It’s the most famous concert event in the history of rock. Now, over four days, Philadelphia public radio station WXPN will present a minute-by-minute replay of the legendary Woodstock music festival exactly 50 years to the day and hour later.
Beginning at 5:07 p.m. ET on Thursday, August 15 on WXPN, “Woodstock — As It Happened — 50 Years On” will transport listeners to Max Yasgur’s upstate New York farm for four days of music performed by 32 artists, in the 1969 event originally billed as the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair (now known simply as Woodstock), which started at 5:07 pm on Friday, August 15 and ended on Monday, August 18.
The mirror image radio event will incorporate a treasure trove of content found in Rhino Entertainment’s massive new collection, Woodstock — Back To The Garden — The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive, containing 38 discs and 432 tracks, along with 267 previously unreleased audio tracks.
“From the movie that came out in March of 1970, to the numerous collections of recordings released over the years, there has yet to be a full authentic musical account of the concert until now,” said Bruce Warren, WXPN Associate General Manager for Programming. “WXPN
is going to pay the most effective tribute to the music, the way it was originally performed, at exactly the same times the sets were performed to give our listeners a feel for how it all really went down.”
Warren added that WXPN’s epic Woodstock broadcast — which will be broadcast only once, and not archived — will be complemented by musical trips back to the year 1969 on Thursday, August 15 in WXPN’s weekly #TBT (Throwback Thursday) feature and on Saturday, August 17 in its weekly 50/50 feature (music from 50 years over 50 weeks, with a specific year featured every Saturday).
