They Won’t Get Fooled Again

What a difference 25 years makes with the media.

The press got caught short by the original Woodstock festival in 1969. Who knew it was going to be a cultural landmark?

“None of the other writers wanted to go,” recalls Atlantic Records President Danny Goldberg, who was assigned to the rock festival as a 19-year-old cub reporter for Billboard magazine.

“I was excited to go, but the regular reviewers were into going to the Copacabana (nightclub) and getting free drinks.”

Things will be slightly different at next weekend’s 25th-anniversary event. This time around, the TV, print and radio corps will number a staggering 1,100 persons. That’s nearly 40 newshounds for each act on the two-day bill.

And the total could have been four times that number.

Hayley Sumner, a press coordinator for the event, said that more than 3,000 credential applications were turned down because of space limitations.

“I’ve worked Live Aid, Paul Simon’s big concerts in Central Park and even Howard Stern,” says Sumner, who works for Dan Klores Associates, “but I’ve never seen a turnout like this.”

If this saturation coverage rubs you the wrong way, don’t feel alone. Neil Young, who played the ’69 festival, is so turned off by the corporate ethos of the anniversary concert that he’s designed “Wood$tock” hats featuring a vulture posed on a guitar neck.