NEW YORK – Michael Lang, the organizer of the 1969 Woodstock music festival in Bethel, died of cancer Saturday, at age 77, a family spokesman told “Variety” magazine.
The three-day event at Max Yasgur’s farm turned out to be the seminal music and cultural event of that era as 400,000 people gathered in the rain-soaked, muddy farm field.
The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is located at the site of the 1969 music festival.
The event, which took place during the time of the unpopular Vietnam war, attracted the likes of Santana, The Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimmy Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and The Who, among more than 30 bands.
Lang also organized Woodstock ’94 in Saugerties and he attempted to pull off Woodstock ’99 in Rome, New York, which never got off the ground.
