Outdoor music festivals are as much a part of summer as sunburns and long weekends. From Woodstock to Glastonbury and beyond, here’s a look at the mud, music, and fun of the summer music festival.
This UK festival began in 1970 (the first event took place the day after Jimi Hendrix died) and just keeps getting bigger and better. Along with acts such as Bruce Springsteen, Kasabian, and Dizzee Rascal, Glastonbury 2009 featured more than 700 metres of urinals (now That’s a lot of friends to have at a party).
On August 15, 1969, it was hard to imagine that a three-day music festival on a New York dairy farm would become such a cultural watershed?but the event known as Woodstock has become legend. This short video is a good primer for those who think Jefferson Airplane was a transportation company.
If ?orchestral concerts and recitals by international ensembles and soloists? are more your cup of tea, why not check out the Grafenegg Music Festival in Austria? There’s nothing quite like sipping fine wine while listening to Tchaikovsky on the grounds of a famous castle.
It was the summer of love, 1967, and well before Woodstock become a household name, acts like Simon and Garfunkel, The Who, and Janis Joplin came together at a festival in Monterey (this clip is a performance by The Mamas and the Papas).
