A new 38-disc box set will provide the most complete look yet into the original 1969 Woodstock festival. Woodstock 50: Back to the Garden – The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive includes all but three songs from the historic event, many of them issued for the first time ever.

No official release date has been announced yet, though the set is expected to arrive in August – five decades after the original festival was held Aug. 15-18, 1969, at Max Yasgur's farm near White Lake in Bethel, N.Y. Highlights from the three days included Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, among others.

"There have been large boxed sets devoted to particular eras or tours — the Grateful Dead do a great job of that sort of thing — but there's never, to my knowledge, been an attempt to present a large-scale durational experience of this sort," Andy Zax, a Los Angeles producer and archivist who co-produced the new set, told Rolling Stone. "The Woodstock tapes give us a singular opportunity for a kind of sonic time travel, and my intention is to transport people back to 1969. There aren’t many other concerts you could make this argument about."

The Dead, Janis Joplin, the Band and Creedence Clearwater Revival were not included on the classic 1970 triple LP; even the multi-disc 2009 box left out key moments – and in some cases entire acts. The new box includes 432 songs, of which 267 have never been officially released. They'll be presented chronologically by set time and day. Also included are all of the period-specific PA announcements involving "brown acid," "blood pills," etc.

The 38-disc box, which also includes a Blu-ray of Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock movie from 1970 and a replica of the original program among other extras, will reportedly retail for $799. There will also be 10-disc and three-disc editions available.

 

 

 

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