The Concert in Central Park album was released. The film was later released for sale in VHS, CED Videodisc, Laserdisc, and DVD formats. It sold more than 50,000 copies in the US, where it earned Gold certification for a music longform video. It was broadcast on PBS on August 22, 1988, and again on August 8, 2015. The concert and recordings were positively received by music critics. Stephen Holden praised the performance in "The New York Times" the day after the concert; he subsequently praised the live album in "Rolling Stone" magazine. He wrote that Simon and Garfunkel were successful in reviving their sound, that
Altamont Free Concert Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, and some anticipated that it would be a "Woodstock West". Woodstock was held in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, less than four months earlier. Filmmakers Albert and David Maysles shot footage of the event and incorporated it into the 1970 documentary film titled "Gimme Shelter". According to Jefferson Airplane's Spencer Dryden, the idea for "a kind of Woodstock West" began when he and bandmate Jorma Kaukonen discussed the staging of a free concert with the Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones in Golden Gate Park. Referring to the Stones, Dryden said, "Next to the Beatles they