40 Years Ago Today, Woodstock Began...

Rolling Stone has called it "the most famous event in rock history." The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, on a 600-acre farm in the township of Bethel, New York, from August 15-18, 1969, represents more than a peaceful gathering of 500,000 people and 32 musical performances. Woodstock has become an idea that has suffused our culture, politically and socially, as much as musically. Joni Mitchell, who didn't attend but wrote an anthemic song about it, once said, "Woodstock was a spark of beauty" where half-a-million kids "saw that they were part of a greater organism." According to Michael Lang, one of four young men who formed Woodstock Ventures to produce the festival, "That's what means the most to me – the connection to one another felt by all of us who worked on the festival, all those who came to it, and the millions who couldn't be there but were touched by it."

Taking Woodstock is based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber, the comedy stars Demetri Martin as Elliot, who inadvertently played a role in making 1969’s Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the famed happening it was. Featuring a standout ensemble cast, and songs from a score of ‘60s musical icons including The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish – plus a new recording of “Freedom” from Richie Havens – Taking Woodstock is a joyous voyage to a moment in time when everything seemed possible.

The movie will be released on August 28th.