If you haven’t noticed the Woodstock blitz is on. The 40th anniversary of the most famous rock festival in history is being celebrated with a number of new releases on CD, DVD and Blu-Ray.

The only question left is whether Michael Lang, who produced the original festival, will stage anniversary events in August. There were reports earlier this year about free concerts in upstate New York and Berlin, Germany, but nothing is confirmed.

The video of the festival has been re-released by Warner Brothers in at least three versions, a two-disc Special Edition, and a three-disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition on DVD and Blu-Ray. It comes in a funky fringed box and features a 225-minute Director’s Cut and an additional three hours of bonus material and previously unreleased performances by artists such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, The Who, The Dead and The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, among many others.

Despite all this, there are still performances that won’t be included, most notably The Band. But others such as Creedence and Mountain will be making their first appearance. Blu-Ray will set you back about $60, while DVD can be had for $42. You can find a list of the 18 bonus performances here.

In addition, Legacy announced this week the release on June 30 of five CDs under the umbrella title Woodstock Experience. Five of their artists who performed at Woodstock released albums in 1969: Santana, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Sly & The Family Stone and Johnny Winter. The company has coupled each of those with the artists’ live performances from the festival in a 2-disc edition. Each is listing at $20 but can be purchased for as low as $15 on pre-release. You can buy all five in a box set for just under $70.

Here is an example of one of the disc’s track listing. This one for Sly’s Stand!

Disc One

1. Stand!
2. Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey
3. I Want To Take You Higher
4. Somebody’s Watching You
5. Sing A Simple Song
6. Everyday People
7. Sex Machine
8. You Can Make It If You Try.

Disc Two (Recorded live at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Sunday, August 17, 1969)

1. M’Lady (previously unissued)
2. Sing A Simple Song (previously unissued)
3. You Can Make It If You Try (previously unissued)
4. Everyday People (previously unissued)
5. Dance To The Music
6. MEDLEY: Music Lover / Higher
7. I Want To Take You Higher (previously unreleased)
8. Love City
9. Stand! (previously unissued)

You can see the full track listings for all five at Legacy.

But there’s more. On August 18, a six-CD box set will be released with 77 songs, 38 previously unreleased. Yikes! List is 80 bucks. Gulp! Want the full track list? Get it here.

I have the Director’s Cut of Woodstock on DVD from the early ’90s, so it’s doubtful that I’m going to spring for a new edition, the bonus material notwithstanding. Although the Butterfield inclusion is tempting, it’s minimal — one tune on the DVD, three on the CD set. None of the Experience CDs particularly interest me with the exception of Sly. Of course, I just bought a remaster of Stand! last year, which is excellent, so that holds little attraction also.

On top of that, I was never much of a fan of the San Francisco sound except for some individual tunes by each of those artists. Most of their catalogues top to bottom are not that interesting to me.

If you’re looking for a less expensive alternative you might consider Last Days Of The Fillmore, which from the little I’ve seen of it so far looks very nicely put together. It has a lot of San Francisco acts but also some lesser known and highly underrated groups such as Cold Blood with Lydia Pense, Quicksilver Messenger Service, It’s A Beautiful Day, New Riders Of The Puple Sage, The Elvin Bishop Group and Taj Mahal. In addition there is some prime footage of Fillmore owner and promoter Bill Graham wheeling and dealing.

This was recorded at the Fillmore West. The one I would like to see would be on the closing days of Fillmore East, which booked an amazing number of acts in its last weeks, including The Allman Brothers, Elton John, The Byrds and many more, a few of which I watched from the lighting booth on the right side of the theater.