Woodstock concerts in the 1990s

The Event Re-creations of the original 1969 Woodstock Festival

Date August 12-14, 1994; July 23-25, 1999

Place Saugerties, New York; Rome, New York

The twenty-fifth and thirtieth anniversary celebrations were planned as reincarnations of the landmark Woodstock concert of 1969, but the corporate-sponsored 1994 sequel, dubbed “Mudstock,” and the 1999 festival, which was tarnished by violence, were significantly different from the original.

Woodstock ’94 was held on the weekend of August 12-14 on the 840-acre Winston Farm in Saugerties, New York. This twenty-fifth anniversary celebration was intended to re-create the idealism and social harmony of the original 1969 “Woodstock Nation” in Bethel, New York. Both events took place on farms and suffered from bad weather. After torrential rains started pouring on August 13, 1994, people slam-danced in muddy mosh pits, and the “mud people” became the symbol of this concert. At both concerts, a large number of people got in without paying. Tickets to the first Woodstock were $18 in advance (about $72 in 1994 dollars) for the three days, and 150,000 to 200,000 people were expected, but when thousands more came, it became a free event, with nearly half a million people attending. In 1994, tickets cost $135; about 190,000 people bought tickets, but another 100,000 or so snuck in without paying.

From the beginning, there were major differences. Woodstock Ventures’ Michael Lang, a coproducer of the original festival, joined with John Scher of Metropolitan Talent to produce Woodstock ’94, with huge corporate sponsorship from coproducer PolyGram Diversified Entertainment and $3 million from Pepsi. The event cost over $30 million to produce. In short, the original Woodstock was countercultural, but Woodstock ’94 was mainstream. The latter festival’s plans included a movie and a book, like the 1969 event, but now there would also be a sound recording, “I Survived Woodstock ’94” T-shirts, and television coverage. Syndicated television provided real-time viewing for 290,000 pay-per-view customers. Recorded tapes went to twenty-six foreign networks serving ninety-eight countries.

Numerous musicians boycotted the 1994 event because they felt that the heavy corporate sponsorship was contrary to the ideals of the original festival. However, some anticommercial or alternative bands, such as Candlebox, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Porno for Pyros, performed. Approximately fifty bands participated. Musicians from the first Woodstock included Santana, Joe Cocker, Country Joe McDonald, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash. Peter Gabriel headlined and closed on a calm note with “Biko,” a song about South African antiapartheid martyr Steve Biko.

Violence in 1999

Woodstock 1999 was a far cry from its 1969 counterpart, as it was marred by violence and accusations of economic exploitation. With the addition of a third coproducer, Ossie Kilkenny, Lang and Scher planned a third concert festival to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the original. This time, the location was Griffiss Technology Park in Rome, New York. Unfortunately, the festival’s dates, July 23-25, coincided with a deadly heat wave that affected the entire region. These extreme conditions—with temperatures in the nineties; the high beverage and food prices, which might have been accepted for indoor rock concerts and sports events; and unsanitary conditions—provoked outrage among the concertgoers. Tension mounted among the audience of about 200,000 people.

To make matters worse, the programming grouped a series of loud, aggressive heavy metal bands in sequence. While the earlier Woodstock festivals had their own loud bands, including some of the same groups that later appeared in 1999, popular culture had fragmented, and specific cultural practices, such as dancers deliberately slamming into each other, were associated with the aggressive groups. Another problem was connected with conflicting attitudes about nudity. The 1969 Woodstock was associated with a kind of communal approach to nudity, with connections to the social experiments of that period. However, that spirit was missing from the 1999 festival: Along with other kinds of violence, there were four instances of alleged rape. There was also widespread looting, and several fires were set.

Impact

The second and third Woodstock festivals may have been an attempt to recreate the iconic, almost mythic status of the original event, but conditions and societal changes led to far different results than the peace, love, and music of the original. If anything, the contrast between the 1990’s incarnations and the 1969 template shows the pervasive dominance of large corporations, as the entrepreneurial, tribal spirit of the first event had gone elsewhere. Although people who were nostalgic for the 1960’s youth culture may have been disappointed by the overtly exploitative atmosphere and violence, the promoters’ clever use of media pointed toward such twenty-first century phenomena as reality television shows, in which the viewer is entertained by the spectacle of everyday people (with a few professional actors included) immersing themselves in mud, taking off most of their clothes, and projecting an uninhibited environment.

The 1999 event also saw the creative use of the Internet as a promotional tool. The official 1999 Web site had sponsors such as Sony Playstation, Columbia House, and Amazon.com, as well as ticket information and artist profiles. Woodstock 1994 and 1999 signified the appropriation of counterculture by marketing and the evolution of large live-music festivals into global media events through television, films, sound recordings, and the Internet.

Bibliography

Bennet, Andy, ed. Remembering Woodstock. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2004. The first essay focuses on the three Woodstock concerts and the live-music scene. Other essays cover themes such as the cultural impact of popular music and the aesthetics of Woodstock. Illustrated. Bibliography and index.

Maglitta, Joseph E. “Woodstock ’99: Think E-Commerce, Dude—Companies Are Using Live Events Such as the Thirtieth Anniversary Bash to Leverage the Web and IT in Ever More Creative Ways.” Computerworld, August 16, 1999, 43. Presents a technological perspective on the violent 1999 festival.

Sheffield, Rob. “Rage Against the Latrines.” Rolling Stone 820 (September 2, 1999): 52-55. This cover story gives a detailed account of the three days of turmoil and problems with fires, nudity, and violence at Woodstock 1999.

Watson, Albert. Woodstock 94: Three More Days of Peace and Music. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Beautiful pictorial record, including portraits of performers, audience, and other scenes from the festival. Afterword by the concert producers.