NEW YORK – Half a century later, Michael Lang was still calling for change.
On the 50th anniversary of its historic 1969 Woodstock Art and Music FairLang spoke about the need for sensible gun control laws and signed a petition on a part of the floor of the original festival stage.
“Fifty years ago, we were protesting Vietnam,” he said in 2019. “Nobody wanted to go out and die in an unpopular war. Now, we are seeing children being killed here at home.”
For decades, Lang, the co-creator of the event, advocated the ideals presented at the festival.
He died Saturday at age 77 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, his family confirmed. Lang had been battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
“He was absolutely a historical figure, and also a great guy,” family spokesman Michael Pagnotta told The Associated Press. Pagnotta said he had known Lang for about 30 years. “The two go hand in hand.”
“Performing at the festival is a memory I will never forget”, John Fogerty tweeted Sunday. “Sending love to his family”.
“Woodstock 1969 made me want to make music, and Woodstock 1994 put me on the map.” Sheryl Crow wrote. “Eternally grateful for giving a rookie a chance on that historic setting.”
Lang leaves a legacy as an icon for multiple generations of music fans, helping to popularize the modern music festival. It’s a legacy that also includes high-profile failures, such as a 1999 Woodstock festival marked by violence and a 2019 event that ended in cancellations and legal action when Lang’s organizing group repeatedly failed to obtain the proper permits and meet the requirements. security requirements necessary for a modern music festival.
Lang and his three partners in 1969 “changed the world, even though everything was against them,” Lori Majewski, host of Sirius XM’s Volume channel and former executive editor of “Entertainment Weekly,” told USA TODAY Network in the wake of Woodstock 50’s. cancellation. “They faced adversity at all times. But people walked away thinking, ‘Yes, we can, we can change the world.’ I think that’s why Michael Lang fought so hard for Woodstock 50. “
Still, the anniversary of its original festival brought tens of thousands of people to visit Sullivan County’s Bethel Woods Center for the Arts Aug. 15-18 for a four-day celebration. Lang decided not to attend; The organizer and the organization that operates a concert hall on the festival’s original land had a long-standing break, and Lang had insisted that only Woodstock 50 would be the official anniversary event.
‘Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage’:HBO documentary recounts ‘off the rails’ concert fiasco
‘Three days of peace and music’
Together with his partners Artie Kornfeld, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, Lang organized the festival billed as “three days of peace and music” in the summer of 1969, when the Vietnam War broke out and brought increasing numbers of young Americans. disgruntled to move away from customs and adopted a lifestyle that celebrated freedom of expression.
Approximately 450,000 people arrived in the Bethel village, enduring kilometer-long traffic jams, torrential rains, food shortages and overwhelmed sanitary facilities. More than 30 acts took place on the main stage of the concert at the base of a hill on land owned by farmer Max Yasgur, and concert goers were able to enjoy iconic performances by artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, The Who and Jefferson. Airplane.
Lang, sporting thick brown hair, is seen throughout Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary film chronicling the festival.
“From the beginning, I believed that if we did our job well and from the heart, set the stage and set the right tone, people would reveal their higher selves and create something amazing,” Lang wrote in his memoir, “The Road to Woodstock.” .
Although Woodstock is often considered to create the template for large-scale music festivals, it was not the first to take place in the U.S. Two years earlier, the Monterey Pop festival drew some 200,000 people to California, and in 1968 the Miami Pop Festival followed, which Lang also organized. But Woodstock nonetheless occupies an indelible place in history.
The 1969 festival created “this hope for a better life, a better world, a more compassionate world, and it came at a time when things were very dark,” Lang said.
He described Woodstock as “a kind of miracle in a way.”
“Half a million people got together, no one followed anyone, everyone came together as a community and family,” he said. “It was so remarkably different from what the human experience is, the day-to-day experience. It was a moment of hope, something that was proof that this was possible, and it resonated.
“They came from a counterculture that was very involved in trying to make the world a better place. This was an opportunity for all of us to see if that could happen when we were in charge, and it did. “
Recovering the magic of Woodstock
In the months leading up to the 2019 anniversary, Lang spoke of how the country’s political climate was reminiscent of 1969 and the value another Woodstock could have on society. Lang and his partners found the Yasgur farm after the planned site for the original festival at Saugerties failed in March 1969, adding to the mystique of Woodstock as an entity that could overcome obstacles.
But repeated attempts to bring that magic back proved impossible, in part because of how the modern music industry had changed.
Woodstock ’94 in Saugerties hosted 350,000 people, of which 100,000 entered for free, and was perhaps the first indication of Woodstock’s struggles to find its footing beyond 1969.
Woodstock ’99 took place five years later at Griffiss Air Force Base near Rome, New York. But, the event was marked by violence, fires and reports of sexual abuse.
In 2009, Lang hoped to host a Woodstock 40th anniversary concert in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. But the cost of organizing a free concert and the inability to find sponsors to cover the cost of $ 8 million to $ 10 million forced him to leave the show.
Plans for Woodstock 50 changed multiple times: After failing to obtain the necessary permits to hold the event at Watkins Glen International Racecourse in Schuyler County, the City of Vernon rejected a hasty plan for the event to take place in Vernon. Downs. It was eventually canceled after one last attempt at an event at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.
Still, Woodstock’s memory and ideals continue to resonate.
Contribution: The Poughkeepsie (New York) Journal and The Associated Press
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism