Glastonbury/Woodstock

Glastonbury and Woodstock are open-air music festivals whose musical and ideological influence have shaped the last four decades of youth culture in the United Kingdom, the United States, and beyond. For many, Woodstock represents the archetype of the countercultural youth movements of the 1960s, a music festival that defined a generation. Similarly, Glastonbury is seen as the United Kingdom's music festival par excellence, one that has defined the representation and reception of rock in the United Kingdom and further afield. While there is truth in both of these stereotypes, their iconic statuses mask their less straightforward origins and evolution. The festivals also subvert some of the earlier orthodoxies of the hegemony of a consumer society and the globalization of taste, both in their cultural content ...