PolyGram Diversified Entertainment and $3 million
from Pepsi. The event cost over $30 million to pro-
duce. In short, the original Woodstock was counter-
cultural, 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 pro-
vided real-time viewing for 290,000 pay-per-view cus-
tomers. 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 sponsor-
ship 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 Wood-
stock 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 vio-
lence and accusations of economic exploitation.
With the addition of a third coproducer, Ossie Kil-
kenny, Lang and Scher planned a third concert festi-
val to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the origi-
nal. This time, the location was Griffiss Technology
Park in Rome, New York. Unfortunately, the festi-
val’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 out-
rage 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 fes-
tivals had their own loud bands, including some of
the same groups that later appeared in 1999, popu-
lar 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 con-
flicting 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, al-
most mythic status of the original event, but condi-
tions 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 incarna-
tions and the 1969 template shows the pervasive
dominance of large corporations, as the entrepre-
neurial, tribal spirit of the first event had gone else-
where. 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 tele-
vision shows, in which the viewer is entertained by
the spectacle of everyday people (with a few profes-
sional 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 In-
ternet as a promotional tool. The official 1999 Web
site had sponsors such as Sony Playstation, Columbia
House, and Amazon.com, as well as ticket informa-
tion and artist profiles. Woodstock 1994 and 1999
signified the appropriation of counterculture by
marketing and the evolution of large live-music festi-
vals into global media events through television,
films, sound recordings, and the Internet.
Further Reading
Bennet, Andy, ed.Remembering Woodstock. Burling-
ton, 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 aesthet-
ics of Woodstock. Illustrated. Bibliography and
index.
Maglitta, Joseph E. “Woodstock ’99: Think E-Com-
merce, Dude—Companies Are Using Live Events
Such as the Thirtieth Anniversary Bash to Lever-
age the Web and IT in Ever More Creative Ways.”
Computerworld, August 16, 1999, 43. Presents a
technological perspective on the violent 1999 fes-
tival.934 Woodstock concerts The Nineties in America