Woodstock 99 Documentary: It’s Not Just Limp Bizkits’ Fault, There’s A Lot Of Blame For What Goes Wrong

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A new documentary film shows what went wrong at a disastrous music festival in central New York City and who is to blame.

Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage premiered on HBO this weekend, chronicling the Woodstock 99 festival held July 22-25, 1999 at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, NY Directed by Garret Price ( Love, Antosha) and produced by Bill Simmons (Andre the Giant), this is the first release of Simmons’ new Music Box series for the platform.

In the opening, Price says he could have done a comedy showcasing some of the now-defunct trends of the late ’90s, but the footage played out much more like a horror movie.

Interviews include Woodstock 99 promoters Michael Lang and John Scher; 1999 artists like Moby, Jewel, The Offspring, Creed frontman Scott Stapp, rapper The Roots Black Thought, KoRns Jonathan Davis and Megadeths Dave Mustaine; music journalists and MTV personalities; and some of the participants who participated in the chaos. We even admit having participated in the riots which ended the event with looting, vandalism and fires.

When in Rome, you know? said the festival-goer.

Woodstock 99 was intended to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Woodstock festival in upstate New York, but moved away from peace and love with a lineup of modern artists like Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit , KoRn, Rage Against the Machine, Insane Clown Posse and Red Peppers. Some performers have tried to revisit the spirit of 1969, like Bush covering Country Joe and the Fishs F — vocals or Creed bringing out Doors guitarist Robby Krieger, but few spectators recognized or cared. .

Lang, who hosted the original Woodstock festival, warned attendees that these weren’t your Woodstock parents, but he and other Woodstock 99 organizers take much of the blame in the documentary.

About 350,000 people attended at a site that apparently should not have contained more than 50,000 people who had to walk about a mile from the east stage to the west stage to see various acts. Griffiss Air Force Base, which had closed in 1995, was widely chosen because of its existing infrastructure and fences to prevent people from sneaking in for free like previous Woodstock ones, but it was less than ideal for a festival. of music.

There is a festival ground in Germany that was literally built by Hitler, the guitarist of The Offspring Noodles says in the documentary. It’s a great place, a lot of fun. The air base was less hospitable than the place built by the Nazis.

Many problems at Woodstock 99 were blamed on the heat: temperatures were approaching 100 degrees (and were as hot as 118 on the tarmac) and bottled water sold for $ 4, leaving little relief for fans who paid. $ 150 (or more) for tickets to a highly commercialized event covered by MTV with live, uncensored pay-per-view. Fans expressed frustration at the conditions and the overall corporate greed by throwing plastic bottles at Carson Daly, then the biggest star in music networks and TRL host.

Some blamed the lineup: Many artists were aggressive, nu metal bands with many fans who were angry young white men (who had no problem singing the N word during the call and performance performance. DMX response from My N — -). Only three women were booked Jewel, Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morissette and DJs like Fatboy Slim and The Chemical Brothers felt out of place at a site where Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst lifted his middle finger and encouraged people to Break Stuff.

Fred Durst was a jerk, Scher said. He was completely defiant between songs. We walked up to him and said hey, calm down … he’s caused a lot of trouble.

Durst has not been shown to encourage anyone to calm down. Some fans broke plywood panels from a sound tower and used it for crowd surfing, and he climbed on one of the pieces of wood during his performance.

But this is not entirely Limp Bizkits’ fault.

To blame the artists, I think it’s too easy. We never ask the deeper existential question: why are so many young men in America, why are they so angry? Spin reporter Maureen Callahan said.

Woodstock 99 points to late ’90s culture interspersed with music videos of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, media coverage of the Columbine school shooting, and topless women on Girls Gone Wild. Toxic masculinity is frequently mentioned, and the crowd shamelessly chanted show your t-ts to actress Rosie Perez when she was on stage to introduce an artist with actor Stephen Baldwin.

In fact, MTV’s cameras seemed to focus a lot on women walking around naked or showing off their breasts. Dave Matthews joked about seeing an abundance of boobs, and The Offsprings Dexter Holland interrupted his set to tell audiences to stop fiddling with women surfing the crowd. Her estimated hundreds have been sexually assaulted, but at least eight have been charged, including against a New York state prison guard accused of raping a 15-year-old girl.

Scher blamed the victims.

There is no doubt that a few incidents have taken place, Scher said. But if you go back to the police and state police records and all that, you weren’t talking about 100. Or even 50. Were talking about 10. I’m criticizing the hundreds of women walking around without clothes, and expecting not to be touched. They shouldn’t have been touched, and I condemn it. But you know, I think women running around naked, you know, are at least partly responsible for that.

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Woodstock through the years: 1969, 1994, 1999

On top of all this, the security personnel were widely described as amateurs who got the job after passing a multiple choice test and made little effort to keep drugs out or quell the violence. Much of the site was ransacked by the end of the first day, and the kickbacks were so poorly protected that the people playing in the mud were probably also covered with other brown stuff that was not from the area. mud.

Many of the issues seemed preventable, including an ominous moment midway through the film where a nonprofit group is shown handing out free candles. Crowds were invited to hold candles for victims of gun violence on Sunday night, a demonstration reminiscent of Melanies Woodstock’s performance in 1969, but many instead burned whatever they could find and huge fires broke out.

New York State Senator Joe Griffo, who served as mayor of Rome from 1992 to 2003, is shown in the documentary asking Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis to calm the crowd and tell them to play place for fire trucks. The band returned to the stage for a Jimi Hendrixs Fire encore performance, adding fuel to the fire.

The question quickly turned to no, how could this have happened? but how could he not? Callahan said.

At the end of the event, three people died, including a Metallica fan whose tragic experience is heavily featured; at least 700 people have been treated for heat exhaustion and dehydration; several women reported sexual assault and rape; 44 people were arrested; hundreds of false passes were confiscated; and several cars, tents, cabins and ATMs were destroyed.

Scher criticized MTV for setting the tone, insisting that most people had a fun weekend at Woodstock 99. But the truth is, a lot of people haven’t, and there is has a lot of blame to share between the organizers, security, some of the artists and participants, commercialism and culture in general.

Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage is now streaming on HBO Max.

Another Woodstock 99 docusery is also reportedly in the works at Raw TV’s Netflix, whose credits include the Netflix documentary Dont F – k with Cats, and BBH Entertainment, which released the recent concert film Depeche Mode Spirits in the Forest.

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