The only way Woodstock 50 could exceed something like that is if they pull a one-night-only reunion on the scale of Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd.

Anything short of that would be redundant. We already had a concert with McCartney, the Stones, the Who, Dylan, Neil Young, and Roger Waters. That's as good as it gets.

Honestly, I'd go to this if it wasn't 6 hours away. I wouldn't mind seeing Jay-Z or even a more-mature Miley Cyrus.

I think there's just a disconnect from the beginning though. You get people there literally under the pretense of the name "Woodstock". Thats absolutely THE draw. Then when you get there its a festival similar to any other these days. It skews A LITTLE more towards classic rock, but hardly. I feel like it comes off poseurish from the start. Its trying to attract a crowd that wants to relive Woodstock, which wasn't what the original festival spirit was. I just think the whole idea of "we want it to be connected to Woodstock, but also we can't go TOO Woodstock" seems flawed from the start. I wouldn't mind seeing a lot of these people either, but who wants to see them in this context? I just feel from the start the festival doesn't know what it wants to be. Nostalgia with modern acts, but that just comes off as a money grab and hipster-esque. Its people that want to feel like they are at Woodstock, and thats not really "cool".

I get your point. The completely bonkers mix of young and old acts and different genres is either a stroke of genius, or a completely aimless mess. We'll see what happens.

John Fogerty, Common and Michael Lang Celebrate Woodstock's Past & Future at Electric Lady Studios

3/19/2019 by Hilary Hughes


Common. Michael Lang & John Fogerty (photo: Kevin Mazur)

John Fogerty played a '68 Rickenbacker during his set at Woodstock with Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1969, and he later wrote "Green River" and "Travelin' Band" on that same guitar. In spite of the instrument's notoriety in Fogerty's arsenal, it left his grasp at some point in the '70s when he gave it away to two kids who used to hang around the band in San Francisco. His wife, Julie, eventually tracked it down and surprised him with it for Christmas one year.

This was one of the many stories Fogerty told for an intimate crowd on Tuesday night (March 19) at New York's Electric Lady Studios, where he belted out a few CCR hits -- including "Who'll Stop The Rain," which he wrote about Woodstock and played on that Rickenbacker -- and shared his memories of the festival while celebrating Woodstock 50, the next chapter of its legacy.

In addition to the announcement of the Woodstock 50 lineup, Fogerty's performance and a spirited set from Common -- the two artists who will join Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, Halsey, The Killers, Chance The Rapper and more over the weekend of Aug. 16-18 in Watkins Glen, N.Y. -- spoke on the festival's place in popular culture and its relevancy in 2019. Michael Lang, who produced the original Woodstock and its golden anniversary event, joined them in conversation, as did Andy Bernstein, who founded Headcount.org, an organization that makes it easy and accessible for patrons to register to vote at festivals and other live music events.

Common, though born in 1972, stressed that Woodstock was his "first awareness of a festival," and that Jimi Hendrix -- who played Woodstock, and built the studio in which this conversation took place -- was a huge influence on him. When asked about how he felt about the festival's embrace of hip-hop, he was adamant in his approval and praised Lang for taking a page from his kids' playbook. (Lang credited his children for introducing him to Chance The Rapper, specifically.)

But Fogerty was the star of the evening between the news, songs and storytelling, the assurance that the new iteration of Woodstock will embrace crucial aspects -- and the talent -- of the original. Introducing himself as "the guy who followed the Grateful Dead" and wearing a royal blue jacket emblazoned with Woodstock-inspired embroidery, he recalled his late night set at the festival and threw in an impression of the Dead's stage banter for good measure.

As Lang had earlier in the chat, he stressed the connection between Woodstock and how it offered solidarity and the spirit of activism for those looking for it in a moment of great political upheaval. Sharing his own experiences living as a teenager who was drafted into the Army reserve during the Vietnam War, he connected the dots between that fractured moment in American history and the current one we're living in -- which, in turn, strengthened the ties between the motivation for Woodstock and that of Woodstock 50.

The festival's mission hasn't changed in half a century, even if the context in the world around it has -- but thankfully Fogerty will be there to howl through "Fortunate Son" at a Woodstock that's got one foot in the past and the other standing proudly in the present.

[www.billboard.com]

Quote
Kurt

I cannot decide whether I'm too old or too young for this lineup...

The best comment I've read so far. Really, if you're between the ages of 30 and 60, you're both.

pass thank you.

If they really want to "recreate" Woodstock, they need thunderstorms, bad acid, and mud. Lots and lots of mud. Would be glorious.