Events attempt to recapture Woodstock

Events attempt to recapture Woodstock

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118007028.html?categoryid=16&ref=ra&cs=1

Promoters find it hard to reroll the '60s

Aug. 7, 2009
By STEVE CHAGOLLAN

Apparently recapturing the musical spirit of Woodstock 40 years after
the fact has proved as elusive as finding somebody who actually saw
Jimi Hendrix's early-morning set that capped the epochal 1969 event
-- long after most of the half-million throng had departed, leaving
the 600-acre site in Bethel, N.Y., a sea of mud and debris.

That's not to say there's any shortage of concert tributes that are
capitalizing on Woodstock's landmark anniversary. In the final
analysis, though, recruiting musicians the caliber of Hendrix, the
Who, Santana and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in their prime might
amount to a pipe dream in today's pop/rock landscape.

The current Heroes of Woodstock tour, featuring 40 U.S. dates --
including a stop at the original Bethel site Aug. 15, the date the
1969 event kicked off -- has so far sold 70%-80% capacity in the
three Midwest stops it played, in venues ranging from 2,000-8,000
capacity, according to Gen-X Entertainment's Tim Murphy, one of the
tour's co-producers. Just north of 10,000 tickets have been sold for
Bethel, which has 15,500 available seats.

Many of that traveling roadshow's Heroes, most of whom played at Max
Yasgur's farm four decades ago, might be considered operating at
partial strength: the Jefferson Starship playing Jefferson Airplane
songs without Grace Slick (co-frontman Marty Balin appears at some
dates but not all); Big Brother and the Holding Company without the
late Janis Joplin; Levon Helm, appearing sporadically on the tour,
without the Band; etc.

Similarly FestWest, slated for San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on
Oct. 25, boasts Denny Laine but not Wings; Lester Chambers but not
the Chambers Brothers, Ray Manzarek but not the Doors. FestWest is,
however, the one free event sanctioned by one of Woodstock Venture's
original Gang of Four, Artie Kornfeld, the so-called "Father of
Woodstock," who has been promoting this particular gathering of
tribes on his weekly Internet radio show, "The Spirit of the
Woodstock Nation," which he says reaches 10 million listeners a week.

Two other events -- WoodFest '09 (Aug. 14-16), in Davis, Okla., and
the Woodstock Illinois Tribute (Aug. 14-15) -- are featuring an array
of bands that mimic the likes of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the
Grateful Dead and Creedence Clearwater.

Kornfeld's ex-partner Michael Lang -- the curly haired, ever-youthful
entrepreneur who was immortalized in Michael Wadleigh's Oscar-winning
1970 documentary about those Three Days of Peace & Music -- told
Variety that what might have come closest to an official 40th
anniversary celebration fell short due to lack of funds. (The other
two principals in the original Woodstock Ventures were Joel Rosenman
and the late John Roberts.)

"It required sponsorship at a pretty hefty level, and the sponsors
had to be green," says Lang, whose memoir, "The Road to Woodstock,"
written with Holly George-Warren, was recently published. "And it's
just the wrong year for sponsor budgets. They just don't exist,
because of the general state of the economy."

Lang's plans had called for a free, eco-friendly music event in
Brooklyn's Prospect Park on Aug. 26 designed to piggyback on New
York's Climate Week, a five-day program of events scheduled for Aug.
21-25, meant to address the need for action on climate change.

The initial blueprint called for surviving Woodstock talents, along
with stylistically similar groups such as the Dave Matthews Band and
the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to appear on the bill. But the current
sociopolitical landscape, as well as a fragmented music industry
dominated by corporate rock and decidedly anti-Flower Power rap, has
rendered anything resembling the original event an anachronism.

Granted, music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo might have
seemed unimaginable without Woodstock paving the way. But attempts to
revive the Aquarian flame, as evidenced by key anniversary events in
1994 and 1999, have proved either disappointing or disastrous (the
1999 event was marked by unruly crowds, violence and fires).

"How can you do a Woodstock 2 with Pepsi-Cola and a record company
sponsoring it," asks Kornfeld, whose upcoming book "The Pied Piper"
chronicles his multifaceted career in the music biz. "I can't do a
40th anniversary unless it's free."

The for-profit Heroes of Woodstock was limited in its ability to
attract top acts. Murphy admits that such Woodstock veterans as
Santana, the Who and Joe Cocker "were too expensive," with the
producers' aim to keep most ticket prices in the relatively low
$30-$40 range. And, he adds, it's not just baby boomers who've
attended so far. At the tour's recent stop in Michigan, "probably
20%-25% of that crowd was under 30 years old."

The antiwar movement and the sexual revolution made Woodstock '69 as
much a free-speech platform -- epitomized by Country Joe McDonald's
trenchant "Fixin' to Die Rag" and Hendrix's incendiary "Star-Spangled
Banner" -- as it was a musical phenomenon. And the free Bay Area
event in October might come closest to approximating the
undercurrents that made Woodstock such a cultural touchstone, with
planned appearances by original members of the Yippies, the Black
Panthers and Beat poets like Michael McLure.

And just as Woodstock was so deluged by crowds that organizers
eventually declared it a free event, FestWest could tax Golden Gate
Park, not to mention the city of San Francisco, beyond its capacity.

"We are expecting over 100,000 people at this event," says organizer
Boots Hughston, FestWest's primary mover and shaker, who bases the
figure on his "40thAnniversary of the Summer of Love" two years ago,
which attracted 100,000 people. "This event has even larger buzz."

Whether all the hoopla over Woodstock will have died down by October
is anybody's guess.

"What I'm trying to do is rebuild the spirit of the Woodstock
nation," says Kornfeld. "If you can get people together in peace for
a day in this world, then you've done a good thing."

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