WOODSTOCK ANNIVERSARY ‘09
August 21st, 2009 by jonnySo, it’s been 40 whole years since Woodstock’s massive effect on the world. Thousands turned up to see some of the most famous acts of the time, such as The Who, Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and many more brilliant bands. The turn out was amazing, over 400,000 people traveled from all around the world to be a part of this life changing experience.
The festival was an idea to change the way our world thought, it was a free event, to get as many people as possible to attend. The subject as we all know was for more peace and love on the planet, and indeed it was a weekend full of love, peace and happiness. Amazingly, there were no more than 6,000 injuries over the whole weekend and three deaths, one accident and two drug related deaths. Which is pretty impressive to say there were over 400,000 people at the Festival.
In 1999 Woodstock had another festival, again to bring peace and love to the world. This time there were around 200,000 fans entering the three day event. The ‘99 Woodstock did not go to plan. In fact it was a disaster, but come on, what did they think would happen. You put 200,000 people in a field in front of the likes of metal gods Metallica and Rage Against The Machine.. not exactly going to have a loving peaceful weekend are you. On paper the line up was incredible, well if you have James Brown and the Chilli Peppers on the same stage it’s going to be pretty special isn’t it. The festival soon turned into a full scale riot including huge fires and big brawls. The reason being, Woodstock 69 was a free event full of peace and tranquillity, 99 wasn’t free and people were even getting searched to make sure there was no food being brought into the festival. To me it seams like it was a scheme to make a lot of money, not an event to change the world!
I personally blame it on the amount of hardcore, heavy metal acts supporting Woodstock. Such as Korn and Limpbizkit, two bands that are notorious for getting their fans to go crazy. Silly if you ask me. If your looking for a peaceful weekend then James Brown and Elvis Costello are perfect, Insane Clown posse and Kid Rock not so much!
Now we’re in 2009, forty years after the original Woodstock. There is a special anniversary taking place in both New York (August 15th-16th) and Berlin, Germany (August 22nd – 23rd). It was a fantastic success in New York and i’m sure Germany will be the same. Woodfest is free like the 69 weekend and has a lot more sensible choices of acts.
All of you lucky enough to enter either events have an amazing weekend and enjoy all the bands you see. Also don’t forget why you are going to this festival, to appreciate the brilliant music and to help put more peace in this world, I’m sure you all will have a great few days and I hope to see some reviews on how the weekend went.
Cheers, Tom Playrecord.net
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