Woodstock 50 Line-Up Officially Announced

The line-up for this summer’s fiftieth anniversary edition of Woodstock has been officially announced (identities of preliminary acts begin to leak earlier this month). Unfortunately, if unsurprisingly, metal will be woefully underrepresented at the event, with only three acts — Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, Greta Van Fleet, Rival Sons, and Fever 333 — playing music that even lands somewhere in the general vicinity of our musical genre of choice. Other artists set to perform include Jay-Z, The Killers, Miley Cyrus, Santana, Chance the Rapper, and, of course, everyone’s favoritest band in the world that we would never make fun lest their feelings get hurt, Imagine Dragons.

As I said, the lack of metal isn’t entirely surprising — when you think of “peace and love,” you don’t exactly think “Napalm Death and The Black Dahlia Murder.” Still, I was expecting some more “hipster friendly” (for lack of a better term) bands on here — y’know, acts like Ghost and Deafheaven and anything involving Matt Pike. It’s hard not to wonder if the lack of such acts was a decision based on the fact that Woodstock ’99 featured a plethora of metal bands — including Metallica, Megadeth, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Sevendust, and Buckcherry — and the whole fest ended up being a disaster. Limp Bizkit’s set, in particular, was marked by substantial amounts of sexual assaults and property destruction. Assuming that is the reason they shied away from having any real metal bands on the bill this time around, well… there’s one more reason to hate Limp Bizkit!

The full line-up is on the admat below. Woodstock 50 will take place from August 16-18, 2019.