Morrissey, Patti Smith, Interpol, Sex Pistols and generations of punk descend on Brooklyn September 26 as Woodstock Cannabis joins the festival and High Times gets in on the action.
CBGB and Woodstock came out of very different versions of American counterculture. One grew from a cramped Bowery club where punk bands learned how loud they could get. The other became shorthand for three days of music, mud, psychedelia, and the unruly idealism of the late 1960s.
More than half a century later, both names are still finding ways to make noise.
The CBGB Festival returns to Under the K Bridge Park in Brooklyn on September 26, with a lineup that includes Morrissey, Patti Smith, Interpol, Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, Bikini Kill, Mannequin Pussy, Sleater-Kinney and Fred Armisen’s Ramones tribute band The Return of Jackie & Judy, Buzzcocks, Circle Jerks, Agnostic Front, and a new generation of bands carrying punk forward.
This year, cannabis is part of the mix too. You can buy tickets here.
Woodstock Meets the Bowery
Woodstock Cannabis has joined the 2026 CBGB Festival as a sponsor, with High Times serving as a media partner around the event.
The pairing is easy enough to understand historically. Cannabis has moved through American music culture for generations, while Woodstock and CBGB each became symbols for scenes that valued independence, experimentation, and a certain suspicion of whatever the mainstream was selling.
But nostalgia alone only gets you so far.
“The legacy of Woodstock has always been about bringing all genres of music together under the banner of peace and love,” says Martin Mills, general manager of Woodstock Cannabis. “Music remains a force for change and for questioning authority—including the long and unjust prohibition of cannabis.”
CBGB came out of a different moment. The original club became an early home to the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith Group, and other bands that helped define New York punk and new wave. The 2026 festival is consciously mixing that history with bands making music now.
“For CBGB, it’s about continuing to engage with the artists and fans shaping a new punk, new wave and hardcore movement,” says Phil Sandhaus of CBGB Festival. “The legacy stays alive when the brand remains connected to what is happening in music now, rather than simply looking backward.”
That distinction matters. CBGB does not need another T-shirt reminding people that punk happened once. Woodstock does not need another poster of a field in 1969. The interesting question is what those names can still do in the present.
Counterculture After Counterculture Became Business
There is an obvious contradiction here. CBGB, Woodstock, cannabis, and High Times all emerged from cultures that existed somewhere outside respectable American institutions. Today, punk is a global industry. Cannabis is legal commerce across much of the country. The names attached to historic counterculture now operate as businesses themselves.
That does not automatically make the culture hollow. It does make the question of what comes next more interesting.
“Both began largely outside traditional institutions and eventually became significant commercial industries, so the challenge now is how to grow without losing the independence and authenticity that made them matter,” says Parag Bhandari, founder and CEO of UG Strategies, the agency behind the partnership. “The most interesting brands are the ones using commercial success to create more culture, more access and more real experiences for people.”
Sandhaus sees a similar connection between Woodstock and CBGB despite the radically different sounds, clothes, and political climates surrounding each.
“Even though the Woodstock generation and the punk movement evolved at different times and were triggered by different circumstances, both were rooted in the friction of a simmering socioeconomic and political environment,” he says. “That shared instinct to challenge the status quo is part of what makes the partnership feel relevant today.”
Your Dispensary Might Send You to CBGB
The partnership will extend beyond Under the K Bridge. Leading up to the festival, Woodstock Cannabis, High Times, and participating dispensaries in New York and New Jersey plan to give eligible adult consumers opportunities to win VIP tickets to CBGB Festival.
Individual retailers will announce their own timing, entry rules, and eligibility requirements as the festival approaches.
The idea puts dispensaries into a role cannabis businesses have increasingly tried to occupy as legalization matures: not simply somewhere to buy weed, but places connected to music, art, nightlife, and the communities surrounding them.
“There has always been overlap between independent music culture and cannabis,” Sandhaus says.
For Mills, that relationship reaches much further back than punk.
“Cannabis has been part of music scenes since the jazz age, opening the senses to a deeper appreciation of all types of music,” he says. “What is different today is that, thanks to state legalization, adults can experience live music and cannabis together more openly, legally and safely.”
Punk Is Supposed to Keep Moving
There is always a danger when counterculture becomes heritage. The original CBGB closed in 2006. Woodstock happened in 1969. Their logos are now recognizable to people born decades after either place existed in its original form.
But culture survives through what people do with it next. The question hanging over the 2026 CBGB Festival is not whether anyone can recreate the Bowery in 1977. They can’t. Nor is anyone recreating Woodstock.
What they can do is put Patti Smith, Interpol, Sex Pistols, Bikini Kill, Mannequin Pussy, Agnostic Front, and younger bands on stages in Brooklyn, pull several generations of fans into the same crowd, and see what happens.
CBGB Festival takes place Saturday, September 26, at Under the K Bridge Park in Brooklyn. Ticket and lineup information is available through CBGB Festival.
Details on Woodstock Cannabis and High Times VIP ticket opportunities through participating New York and New Jersey dispensaries will be announced ahead of the festival.
Images provided by CBGB Fest.
Content Disclosure: High Times is an official media partner of the 2026 CBGB Festival.
