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
The Stones in the Park concerts on 6 and 13 July, although the performances were not free. The festival was an important one for the Stones. They had not performed a public concert since their 1967 European Tour, and in 1968 had only performed at the NME Poll Winners Concert and at their television project "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus". In interviews, Mick Jagger stated that he felt the band's forte was performing live, rather than in the studio, and was keen to return to the stage. Blackhill Enterprises, which had already managed several successful concerts in Hyde Park, including a festival headlined