On the death of Woodstock founder Michael Lang (77): father of all festivals

Culture Michael Lang †

The father of all festivals

Easy Rider from Bethel: Michael Lang at the Woodstock Festival Easy Rider from Bethel: Michael Lang at the Woodstock Festival

Easy Rider from Bethel: Michael Lang at the Woodstock Festival

Quelle: Getty Images

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With Woodstock we associate music and love, rain and mud, Jimi Hendrix and Joe Cocker. But what was Woodstock really? A little mythology about the death of festival founder Michael Lang.

Woodstock was a festival. Woodstock was not where the festival was celebrated; it was held in Bethel, 70 kilometers west, on the pasture of a dairy farmer named Max Yasgur.

Woodstock had three days of peace and music in the summer of 1969 – so it was on the posters with the white dove sitting on the low F on the guitar. 400,000 are said to have been there, the number of contemporary witnesses increased with each anniversary. It was also the last great peace fair of the last utopian decade – just a week after the Manson massacre, 5000 kilometers west of where the hippies lived.

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Woodstock was the primal scream of Joe Cocker, The Who and the orgy of destruction Jimi Hendrix with his apocalyptic version of America’s national anthem.

Woodstock was rain, mud, and chaos.

Woodstock, the picture of the pictures

Woodstock, the picture of the pictures

Quelle: picture alliance / United Archives/IFTN

“Woodstock” is a song by Joni Mitchellwho hadn’t made it there; she got stuck in a traffic jam, drove home again and composed her hymn to the festival and its myths. Woodstock is a legend.

Woodstock is the Peanuts’ yellow woodpecker, Snoopy’s best friend.

Woodstock is more than peace and music. The name is a license to print money: After the losses that investors and organizers complained about after the first settlements, Woodstock Ventures Inc. became its own industry with ever larger anniversary festivals, with anniversary records and anniversary snacks.

Michael Lang (1944-2022)

Michael Lang (1944-2022)

Quelle: picture alliance/dpa/Invision/AP

“Woodstock” is a restored film from 1970 that shows three days in three hours, and begins with a young man with long hair on his Victor as in “Easy Rider,” which had been in theaters for a month at the time , riding across Max Yasgur’s meadows. Michael Lang, a 24-year-old from Brooklyn, had managed to convince music managers, lawyers and entrepreneurs of his idea of ​​the festival. He lived in Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix was his neighbor.

Even if they had to move to Bethel because the neighborhood wasn’t ready for such a festival: Woodstock was Michael Lang, who died on January 8th. He was 77 years old.

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