Woodstock producer 'pretty bummed' at missed bid to recreate 1969 activism

By Alicia Powell

 

Woodstock producer Michael Lang poses during a photo exhibit that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Woodstock in New York, U.S., August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Alicia Powell

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The man behind the failed Woodstock 50 anniversary festival said on Friday he was "pretty bummed" at losing out on a chance to encourage people to take action on global warming.

 

Michael Lang, who was also one of the producers of the 1969 Woodstock music festival, said he had hoped that the new event would recreate the activism of the late 1960s.

 

"The reason to do it really was to engage people in activism and the efforts to stop global warming, which I think is probably the greatest threat to humanity that we've seen in our lifetime," Lang told Reuters Television.

 

Lang was visiting a 50th anniversary Woodstock photo exhibit at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York following the cancellation last month of a planned three-day event to mark the festival that became a symbol of 1960s counterculture. Woodstock 50 was called off after months of setbacks over venues, permits and financial backing.

 

Lang, now 74, recalled the lofty hopes of the 1969 festival, which also faced a late change of venue and huge logistical issues when some 450,000 people turned up.

 

"It was really about trying to see if, when (my generation) were in charge, things could work the way we hoped they would. And it did. Everybody really came together in a community of celebrating peace and music.

 

"We were kind of losing that dream for a better way to be on the planet. So for me, it was kind of a last-ditch effort to see that if we took the tribes out of the daily grind and the cities and came out to nature, with us in charge, we could actually make it work amongst ourselves," Lang said.

 

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Sonya Hepinstall)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-08-10

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“...global warming.”    Oh Buddha...here we go again.   

   I like to call it Gore Bull Warming. 

  5555555 ????

that time is gone and it will never be recreated, everybody is just too damn greedy these days...

On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 10:26 PM, rooster59 said:

Michael Lang, who was also one of the producers of the 1969 Woodstock music festival, said he had hoped that the new event would recreate the activism of the late 1960s.

There was no "activism" caused by Woodstock. A big crowd of people turned up to hear music, and then they went home. They didn't change the world an iota because of it, IMO.

 

Perhaps it failed because there just aren't any musicians enough people want to hear that they could afford. Imagine the Stones, the remaining Beatles, Fleetwood Mac etc playing- there wouldn't be enough space for all the people wanting to go.

On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 10:26 PM, rooster59 said:

"The reason to do it really was to engage people in activism and the efforts to stop global warming, which I think is probably the greatest threat to humanity that we've seen in our lifetime," Lang told Reuters Television.

People are beginning to wise up, and if he'd been publicising that it probably turned people off. Who wants to go to hear music and get blasted with messages about global warming all the time?

 

It's sad to remember that many of the best musicians of that era died from overdosing on illegal drugs. Perhaps they should have made it about saying no to drugs that kill people????

13 hours ago, from the home of CC said:

that time is gone and it will never be recreated, everybody is just too damn greedy these days...

and there are no new great musicians to attract an audience large enough.