Woodstock chopped

Sense has been seen, and there is to be no Woodstock 40th anniversary festival.

It's not entirely down to sense, though: Michael Lang couldn't find any sponsors willing to underwrite the attempt to revive the spirit of Woodstock. Perhaps because they remembered what happened the last time someone tried that.

Woodstock again?

You'd have thought that after the 30th anniversary event descended into fire, riot and claims of rape that nobody would be bothered about a doing a 40th anniversary Woodstock.

Michael Lang is keen to press on, though. He thinks the smell of acrid fires and sexual assaults has dissipated:

"I think it always hearkens back to the '69 event, somehow," he said. "When people think (of Woodstock) they don't think '99 or '94. They think (of) the '69 event. I think (1999) has its ramifications, but I don't think it did any real damage in that sense."

Yes. They might think of 1969 when they think of Woodstock. But when they think of ill-conceived anniversary revivals of Woodstock, it's always going to be 1999.

It's not going to go ahead unless it can find a sponsor, which perhaps is just intended to be some sort of humorous punchline to the original's much-proclaimed hippy ethos.