Peace, love, history
Lang,'69 Woodstock organizer, dies at 77
Michael Lang, a co-creator and promoter of the legendary 1969 Woodstock music festival, has died.
Michael Pagnotta, a spokesperson for Lang’s family, said Sunday the 77-year-old concert-industry trailblazer had been battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and passed away Saturday at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.
“He was absolutely an historic figure, and also a great guy,” Pagnotta, who said he had known Lang for 30 years, told The Associated Press. “Both of those thing go hand in hand.”
Along with partners Artie Kornfeld, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, Lang put together the Sullivan County, NY, festival billed as “three days of peace and music” in August 1969 as the Vietnam War raged and disillusionment led increasing numbers of disaffected young Americans to turn away from traditional mores and embrace a lifestyle that celebrated freedom of expression.
32 acts, 400,000 fans
Roughly 400,000 people descended on the hamlet of Bethel, about 50 miles northwest of New York City, and endured miles-long traffic jams, torrential rains, food shortages and overwhelmed sanitary facilities. Thirty-two acts performed on the concert’s main stage at the base of a hill on land owned by farmer Max Yasgur, and concertgoers were treated to iconic performances from artists including Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, The Who and Jefferson Airplane.
Lang, sporting a head of bushy brown hair, is seen throughout Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary movie that chronicled the festival.
“From the beginning, I believed that if we did our job right and from the heart, prepared the ground and set the right tone, people would reveal their higher selves and create something amazing,” Lang wrote in his 2009 memoir, “The Road to Woodstock.”
Lang, who also planned additional Woodstocks in 1994 and 1999, sought to mount a concert in 2019 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the original Woodstock, but it was scrapped due to financial issues and difficulty securing a venue. In an interview with the AP at the time, Lang called the experience “a really bizarre trip,” and said he still hoped to hold the concert in the future.
Although Woodstock ’69 is often viewed as creating the template for large-scale music festivals, it wasn’t the first of its kind in the US.
In 1967, the Monterey International Pop Music Festival drew about 200,000 people to Central California, and the Miami Pop Festival followed in 1968, which Lang also organized. But Woodstock nonetheless holds an indelible place in history.
“A lot of them are modeled after Woodstock — Bonnaroo and Coachella, in particular,” Lang said of modern-day festivals in a 2009 interview. “There was a ritual that was created that keeps getting replicated.”