Legendary CT Promoter Jim Koplik Calls Woodstock '99 'Horror Show

Jim Koplik is a legendary concert promoter, and a household name in CT.

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Koplik has produced shows for the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam, and everyone in between. Koplik is currently promoting his Sound on Sound music festival coming to Bridgeport, CT on September 24 and 25 of 2022. Our colleague Large Dave pulled a few strings and asked Koplik to join the Ethan and Lou Show on I-95, and he obliged on Thursday (9/14/22).

Koplik began promoting shows in the 1960's and has never stopped, so I thought he'd be the perfect person to ask about Woodstock '99. There are two major documentaries out about the infamous music festival right now. HBO Max has one called "Woodstock '99: Peace, Love and Rage." The Netflix doc is titled "Trainwreck: Woodstock '99", I asked Jim if he'd seen the films, and what he thought about the agro-Woodstock, this is what he told us:

"I did see them both and it was a horror show, no question about it. And, what I took away from it was, it was very poorly planned, the site was terrible, there was no free water and I will say that we are allowing people to bring in empty jugs in, to Sound on Sound. There will be water stations. We'll be selling water but there will also be free water. I think the main problem was, musically, it was a very aggressive type of music, a male, testosterone crowd, it was three days with camping, and I think the heat really got to people. And, we really learned a lot from it because we moved, made this festival in September, we made this festival much more female oriented, as I mentioned we have free water and it's more adult oriented. And, there is no camping so people can go home at night and they can come back the next day. We are the anti-Woodstock '99 as far as I'm concerned."

You can listen to Jim's answer below.

Click here for more information on the Sound on Sound Music Festival coming to Seaside Park in Bridgeport, CT. The show will feature: The Dave Matthews Band, Stevie Nicks, the Lumineers, Tim Reynolds and man more.

Our entire Jim Koplik interview is available below. We spoke to Jim about Sound on Sound, his friendship with Stevie Nicks and the state of Rock and Roll in 2022.

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