Woodstock Ventures has teamed with Sony Music Entertainment to launch Woodstock.com, the official website for the Woodstock community.
Woodstock.com will feature a cutting edge live music social network for all concerts, including complete artist and event information, access to ticketing, concert reviews, blogs and a forum to connect with other fan events throughout the world. There will be platforms for environmental initiatives, social issues, and other current topics. Visitors to the site can meet on a virtual village green, a platform for developing initiatives about global warming, carbon emissions, and responsible energy use. A special interactive portion of the site will make clear to the world which issues are of the greatest importance to the Woodstock community. And of course, the site will be the ultimate source for all things Woodstock — exclusive interviews, guest editors, audio-visual content, rare photographs and other memorabilia with an online store offering a wide variety of goods including fine art prints of never-before-seen photography, music, film, collectables, apparel and books.
Woodstock.com will also offer a platform where fans can share their experiences from all of the Woodstock Festivals (’69,’94 & ’99) as well as other live concert events. Woodstock.com will also premiere WikiStock, an interactive wiki-style encyclopedia of all things Woodstock, which will accept and incorporate contributions about the individual experiences visitors have had at Woodstock festivals over the years.
Woodstock.com is being created under the auspices of Michael Lang and Joel Rosenman, two of the founders of the Woodstock Festival. The launch of Woodstock.com is planned to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, the historic weekend that showed the world how the youth of America could unite in peace and music.
“Woodstock began as a dream and became a reality that exceeded our wildest expectations,” said Michael Lang. “That dream lives on and our hope is that Woodstock.com will harness the power of 21st century technology to the communal idealism and values that continue to grow out of Woodstock.”
Joel Rosenman added, “Like the Woodstock Festival, Woodstock.com is designed with the Woodstock community in mind — a destination for music, social issues, memories and hopes, and above all, a place to have fun. And, like the festival, the website will change and evolve. The Woodstock community will see right away that Woodstock.com is not only a place, it’s a pathway for a fascinating journey.”
“The original Woodstock festival shaped the musical and cultural values of a generation,” said Adam Block, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. “We at Sony Music are grateful for the opportunity to partner with Woodstock Ventures in bringing the heritage and spirit of Woodstock Nation into the future.”
Grammy-nominated artist Matisyahu will embark on an extensive summer tour beginning May 30, playing major festivals and co-headlining several shows in the South with Les Claypool and on the East Coast with Umphrey’s McGee, including Central Park Summerstage on July 9. (Please see reverse for a complete schedule of confirmed dates.)
Bass virtuoso Les Claypool is known for his seminal work with Primus, as well as a bevy of his own projects including Oysterhead (with Trey Anastasio and Stewart Copeland) and The Frog Brigade. Umphrey’s McGee, which has several critically acclaimed albums to its credit, is one of the most visible and successful improvised music bands in recent years.
In addition to his shows alongside Claypool and Umphrey’s McGee, Matisyahu plays a slew of major festivals this summer including Wakarusa Festival (June 5), Harmony Music Festival (June 14-15), Milwaukee Summerfest (July 2), 80-35 Festival (July 3), Rothbury Festival (July 5), Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest (July 11), Festival d’été de Québec (July 12), Mile High Music Festival (July 19).
Joined by a new backing band, the acclaimed dub-rock band Dub Trio along with Matisyahu band veterans Aaron Dugan (guitar) and Rob Marscher (keyboards), Matisyahu kicks off the tour May 30 in Florida. Dub Trio, whom The New York Times says “affectionately recall Bad Brains,” consists of DP Holmes (guitar & keyboards), Stu Brooks (bass & keyboards) and Joe Tomino (drums & melodica). Dub Trio played on Matisyahu’s cover of John Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels” for 2007’s compilation Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur.
Matisyahu emerged in 2004 with his debut album Shake Off the Dust…Rise. With the release of Live at Stubb’s (2005), which reached #1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart, and Youth (2006), which debuted at #4 on Billboard’s Top 200 and reached #1 on the Reggae Albums chart, Matisyahu gained considerable critical acclaim. Both albums subsequently went Gold and Youth was nominated for a Grammy for Best Reggae Album.
June 1* St. Petersburg, FL Jannus Landing
June 2* Atlanta, GA The Tabernacle
June 4* Memphis, TN Minglewood Hall
June 5 Ozark, AR Wakarusa Festival
June 7* Dallas, TX The Palladium
June 8* Houston, TX House of Blues
June 9* Austin, TX Austin Music Hall
June 11+ Tucson, AZ Rialto Theatre
June 13-14 Santa Rosa, CA Harmony Music Festival
June 16+ Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
June 18+ Ventura, CA Ventura Theatre
June 20+ Las Vegas, NV House of Blues
June 21+ San Luis Obispo, CA Pozo Saloon
June 23+ Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
June 24+ Seattle, WA The Moore Theatre
June 25+ Boise, ID Knitting Factory
June 27 Salt Lake City, UT In The Venue
June 29 Aspen, CO Belly Up
July 1 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
July 2 Milwaukee, WI Summerfest
July 3 Des Moines, IA 80-35 Festival
July 5 Rothbury, MI Rothbury Festival
July 7† Boston, MA Bank of America Pavilion
July 8† Philadelphia, PA Electric Factory
July 9† New York, NY Central Park SummerStage
July 11 Ottawa, ON Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest
July 12 Quebec City, QC Festival d’été de Québec
July 19 Denver, CO Mile High Music Festival
*—co-headline with Les Claypool
+ —with very special guest K’naan
†— co-headline with Umphrey’s McGee
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