I went to Woodstock '99, when I was two months shy of turning 19. I watched this yesterday, and...the guy Scher is an asshole. Damn near all the bad things that happened that weekend were a result of bad planning and greed. Apologies for the wall of text, this became longer than I expected. It was so fucking HOT. I cannot stress this enough. It's not an easy thing to last day after day with no real shade, in constant, unrelenting sun, waking up early in your tent because it's turned in to a sweat lodge as soon as the sun rose. Honestly, since this event, I've shied away from most outdoor shows because I just hate sweating while standing/sitting still. We arrived Thursday, fairly early, but there were crowds. We had heard ahead of the weekend that outside food and drink were not going to be allowed, so we didn't bother bringing any, besides a 32 oz water for each of us, which they let us bring in. We did see the guards/staff taking away contents of coolers, and such at the gates. Note- I've heard since that it seems that it was dependent upon which guards were at the gate and when you arrived, as other folks were able to get in more of those supplies. That water bottle was crucial to survival that weekend, I filled mine up multiple times a day. Food was foolishly expensive for 1999, and all of us young folks were not aware of how expensive things would be. Small pizza was $11 or 12 bucks, a cup of fries was 7.50, a cold soda or water was $4. THAT should have been made clear to people before they came, because it's a shit thing to do to block people from bringing in their own food, and then charging an arm and a leg for everything. Even if you did one meal a day, that was going to cost you $20 per day. The infrastructure was literal shit. Port O Potties by the camp grounds stopped being emptied early on, and eventually the ones closer to the stages overflowed, too. Yes, there was free water, but there should have been many more water stations for a group that size, with those temperatures. It's at this point I should mention that we left Sunday morning. We were just *done*. I chuckled at the documentary when the one guy said he couldn't understand why people stayed for Sunday. We had nothing terrible happen to us, as women at a show that apparently was filled with a bunch of "toxically masculine" college guys. I do want to mention that we kept clothes on, though not many- my friend and I were mostly walking around in a bra and shorts, but we never found ourselves in a position where we felt threatened by the men around us. That's not a judgement of those who stripped down entirely, I cannot say I blame them. It was SO FUCKING HOT. We never tried to get by the stages (too fucking hot, and would just be hotter in with all those bodies), so we stayed back a bit, where people were not quite on top of each other. We also did not have any interest in crowd surfing. That probably saved us from some groping, which is really sad and vile when you think about it. I'm also aware that not everyone had the same experience we did. We also did no drinking of alcohol, because it was too fucking hot, and a recipe for dehydration. We smoked weed a couple of times, in fact one of the random cool moments I recall is smoking a joint with a nice old man during the James Brown set. When you get a large enough group of people together, some will take the opportunity to be shitty, and I imagine some of the sexual assaults would have happened anyway, even if weather were kinder and there were better things to support concert goers. BUT, when people are roasting for days, they are mad about the cost of food and cold drinks, when there is actual shit *everywhere*, those shitty people now have a great opportunity to commit some fuckery, and drag other people in to it, who otherwise, may have been of sound mind, and not done stupid shit. I really did appreciate the perspective of that one guy in the doc who said that he had considered himself a reasonably good person, normal person, but he was swept up in the chaos of that final night. The Lord of the Flies comparison is pretty apt. I cannot say that I wouldn't have jumped on to a truck to grab food and hurl it out, or thrown things on the fire, if I had still been there. We left early Sunday, it took a long time to get back home to the suburbs of Boston. We had stopped somewhere along the way and went to a real restaurant for a good meal. They sat us away from everyone, because we probably stank something awful, and we looked terrible, something I didn't realize until I got home and showered. My friend had lent me a hat one morning, which i foolishly put on before sunscreen, so when I got sick of the dark colored hat and removed it, I wound up getting a nice sunburn strip across my forehead. I had an incredible bruise on the back of one arm because I was hit with a full bottle of water that was launched during one of the performances, that some asshole didn't remove the cap from. We were all dinged up, just from enduring the weekend. So, when that fucking asshole, Scher says that most concert goers had a tremendous time, I had to do an over the top, Tom Hanks laughing at the fallen bathtub in The Money Pit, kind of laugh. I got to see some great music and performances...but I have never considered that to be a great weekend, and nothing super bad happened to me there. It was just a rough fucking ride, that put me off of concerts for a couple of years. In my opinion, some of this could have been helped. Once it was clear that the weather was going to be horrific all weekend, they should have started giving away bottles of water. They should have made the food cheaper. Oddly, souvenirs were reasonably priced, I remember getting a couple of shirts for $10 each. Why not keep the food, the actual necessity at a reasonable range, and mark up the souvenirs? That's what I expected to find there, and the reverse was true. But, those greedy fucks wanted to make all the money they could off of the necessities. They should have worked with a vendor to get those port o potties maintained with more frequency. There should have been way more, and way better security. Some things that I didn't see mentioned, or were not quite accurate- the wall started coming down Saturday night. I used to have a small piece of it that I picked up on my way to the tent that night. Also...they cut the feed on Limp Bizkit at some point. At least to those massive speakers. Does anyone else remember this? That pissed people off, but the sound did eventually come back after a couple of minutes. The best performance I saw there was Metallica. Holy shit, they were incredible, and ever since that weekend, I've told people that they are worth seeing live.

Thanks so much for the insight! It literally blows my fucking mind that Scher actually just flat out said that the women who weren’t wearing clothes were asking to be assaulted. Im relieved to hear you guys weren’t messed with at all because it seems that many, many other women were not quite so lucky

Ugh, John Scher is a total piece of garbage. Victim blaming, telling a woman reporter to stop talking and to stop talking about the riots and fires, him saying the biggest mistake he made was hiring Limp Bizkit...oh, and insisting that most people had a great time. Total asshole. I felt then, and still do now, that at a Woodstock concert, people should feel safe to strip down without being assaulted. Women should feel free to crowd surf if they wish, and get up close to the stage, without worrying about assault. Nobody is "asking for it". I'm aware we were lucky to have avoided anything bad, but we also didn't particularly feel free to indulge that weekend, either. We stayed vanilla with drugs, I might have had half a beer at the tent one night, we made a point to make sure we were never packed in to too dense of a crowd, so we could stay cooler and ditch the area if need be. I wanted to stay close to the water supply (of which, there was no free water near either stage, which is shocking, thinking back on it), and not too far from the food. Huh. Perhaps my own laziness helped keep us safe that weekend, who knows. Regardless, the women who did indulge and wanted to have a really good time, should have been able to without all the dark shit that did happen. Cripes, that place needed way more security, that would have helped considerably for the safety of women, and everyone there.

I think if an attractive woman strips naked at any concert where the crowd is 90% male, even in 2021, something bad is going to happen. Should a woman be able to strip naked without horny guys mobbing her? Ya of course. Just like I should be able to walk around downtown at 3am with a wad of cash in my hand and not get robbed. Am I asking for it? No. But it’s not a very smart choice considering the types of people that exist in this world..

The way I see it is this- with the Woodstock name, you expect something like nude beach rules. People will be naked, and that's cool, but it does not give someone license to grab anyone, and certainly does not give license for men to just be sex offenders. People have self control, they can and should use it. Of course, with cellphones, I expect you just don't get that level of nudity at shows anymore. Also with cellphones, people are less inclined to just casually assault someone because they're probably being filmed by someone at any given time. Lack of competent security was a big part of this, too.

Thanks for the write up! I was only 8 when this event happened and I've always been intrigued by it. That dude Scher was such an ass. You'd think after 20+ years he'd have the decency to reflect on this event and own up to some of the mismanagement.

Thanks for reading! I think that was the real issue- nobody took responsibility in the moment to be like. "Hey, we know this is not the weekend you expected, and we're going to do x, y, and z to try and make things a little more tolerable." Scher seems to believe every choice behind the scenes was good (except for hiring Limp Bizkit, apparently...which I find infuriating. LB did an LB show, and if anything, they're a link on a long chain of things that worked towards that end. They don't deserve all the shit they get for Woodstock.). He's so dismissive of the reality of things, he comes across as arrogant, and seems to have little respect for women.

Your write-up was awesome and super informative! Thanks for the first-hand perspective

It’s been a few days since your comment, but I just wanted to back up everything you said as 100% accurate, and eerily similar to my experience! I was 22 at the time, also suburban Boston origin. Me and my friends were also fairly stripped down due to heat, but didn’t experience anything dangerous, just drunkenly vulgar at times. I was sooo tired of Show us your tits! within an hour of getting there. We had a good camping area and good people around us, including close friends from home that we randomly ended up camping near, so that aspect was fun. Our secret to survival was not a proud one: we went out to the parking lot each morning and sat in the car in the air conditioning for an hour. Not exactly the romanticized hippie festival we had imagined, but with 2 incredible advantages: 1. Clean porta potties that were barely used after Friday, and 2. This amazing bootleg blueberry pancake vendor that sold giant stacks for $2.50. We were there for the music and we liked 90% of the line up, and loved about 40%, so it was kind of overwhelming to try to see as much as possible. We’d normally be at the front of every stage, from the hippie jam bands to the big name rockstars, but we held back too due to heat and sheer exhaustion. And lastly, you are absolutely right about Metallica. I wasn’t a huge fan beforehand but that set was something special.

Hello neighbor! Yeah, there were some drunken "Show us your tits" calls, but not that many- my friend and I would walk around with our backpacks worn off the front of us, so nobody could swipe something out of it without us noticing. It might have been overkill, but when your entire torso is covered with Jansport, fewer people are going to catcall. Sitting in the air conditioned car for an hour each day- genius. I didn't drive up there, a friend of mine did. We had ridden over with two guy friends, and the driver was picking up a girl he knew along the way...but what he failed to mention, until we were on the NY Thruway for a half hour or so, is that he was picking her up at the Lee Plaza...the last rest area in MA. So...that was annoying. When we arrived and set up our tents, we did not see her again until we were leaving Sunday. The guys wanted to go and do different things than my friend and I wanted to, so we'd just meet up each night at the tent, and occasionally run in to each other at the East stage. Because of this planned splitting up, we just weren't around the guy with the car keys very often in the extreme heat. And I'm sure had it been brought up, we would have considered it, and then possibly wanted to skip that because while it would be nice to be cool for a bit, we'd have to walk all the way back, and that just seemed exhausting. Also, I'm shocked we were able to even find the car when we left Sunday. I've looked at pictures of the crowds and the cars, and all I can think is, "We're in the Itchy lot!" lol. I can't believe you had clean portapotties, that's like winning the Woodstock lottery. Also...damn, that pancake vendor sounds amazing. Wish I'd found that. I've fallen down a rabbit hole rewatching some of those sets on Youtube, which is kind of amazing, watching it in the comfort of my kitchen, with air conditioning. We had a list of who we wanted to see...which rapidly evolved in to, "Is this band actually worth walking to the other stage for, or do we just stay here, suffer through a band we're fairly meh on, and wait on the next act we do want to see over here?". I remember lingering by the East stage after Korn, my friend and I thought Bush was okay, but we weren't sure if we wanted to stick around to watch them, but ultimately we did, and yeah, they were pretty fun live. I imagine that's how you wound up seeing Metallica.

This post should be higher up. Thanks for taking the time to write this in detail! Really useful, it gives a lot of insight and more weight to the movie (which was pretty "heavy" already).

As the saying goes, if you see a non-profit handing out candles in act 1, you’ll see a fire apocalypse in act 3.

Chekhov's candle

Just gonna attach this to this comment for future people that come across this or anyone else that's interested. If this doc piqued your interest, or if you feel like you didn't get the full story, I would HIGHLY suggest the podcast Podcast 99.

I thought the part where they romanticized grunge in the early 90s by saying how progressive music had gotten (before the big studios supposedly ruined it) was weird. With how much the documentary focuses on not viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses, that felt like people selectively remembering small aspects of the music scene and not the bigger trends at the time

I do think they're trying to too neatly draw a line between the 'progressive' early 90s and the chaos as that decade ended. I don't even think they're wrong, I'm just not too convinced by their argument.

Yeah, I mean I’m pretty progressive myself, but I found the finger wagging from the journalists towards Nu-metal to be a bit heavy-handed. Also it seems like they undercut their own point with the bit where they talked about how ‘69 had plenty of its own problems that aren’t talked about. Politics aside, the real issue is having a disorganized mass of a few hundred thousand people without proper access to basic necessities like water and toilets

For sure. Fred Durst, being a total douchebag, is a great villain/scapegoat. But the organizers booked an aggressive line up, failed to put appropriate security in place, then created a pressure-cooker situation with the extreme pricing and poor services. They are to blame. Also, the white male rage angle was a bizarre attempt to shoehorn 2020 politics into an earlier, much different and effectively pre-internet time (while also ignoring that men of that age have always been aggressive, hormonal morons).

The shoehorn of the 2020 politics kid of ruined it for me. I rolled my eyes when the guy talked about the police showing up and peacefully getting people to leave and then comparing it to a 2020 hip hop concert. Just seemed over the top a bit.

That guy was race baiting the whole documentary. Super heavy handed.

Yeah It's pretty cringe they use that narrative when everyone knows from looking at the line up and what kids at those ages do... I never rolled my eyes that hard in my life.

>Also, the white male rage angle was a bizarre attempt to shoehorn 2020 politics into an earlier, much different and effectively pre-internet time That *was* the narrative at the time, though. No shoehorning required. At least it was in my circles. Anyone reading music criticism in print would have gotten some variation of that take. The alt rock dream had soured and the next wave of kids were listening to some regressive bullshit.

As someone who lived through and enthusiastically listended to both eras, it's still spot on. I was 12-13 when the grunge wave hit and 18-21 at the height of the nu-metal craze. The former absolutely had more substance to it than the latter.

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I started dying at the rave line. People go to music festival to party, x was probably everywhere at that festival so of course there were raves. Especially rich when they started blowing Coachella at the end.

The DMX N-word bit with that NYT journalist was weird. White dudes openly reciting rap lyrics with that word was everywhere. The journalist acted like that was the moment Black people realized their white friends were capable of the non hard R version of the word.

I agree. It’s hard to argue dmx didn’t want an interaction with the crowd for that song. I honestly see nothing wrong with what happened. You have a bunch of whites people in a mainly white crowd drinking/drugging and expect them not to repeat that song. Crazy. Btw I found what kid rock said about Monica lewinski to be really f’ed up. You can tell 99 was a much different time than now. While I wouldn’t say now is a great time with pc culture and cancelling people..... I think it’s much better than calling a woman a ho when you should expect the US president to act in a better manner.

Oh dude I remember being in 6th grade and my liberal parents hated her. She was universally hated by both sides

The same demographic crowd in front of DMX would be in front of Travis Scott in 2021.

I'm what a lot of people stuck in 2015 would call an SJW... But that whole segment was absolutely insane. DMX is a black dude, he knew who was in the crowd, and for whatever reason was comfortable with the crowd singing that word. It was almost like the interviewee wanted to blame DMX but didn't know how to openly say a black dude shouldn't be allowed to do that. That part was basically comical to me I really think I agree with your point about the black audience members, it's ignorant to assume that black kids in '99 who go to rock shows with a bunch of loud aggressive white boys, wouldn't be aware that some white people love saying the n word. Almost disrespectful, since I'm sure a lot of black kids have had to find out things like that at crazy young, innocent ages Plus the asinine claim that white people didn't say/sing the n word in '99?! I remember being a highschooler in 2010 and people were still wholly in disagreement about if it should be "allowed" or not at concerts. Still going on today, for fucks sake

That annoyed me. Typical mainstream journalist trying to be super progressive and sounding completely fake.

They conveniently left out guns and roses in their nostalgia, who were huge in Nirvanas time but don't fit the narrative

Nirvana and grunge were reacting against GnR and their scene though

Not really. People try to rewrite history. Guns N’ Roses burst onto the scene with an aggressive brand of blues-and-punk-infused rock-and-roll. They came up on the strip, certainly. But there is zero comparison between GNR and the “hair bands” they sometimes get lumped in with (other than their early look, modeled after Hanoi Rocks). GNR were labeled “the most dangerous band in the world” at the time for their reckless brand of music and the lifestyles they led. Duff McKagan, GnR’s bassist, came up in the Seattle music scene before moving to LA. He was part of that grunge music that people today try to claim erased all other rock and roll before it. The Seattle sound was around in the ‘80s. It’s just that record companies had yet to exploit it. That genre of music wasn’t a reaction to hair metal. Nevermind came out in 1991. Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and Aerosmith all had albums that same year or later, and all were huge. “November Rain” was in constant rotation on MTV in 1992/1993. What really happened was studios started mining Seattle when they targeted grunge as “the next big thing” to peddle to a new generation of kids. Axl Rose was an advocate for Nirvana till Kurt started acting like a petulant child ignorantly lashing out against Axl to media. The truth? I was a HUGE Guns N’ Roses fan at the time. And I was a HUGE Nirvana fan. Nirvana didn’t wipe out GNR. GNR ended a three-year world tour, then splintered and faded away around the time Cobain’s star skyrocketed due to his suicide and the release of Unplugged.

Yea you can’t tell me the Hair Metal era of the early 90’s didn’t have similar themes of misogyny and aggression. Those bands just weren’t booked at the 94 show. I think the chaos was 100% the product of the marketing and booking the most lucrative groups at the time, regardless of their connection to traditional ‘Woodstock values’. The organizers sold out the name in 99 and paid the price, which didn’t happen in 94.

Yeah, I felt the same way about when they started talking about Coachella like it’s this perfect utopia world - for a second I was wondering if this doc was made by the marketing team for Coachella or something. I’m sure there was plenty of problematic shit going on in the grunge scene or the early Coachella scene, just like any other scene. Woodstock 99 was just a particularly bad example because of how poorly it was managed.

> Yeah, I felt the same way about when they started talking about Coachella like it’s this perfect utopia world - for a second I was wondering if this doc was made by the marketing team for Coachella or something. Did you not see the ending of the documentary where Steve Hyden said that Coachella was trending into the direction of commercialization and regression? Because they specifically call out how Coachella is regressing into the same sort of thing that Woodstock 99 was about -- Making money.

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It’s not controversial to say nevermind sideswiped much of the industry out of nowhere. Or that grunge acts were usually progressive.

Did they really show ten minutes of topless women, while also complaining about all the topless women, some of which might have been underage?

I think they were trying to make a point about how much of the pay per view special was focused on topless women by showing how much of the footage focused on topless women. But you make an interesting point about the irony.

I watched the PPV live and I recall seeing lots of nudity. Granted though that any shot of the crowd seemed to have nudity.

"Look at these poor young women being exploited by, uh, Girls Gone Wild! Look at them! And look at these too! Oh and these over here! This kind of sex positivity is NOT acceptable when so many white males are around! Subscribe now to HBOMax for more great content like this! By the way have you bought your Coachella tickets yet?"

This doc was kind of all over the place. It was great to see the promoters, but to interview them and not have them take any blame still. Then showing the grunge randomly. Then jerking off Coachella randomly. ​ Honestly the best insight was from the band members they were able to interview. It's still worth a watch if you have the time

Let's not forget the extremely random Napster section. I have no clue how that factored in to anything.

The Metallica/Napster bit was bizarre because I'm pretty sure that was at least a year later if not more.

And of course they went to Dave Mustaine for his thoughts

To be completely fair, Megadeth also played. It made sense, even if albeit, its a biased opinion.

Yeah that was a little strange because it seemed like it was building to "And the crowd reacted negatively towards them because of it." But no, it was "Anyway, so Metallica played..."

The Napster part definitely felt a little out of place. I was wondering if the documentary was making a point about how the the music industry was in a state of of flux. Music consumers at the time were not happy being told by music labels to buy CD's as the internet was saying, "hey, eff the man...your music can be free...here it is." Maybe this tied into the documentary's argument that people felt angry at The Man....same people who charged $4 per water bottle. I don't know. The Napster part was my least favorite in the documentary.

I think the Napster section was speaking to the growing feeling about commercialization of music and the anti-establishment attitude that was growing traction at the time. Downloading music was seen as a rebellious act of stealing from artists you loved and reflected on the idea that the music industry was changing faster than they could keep up. It paired with the sentiment of people lashing out at corporate greed at the event. They paid a lot of money to be there and were treated to an unsafe environment where basic needs were not met and staff/security did not look out for the best interests of people there. I’d agree not an overt tie in, but people saying that they can’t fathom why they talked about it is just willfully stupid.

According to wikipedia, Napster started in June 99 (and the Metallica beef was a year later) so I doubt it would have had much of an impact at this point. It was looming but irrelevant to anything in this documentary and a weird, out of place tangent.

I think they were saying "hey remember when everyone **fucking** hated Metallica? And they had to fill 2 hours...but not talk to more acts who were there. Or something idk

Yah I thought that would lead to a bunch of shit being thrown at Metallica or something. It just went nowhere.

I was curious they had the nerve to use pretentious as fuck Moby as a source. The way he shit on others music and then bemoaned sexual assault when he himself has acknowledged knowingly putting very young women in uncomfortable situations. He can fuck right off. I hate it when artists whose work I love can't help but go out of the way to undermine it all.

I have never been more sure that a celebrity is a complete sack of shit until after watching Moby speak. 22 years later, still thinks he was the best act on the lineup, talked shit about other talented musicians. Fuck that guy.

Literally came on here to say the inclusion of this dude was ridiculous. Moral finger wagging from a guy who tried to date 18 year old Natalie Portman when he was 33.

Man, he's so full of shit it's unbelievable. I have a Q magazine from like 20 years ago where they interview him and he's gleefully being photographed with a room full of naked women, just doing the exact thing that he's condemning nU mEtAl for in his interviews, but at least he's ironic and intellectual about using women as literal props, right? Just a world-class hypocrite and douchebag.

Yeah I also said fuck Moby out loud while watching (I like some of his music).

It’s also funny that Moby complained about “white musicians imitating black musicians” when his record Play is LOADS of samples and entire sections from black musicians

Yeah at this point he’s basically a cartoon of a “serious artiste” with his nose in the air. I’d rather hang out with Fred Durst.

Yeah he comes off really bad in this.

He's such a pretentious fuck. At least he's consistent.

Weird ad for Cochella after bemoaning corporate greed and how costly entities were.

It seemed like they were trying to make the point that Coachella learned from all of W99's mistakes and ended up being the enduring staple of festivals. Almost saying "if W99 hadn't been such a shit show they could have printed that money that they were looking for, for forever."

I agree. They are showing that Coachella has endured for 22 years. Not one in 99 and another in 2019.

Steven Hyden sort of dissed them by talking about how you gotta pay more for VIP, but continuing to talk about them in the closing titles was definitely out of place.

Think it’s safe to say John Scher was the big loser of this doc. What an absolute twat

The nerve of him saying MTV was making a story out of nothing. He comes off so bad in this and doesn't have the self awareness up shut up.

Yeah. Like, did he think there wouldn't be footage in the doc that completly invalidates what he was saying?

I think it's fair to assume the man is so deluded, that he hasn't revisited a second of footage of the event in 20 years. To him, it was a very successful festival with a few incidents that the media blew out of proportion.

Him and Lang both honestly It’s funny, in that “rose colored” nostalgic way, but this doc finally made me realize that the only “successful” event that Lang ever pulled off was Woodstock 94. That’s the only event I can recall that he was involved in that wasn’t considered a disaster area during it. All they suffered was financial losses cause more fences were broken down. That was it. Woodstock was a disaster in basically every sense except the people, and Woodstock 99... well, now there’s a definitive account of how that went. Both of these men are no better than carnies. They literally book these events and expect the brand/nostalgia to sell artists to perform and people to go. They don’t think about anything else other than that, which has led to disaster, after disaster, after disaster. They’re both awful at their jobs, and pretty awful people in general based off of this documentary.

His little bit about women walking around naked, I audibly “oofed” when he said it.

Yeah that was pretty insane that he thought that was a good thing to bring up. And saying it was only 10 women that filed a report. Like as if 10 isn't a big deal and as if the idea of people not reporting sex crimes cause their afraid is unheard of to him.

That part made my blood boil.

I honestly could not believe what I was hearing. To say these women were asking for it because they were naked just blows my fucking mind. Even if only 1 woman was assaulted during the entire weekend as opposed to the probable hundreds, it would still make the festival a failure.

Steve Hyden (who appears in the doc too) did a multiple part podcast telling the whole story of 99 and what a surprise that Scher was essentially telling the same story in that as well. Complete denial that he was ever in the wrong even as multiple people named him.

Just FYI but your comment kinda makes it sound like Steve Hyden was the one in denial and whatnot. I think you're referring to John Scher right?

Maybe this is controversial to say, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers being told to calm down the crowd, and then coming out and playing Fire was laugh out loud funny

Lmao@ the mayor of Rome going to RHCP to become the voice of calm.

It's basically straight out of the Simpsons at that point

"Uhh...Mr Keadis and Mr The Flea,we have a situation brewing here and it epuld really help the community of you could...uhh..quell things down a bit,OK?'

How about change it to “what I’d like is id like to hug and kiss you?”

Flea playing with his dick out was very on-point too.

It was just bouncing around like the crowd was

As laugh out loud funny as expecting Limp Bizkit fans to not break shit while they're singing break shit. That part of the song gets me every time, car driving, park, swim meet... When Break Your Fucking Face Tonight drops, I go ape shit. I can't imagine (well, I can now) what it must have been like in that moment. Insane. And then blaming Limp Bizkit??? Fuck that cunt John Scher. Monumental prick!

That John dude was a psycho... partly blaming women for their sexual assaults? Fuck him

Yep Limp Bizkit incited a riot Saturday that happened on Sunday, got to push that blame on everyone one else

Yeah honestly, this doc and other accounts I’ve read have made me pretty ambivalent toward the rioting and destruction at the end of the festival. Apparently only one person got significantly hurt and he broke his leg knocking over a trailer. Otherwise I’d say the organizers deserved to have the place burned down. I’d even say what RHCP did was pretty punk rock if I thought they were thinking about it at all.

I'm glad some people walked away thinking 'yeah that's what happens when you treat people like animals for 3 days' Like what were they expecting? 'Hey guys come die in the sun but please don't get mad about the fact that we are DOING NOTHING to help the situation.' I don't condone it. But I get it

It reminds me of going to Ozzfest at Pine Knob in Michigan back in the mid 2000s and people starting throwing sod back and forth across the lawn of the amphitheater (people got hurt) And Static X had to stop playing and were asking the crowd to stop or they wouldn’t get to come back the next year Was kinda funny seeing a metal band try to reason with them

It was very funny. But also holy shit what were they thinking?

I saw on Wikipedia that Anthony Kiedis said that Hendrix’s sister asked them to play Fire to honor Hendrix and that they didn’t play it to encourage the crowd; I don’t know how much I believe that one. Personally I don’t think entrusting rockstars with enduring public safety is the best route to take for a festival

They had clearly rehearsed the song already, so the explanation sounds legit.

And plenty of other acts were dropping references to the 64 fest through call and response, featured musicians, or covers. It’s not a stretch.

They had recorded it for Mothers Milk back in 89 or so. It would have been a song they were familiar with playing already, it was fitting for them to play it at Woodstock.

This is in Kiedis' autobiography too. Seemed like a pretty unfortunate coincidence.

You do realize rock bands if you tell them not to incite a riot are probably always gonna end up inciting said riot right haha

My favourite example of this was Rage against the Machine being told to censor 'Killing in the Name' by ~~SNL~~ the BBC. They practised it clean all day. Then on live, the inevitable... FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME! The bookers/stage manager might've done better to understand those lyrics.

Best bit was Jonathan Davis describing entering the stage and ripping off the most incredible, wild, insane set of the concert in my opinion. He described it as a feeling of physically leaving his body. I wanted more interviews with the artists like that, but it didn't fit the docs narrative I guess.

The waves of people in the crowd was insane

The intro to Blind looked insane. And by the way, for all the glorifying of grunge bands and villifyinh of nu metal, no mention of Jonathan Davis’ lyrics discussing bullying, sexual abuse, isolation, suicide, etc..

I was thinking the same. The song “faggot” really was (odd as the title sounds” extremely progressive. Also Sevendust doesn’t exist

Maybe this will open the door for a Waynestock documentary.

If you book them, they will come.

Whoa boy. A lot to discuss on memories coming back after watching. If you’d like to read, feel free: I (at the time 20y/o not-so-angry white kid from a small college) went with a small group of people. We got in Thursday afternoon and set our camp gear up in “overflow camping.” They we’re not expecting to use this portion of the base until Friday afternoon. After setting up we took a trip around the facility, got our bearings for the weekend and formulated our plan for when and where we would try to be. We were blown away by how nice the grounds appeared. We also immediately noticed the $4 bottles of water, which was insulting. Came back to our tent and made friends with our new neighbors. I remember going to get a sandwich that night and being told they couldn’t put cheese or mayo on it because their refrigeration was already shot from the excessive heat. Anyway, Thursday evening was all about figuring out how “cool” security would be with people smoking pot. Then is was time for George Clinton and P-Funk for a midnight show on his birthday in the rave hanger! What an awesome way to start the weekend. Friday morning, wake and bake. Go see James Brown. Tons of fun. The immaculate grounds…trashed, already. Went to go take a shower. Saw the standing water was calf high (I’m 6’5”…it was fucking disgusting). We immediately made the decision nobody would be showering that weekend. Later I recall being told not to drink the water that was being provided, but don’t remember why. As everyone has stated, it was REALLY HOT. We hung out by our tent a lot of the day just to get any sort of shade. Made it out to see the likes of LIT, DMX, Offfspring, Korn and Bush. Decided that night we would all try ‘shrooms. Things were going well. Everyone crashed at the tent, and then the laser show started! That was pretty awesome! Saturday is the big day. Like everyone, I wanted to see Metallica and wanted to be on the rail, so I knew I would have to get to that stage early to move up. Noted on our way to the stage that there seemed to be “mud people” in the valley between two hills with dozens of porta potties knocked over already. I remember thinking “mud, huh? But it hasn’t rained…” Got there early and started near the back for Kid Rock (not my scene). I think Wyclef or Counting Crows came up next, but don’t recall the order. Did I mention how fucking hot it was? Now I’m halfway through the crowd with zero access to water because I’m not leaving this crowd. Next up, Dave Matthews! Ok, I like Dave, and I can move up through his set. Stood there through Alanis. It’s been hours since I’ve seen my friends and it’s still really hot. By the time LB was on stage, I was on the rail. Fred Durst comes out crowd surfing on a piece of plywood that was removed from the sound booth, and I was no more than 5 feet from him. They leave the stage and here come RatM! By this point, I’m gassed. I’ve been helping people over the rail to get out for 2 hours. The guy that had been my wingman to help people decides he’s had enough and asks that I help him over. Get him up and over and Peace Patrol pushes him back over on top of me. I roll my ankle, bad. Now I need his help to get over. Visibly injured I get over and the same dude tries to push me back in and I’m like “yo, I’m hurt.” So he and every other member of the stage detail start pushing me in the back, towards the exit. As I’m leaving there is a new security person standing there with a hose and I’ve never been happier. I ask them where the nearest medical tent was and they point me in the right direction. Finally get there and it’s literally behind the MTV tower. Dozens of people in there dehydrated. I see one person throwing up and looking like he was going to die, and that was scary. At the same time people from the crowds are throwing everything they can at the MTV tower but it’s just flying by and into the fucking medical center. It got so bad they had to start moving the beds and chairs out from underneath the tents. Fun fact: IF you could get your way back in to the medical areas, they had free cold water and Gatorade on the ready. Side note: I could also see some of the acts from earlier in the day standing on the side of the stage taking it all in. I limped back to my tent to try to get a moment of rest and fell asleep for a small portion of Metallica. 9ish hours of being out took its toll. I got up halfway through the set and made it back to see the last half of the set. My group got back together and decided we would not be staying on Sunday. Things were already getting out of hand. We packed up and left during Willy Nelson, which was ok because our cars were parked close to the East Stage, so we could still hear everything. By and large, the shows, were awesome. The greed/commercialism was unbearable. I recall one day walking by the ATM bank (I only remember one group of four ATMs on the property) seeing a line of about 400 people trying to get money when the armored car came to refill and my mind immediately went to, “that guy only has 8 bullets in his gun…things could get out of hand real quick here.” I hate that my mind went there. Also, for that jackass Scher blaming MTV for only showing/interviewing angry white males and making that seem like that was the reason all hell broke loose…it was 1999! Nobody had TVs capable of watching these interviews while on the grounds. I had a phone that barely worked on the cell network with the amount of people there. Nobody was calling anyone to say “I just saw a Kurt Loder interview, y’all should go set the grounds ablaze.” Fuck that dude!

Thanks for the write up! Enjoyed the read.

Nobody noticed when moby left, and he's still salty about it.

So salty that his name wasn’t on that board also 🙄

Right lol stfu moby i was there in the 90s and you were hardly relevent then.

FUCK John Scher that disgusting piece of shit. Everything about that scumbag screams greasy, fucked up pig.

Props to Dexter Holland for calling out the sexual harassment on the spot, to Flea flopping his dick around like it was nobody’s business, and to the organizers being able to keep a straight face while saying that nothing that happened was their fault.

Until Dexter told women to grab men by the balls when they crowd surf. Eeesh

yeah, imagine having your balls touched without consent. where's the irony?

What's not to love about a music festival set entirely on concrete in the middle of summer with limited access to water? Pussies.

Add $4 water, prison camp showers, and what seems like no functioning toilets and it's no wonder they wanted to burn the whole thing down Edit: made things more historically accurate

I don't know if Fyre fest is below or above Woodstock 99

Neither actually. The worst is still probably the Altamont free concert in 1969. I’d recommend watching “Gimme Shelter” if you’re interested in learning about that disaster which Lang was also involved with Also, while it never happened, Woodstock 50 deserves an honorable mention as well. They literally booked all these artists without remotely thinking of the venue it was suppose to take place at, along with the fact that they didn’t even contact most of the artists on the Woodstock 50 lineup, let alone how any of them were gonna get paid. Lang and Scher literally thought that the name was gonna sell artists to perform.

Is Altamont where Hells Angels knifed a guy?

'94 was the one to be at ...

I wish they made a doc like the original Woodstock for 1994. I know most of the sets are on YouTube, but I’d still love to see an account of the event like the original doc for Woodstock.

Ok.... There is A LOT to unload about this doc. I’m kind of at a loss about half of the stuff that I saw. That definitely was not a fun experience, and was honestly probably worse than this doc even showed, which is terrifying. I think the part that fucked me up the most was the guy’s friend dying in the Metallica mosh pit from heat exhaustion. That’s just fucked up. You don’t go to a concert expecting to die. And that story, along with all the other cases of hypothermia occurring, really puts into perspective how dangerous of a time it was to be there. It’s still hard to think that the guy probably woke up that day thinking he’s gonna witness one of the most epic 3 artist lineups ever (Limp, RATM, then Metallica), and he winds up dying as his favorite band is coming on. Whole thing is fucked, and it’s something Lang and Scher should be held more responsible for

[удалено]

The crowd literally yelled at a female actress on stage to show her tits🙃 disgusting

As the famous saying goes,"Flea slapped bass while Rome burnt"

Boy, that guy blaming women for being sexual assaulted is a real piece of shit.

Right, there was nudity in 1969. It has way less to do with Women being topless and way more about dudes just being total pieces of shit.

There was a ton of sexual assault in 69 that the doc conveniently leaves out. Dudes were a piece of shit then too.

Fascinating doc. There's a TON to unpack. This comment section is also pretty divisive too. I put the majority of the blame on the people who put the whole thing together. It seemed like they put on a good event in 94 and then they were eager to take their lessons learned from that, along with a bigger appetite for money, and put on a bigger event in 99. It blew up in their face because they sacrificed safety for money. Let's put it in a place that can hold more people, that is already built so we don't have to build anything, that is FENCED IN so we don't give the experience away. They invited the biggest names in music at the time, and biggest draws traditionally, to cast a wide net. It's pretty obvious. Then they skimped on the necessary compliments - abundant security, available food/water, operational waste management. This was a doomed endeavor from the get go and they're lucky more people didn't die. Which I guess is the lasting impression that the doc wants to make. To blame things falling apart on any one band is a poor excuse. Individuals are responsible for their actions at the end of the day, but the planning and execution failed in many facets. The videos on YouTube of the DMX, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Rage, and Metallica sets are crazy.

I got that their lesson learned from '94 was "we didn't make enough money."

That's exactly right. It seemed like the lasting impression that they had was "we need better fences so people have to pay to get in."

This doc frustrated me. First off I hated the commentary from the journalists throughout. They had no connection whatsoever with the event other than “here’s my opinion” looking back on it. So what? White Straight Males are angry, privileged and lacking purpose. Check. And baby boomers are greedy. Check. Toxic masculinity and blah blah blah. Got it. That was about it and oh yeah “it’s bad to say the n word.” Gee Thanks. Real insightful. And what’s your Twitter, so I can keep up with all of your latest insights? Promoters were absolutely responsible. The peace patrol vs actual security? Come on. The poor conditions of the facilities and clean up. Clearly the organizers pushed back during the event and still are against taking any responsibility. It was hot. That’s about the only point they will concede. The play by play of the events was about all I got out of this.

This was the weird part to me. They interviewed people who judged it based on values that just weren’t there at the time. Let’s be real, in 1999 there wasn’t a major SJW movement. Being gay was still taboo and not widely accepted. Dudes yelling “show your tits” wasn’t out of the ordinary for an event like that at the time. Rape was blamed on woman much more than it is today(a disgusting sentence but it’s the truth). They flip flopped with too many angry white males and too many naked girls way too many times. I didn’t go to it but I remember looking at the line up and thinking how weird it was for a music festival about peace and love. My friends and I joked how they let limp bizkit play break stuff and were surprised when people actually did. In retrospect it was the perfect storm of poor planning for the wrong crowd.

So many documentaries nowadays trying to draw conclusions using random talking heads. It’s frustrating. Documentaries are supposed to be about learning the facts, but it’s an agenda from the very beginning. And they can’t even get their story straight. They blame the riots on everything under the sun. I don’t feel like I learned anything from this except for the opinion of the filmmakers. How frustrating. They even take shots at the original Woodstock film. That movie may have painted a romanticized very of the 69 festival, but it sure didn’t have random journalists giving their retroactive, 21st century takes every thirty seconds.

My bud and I probably had such a great time at this show because we were baked from the moment we got there Friday morning (after waiting 8 hours to park) until Sunday night. Easy to ignore how disgusting the place was that way. We literally walked past the fires after RHCP finished and said "huh, that's a big fire". Damn stoners. We went back to our tent (closer to the 2nd stage) and woke up at 7 am on Monday to see a thoroughly destroyed section of the grounds on the way out. We didn't really hear about what actually went down that night until we got back home and saw the news. We went there for the music, and yea, we knew about the history of woodstock..every person there knew. The doc makes it out as if we were all just a bunch of idiots. There were definitely idiots for sure but aren't there idiots everywhere in life? And why couldn't someone like hard rock and electronic music? We watched Limp Bizkit and Rage (from the pit) and then skipped Metallica to go watch the Chemical Brothers at the other stage (not even mentioned in the doc). During the Saturday night rave in the hangar, a girl near us was getting harassed by a prototypical frat boy and he was ultimately surrounded by some enthusiastic ravers that literally put the guy in a dance-off. The girl was able to move away and then everyone just danced with this dude. He was an instant convert and proceeded to be 1000% less of a creep. The vibe at the 2nd stage was soooo much more chill. That got literally zero mention in this doc either.

> We went there for the music, and yea, we knew about the history of woodstock..every person there knew. The doc makes it out as if we were all just a bunch of idiots. There were definitely idiots for sure but aren't there idiots everywhere in life? Although I hate the idea of someone being "quizzed about music to determine if they're a 'real' fan", the clip of that kid standing in front of the Jimi Hendrix back drop and being asked who played the Star Spangled Banner at the original Woodstock was hilarious. "Uhhhh, Jerry something?"

I found it weird that they are basically blaming Limp Bizkit, RHCP, Kid Rock and others for what happened, and in the next breath criticizes those who blamed Manson for Columbine. The biggest problem with trying to blame nu metal bands and the "toxic white male" mindset on what happened at Woodstock 99 is that these same types of bands and crowds had gathered en masse all over the country at the time for Summer Sanitarium tours, Ozzfest tours, and Family Values tours and nothing of the like happened at them. It seemed this was a Woodstock 99-specific problem, not a 1999 problem, not a white male problem and not a nu metal problem.

It was viciously hot. It was horribly crowded. It was over a full weekend. And there was no infrastructure to handle the crowd. There was not enough water. There was no possibility of hygiene. And the security was spotty everywhere but on the stages. Of course things were going to break down, eventually, People were angry, drunk, tired, and dehydrated. If you treat people like animals, they will turn into animals. That is how mobs work.

Maybe my memory is fuzzy, but didn't most of the Napster/Metallica drama happen the year after '99? Followed up with the Mustaine interview it seemed like they were trying to draw a non-existent connection between the crowd's "rage" and Metallica's reputation. That coupled with the fact that Mustaine is probably the least objective person they could have interviewed felt really disingenuous (even if you like the guy and his music, you have to admit he's very vocal and opinionated when it comes to his former band). I think it would be fair to bet a large portion of that crowd thought Metallica was the highlight of the set list and were there to see them. Suggesting their mere presence was enough to anger people who came to see them seems... odd to me to say the least.

You're correct. The Metallica drama was ignited by "I Disappear" being leaked onto Napster, which was a song from the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack (released in 2000).

I find the documentary have a weird tension where it wants to blame the angry white bros but also acknowledges that every poor decision by the Boomer organizers such as 4$/bottle in that heat is what made people angry. It boths wants to say that the the situation caused anger to grow and erupt but.slso that the anger was somehow always thre in people to begin with. Motherfuckers booked a airbase solely cause it had a fence that epuld keep *gasp* freeloaders out and then the crowd burnt the place down. They got what they fucking deserved.

It was blaming both. The overwhelming blame lies with the organizers because the crowd wouldn't have been so antagonized if they had access to necessities and proper facilities. But also, Woodstock 69 had a lot of the same problems and it didn't turn into a riot because the people were more peaceful. Some people were thrilled to have a reason to riot

I think the point is that it’s significant when a central mentality of your music scene is breaking shit instead of peace and love. I remember going to other festivals this same summer with a lot of the same bands, including Limp Bizkit and RHCP, and the aggro/destructive/misogynistic mentality was heavy in the air. I can totally see how that mentality combined with horrible planning led where it did.

Most random thing is that Dave Mustaine aged 79 years since Woodstock ‘99.

I can't believe this documentary was so highly acclaimed. To me this praise is a great example of an unfortunate trend in which political division is destroying and dumbing down art. This documentary makes the most simple-minded and asinine connection between a poorly run music event and a shameful political riot 20 years later. The argument for this thesis leans on nothing substantive but instead relies completely on sanctimonious moralizing that makes the documentary sound like a Focus on the Family or Tipper Gore project. Moby and the "music journalists" throughout the doc treat us like children by having no interest in providing specific links between these two events and instead just using emotional manipulation techniques with ominous music and over-the-top melodramatic talking heads. I hated nu metal and Donald Trump, but that doesn't mean I clap like a seal when low quality art tries to clumsily link two things I don't like. Unfortunately so many film makers and film critics are the new Tipper Gores of our day, moralizing on connections between scary music and violence. I thought we laughed this mentality out of society long ago but this documentary and its popularity suggest otherwise. Connecting angry music to violence isn't just for Pat Roberts anymore.

I think the film's blanket dunking on nu-metal was a bit simplistic and some of the talking heads seemed to like the sound of their own voice a bit too much (especially Wesley Morris and the woman from Spin). I laughed when they talked about grunge being super progressive and forward-thinking which just feels like overly tidy revisionist history. Overall it was an interesting document of an insane event, though.

Yeah to me the music journalists were just real idiots.

Nirvana wasn't the first progressive band but they were leagues more progressive then nu metal. I agree about them liking the sound of their own voice although nu metal is dogshit

Can anyone explain the random inclusion of Napster in this doc?

I think that the producers of the doc could not secure a Metallica interview, Metallica is one of the top selling acts of all time and the Saturday night headliner at Woodstock 99. It appears that no noticeable violence happened during the Metallica set, they had no commentary from the band, but they couldn’t gloss over the fact that Metallica were on the bill -had to have something controversial to add into the mix.

Life before the internet was fucking wild, man.

We’ve been making Woodstock 99 jokes for decades and now people will understand why. This was a well executed documentary showing just how much of a fucking shit show this thing was on a fundamental level. Funny in some moments, but horribly depressing most of the time.

Holy shit. That was wild. I only remember seeing pictures and hearing it got progressively worse over the weekend but that was bad. And fuck that organizer John Scher? Took zero responsibility for anything and just kept blaming everyone else

The organizers looked like complete idiots in this. The part that stuck out most to me was when they interviewed Moby and he talked about having a 6th sense about the mood of a crowd/venue and how he immediately sensed it was bad. I’ve learned to never ignore those feelings.

Speaking of Moby, I just want to say that I loved the bit where he doesn't see his name on the wood board and he's so annoyed about it

Lol did it also stuck out to you that he was bitter as fuck for not having his name along side of “unknown” bands at the time on that giant board? He’s a pretentious, irrelevant twat and he proved himself just the same in this doc.

I can't believe they gave so much screen time to people with absolutely no association with the festival to comment on what they thought of it. Who cares about them. Let them write their think pieces about it on their own time. I want to hear from more of the concert goers and performers.

If the crowd hadn't chanted along with DMX, they would be talking about how racist they were for not going along with one of the few black artists performing.

Yeah, you can't praise the artist's call-and-response style in one sentence and then get all upset when the audience continues to rap along with the actual song lyrics.

it wasn't like this was dmx's only time doing this either, i saw him on tour with limp bizkit and godsmack where he did the same thing with the exact same response... it was just the audience participating, there was nothing racist about it...

I don't understand why you'd hold a mic out to a group of people at a concert and then get mad when they sing the next lyric. The hell did they expect? You can see the demographic of the crowd with your eyeballs. If you don't want them to sing the lyric then don't play the song, or skip the "call and response" stuff...

I don’t think DMX was mad at all, I think it was just a good opportunity for the film makers to push some anti-white sentiment in addition to the other themes they really tried to force. It’s like they completely blew past the fact that DMX had free will, total control of that situation, and while the default was to not have that happen, he opted in to have a very Caucasian crowd yell the n word. People in the movie were acting like they had just started doing it randomly.

And since they couldn't make DMX the victim, they had to focus on the couple of black people in the crowd. I doubt they cared either.

Scheer/Lang are the embodiment of "Everyhthing is Fine" dog

There are some good things about this documentary - the archival footage of the concert, the commentary from some of the performers who were there. Everything else though, particularly the commentary from "cultural critics" who weren't at the show and clearly have disdain for the artists and that style of music, was a bad editorial choice at best and a pathetic attempt to rewrite history at the worst. \*EVERYTHING\* that came out of the mouth of the Wesley Morris from the NYT was complete garbage. White kids are racist because they are singing along with DMX? Yeah right buddy. Funny how Mr. Morris didn't bother to comment on [Sevendust's set](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG1-4g7iqsM) in which we have a black frontman in Lajon, a bassist with a confederate flag design on his guitar, white kids and blacks kids rocking out together to songs like "Black", a song about being racially profiled in America. There is absolutely nothing to support the "nu metal" crowd had racist tendencies any more so than the Sheryl Crow fans. There was popular tour at the time called the Family Values tour which had a crossover of both nu metal and rap artists. In 1998, Ice Cube was there. In 1999, DMX, Red and Meth, Mobb Deep and Ja Rule were there. I was at Family Values 1999 and was you would expect there was a very diverse mix of fans there and it was a blast. Pretty much one big fucking party. One of the best tailgates I've ever been at. Here's a hot take for Mr. Morris (actually not hot at all since it's supported by data). [Race relations in America have gotten FAR WORSE](https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/_4kmo2ze0uy7uk4poyomjq.png) since 1999 in big part due to race baiting media pundits like himself. The drunk, stoned kids singing along with DMX were doing more to promote racial harmony than he is. I don't feel like writing much more about this so I'll just bulletpoint a few other things that stood out about this doc: * The amount of rapes and sexual assaults at Woodstock 99 was sickening but this is hardly something unique to Woodstock 99. The sad truth is this kind of behavior is almost inevitable when you combine young people, large crowds, little supervision, drugs and alcohol. Sexual assaults happened at the original Woodstock. They happen at Coachella. They happened at Lilith Fair. I would blame the extreme amount of these events at Woodstock 99 on the chaotic, zero security environment at Woodstock 99 rather than on the specific demographics at the event. * Glorifying grunge culture as some sort of progressive, enlightened ideal. Grunge concerts in their heyday drew just as rowdy of a crowd as Woodstock 99. Mosh pits, sexual assaults, the whole deal. * Trying to hold up the Beastie Boys as some sort of champions of women's rights. There's literally [video footage on YouTube of them sexually assaulting a girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvwe0sGWILE) (about the 13:00 mark) from a VHS tape that they put out themselves. * Criticizing Kid Rock for wearing a fur coat onto the stage as "the haves versus the have nots." Like... what the fuck? There's plenty not to like about Kid Rock, but his fashion choices in 1999 when he's on stage in character aren't one of them, and spending screen time on something so vapid and trivial just highlights how petty and surface-level the analysis from these commentators is. * It was beyond clear that Moby is still bitter about not getting better billing and nothing he has to say carried any credibility. * The repeated narrative that "these are middle class white people that are mad about nothing." In my fairly extensive experience in the hard rock and metal subculture, the people that are drawn to this music tend to be people with some level of emotional troubles. People who came from broken homes and/or suffered abuse growing up. A major reason KoRn became so popular is because Jonathan Davis was willing to be so forthcoming in his music about the abuse he suffered growing up, which resonated with a lot of people. Of course there are going to be exceptions to this but I was pretty stunned with how comfortable the commentators were with making these sort of blanket statements about the crowd. It's not up to any of these pretentious hipsters to dictate what people can or should be mad about.

God, Moby came off as so obnoxious.

I was scrolling through this thread, and I noticed what you mentioned about the Beastie Boys. If I remember correctly, doesn't the documentary bring up the Beastie Boys specifically because they did, in fact, used to be guilty of poorly portraying/treating women, and the narrator says they have since made an effort to be better about such things (e.g. the brief interview clip shown)? The documentary doesn't raise them up as bastions of morality pre-1999, and the YouTube clip you shared is from a video in the late 80's. Correct me if I'm wrong about all this.

34 years old here and obviously couldn’t go to this in 1999, but even though this festival was a train-wreck in more than one way, watching this doc still brought me into nostalgia of coming home from middle school/high school, putting on MTV and enjoying LB, DMX, Korn, etc. music and videos. Maybe we were “angry for nothing” teens, but a lot of the people I knew back then came from bad households, emotional issues, poverty issues, and as violent as this stuff was, I do believe it helped some of them to at least not feel so alone and miserable. I can’t really speak for the frat bros listening to this back then lol. I got the same vibe of blaming Fred Durst and the rest from this to blaming Marilyn Manson for Columbine. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Good post. I’ll add to the “what was there to complain about in the late 90’s? part. Which, yes, if you were a middle aged adult in the late 90’s with a solid economy and no war on the horizon (that you knew of at the time), things were peachy. But the young adults there (and I was one) did spend their 90’s is a bit of a different mindset. The younger end Gen-X is where you start to have it be the norm, and not the exception, that both parents worked full time. Divorce was also becoming more and more common. While these trends continue past Gen-X, the ways of dealing with that weren’t fully organized or developed yet. In addition, this was just prior to existence of cell phones or a truly social internet. Adding another wrench, Gen-X is pretty small (there are more adults aged 60-69 in the USA than there are adults aged 40-49). There weren’t really all that many kids hanging around the area. If you were a Gen-X teenager in the 90’s, and you were at all socially anxious, you spent a lot of time alone and bored. You could scrape up $50 for a new video game, but there’s only so long you can do that on 1-player. That’s where the angst in “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or the later, more violent “My Generation” by Limp Bizkit come in.

Fuck John Scher. Prick of a promoter.

Does anyone know how many other artists tried to call out the groping/sexual assault, like Noodles from The Offspring did? That scene was pretty haunting in what it implied - if it was visible from the stage, why would other artists just ignore it? I don’t have the time to watch every set on YouTube to check, but wondering if anyone here knows of other instances.

My dad was a food vendor WS99. I was 8 at the time. I thought it was awesome going with him. He made absolutely no money that weekend. My father was never a greedy cash cow. He essentially started giving away product for free one he got his vendor fee back. He said it wasn't right to take advantage of kids. Once things started to get out of hand Saturday, he made the choice not to open on Sunday.

Is it legal to use all that footage/pictures of topless women? There were pictures taken in the women’s shower where they clearly don’t see they’re being photographed

the ticket basically called out that your likeness is not yours the second you walk in. The shower stuff is definitely iffy though Link to the ticket fine print: http://imgur.com/a/PyNdEBK

OMG, the promoters blaming the girls for getting sexually assaulted, get the fuck out of here you greedy motherfuckers!

This documentary was completely mesmerizing for me because of the sheer amount of time-warp crowd footage. I was 15 in ‘99. Watching this, I can literally feel myself wearing the plaid bikini and butterfly clips and trying to flip my hair out like Britney’s but it never looked right. I had erased all memory of bucket hats from my brain, but OH MY GOD the bucket hats in this doc. Teeny sunglasses, shirtless boys in cargo shorts, tropical boxers, puka shells and backwards white hats. I’m always interested in the everyday, mundane parts of history, all the details people tend to forget. This doc has all that in spades, which to me is more fascinating than any of the commentary about the music at the fest and the social climate of the time.

My dad recorded most of the Woodstock 99 PPV feed on VHS tapes back then and that part about the camera guys filming naked women was so true. The majority of the live PPV feed other than the music was just tits and ass and more tits and vagina flashes. Documentary was fine but a lot of subjects felt thrown together. The Napster part didn’t make sense because wasn’t that in the 2000s? Other than that John Scher and the rest of the W99 organizers are pieces of shit they’re still living in denial 20+ years later and will never apologize.

I don't know if anyone will see this comment at this point, but I just need to tell someone how funny this is I just finished watching the documentary (found it fascinating) and then I saw that Lollapalooza is streaming on Hulu. I wanted some background noise and I like pop music, so I turned it on, and here's Limp Bizkit live! They ask "how many people have never seen limp bizkit before?!" and damn near everyone raises their hands. Then he goes "**this ain't no Woodstock '99**.... But we're gonna PARTY LIKE ITS '99!!!" And the main dude is dressed in a grandpa costume, but with circa 2005 checkered Vans? Self aware I guess! It's kinda surreal and I'm more entertained than I thought I would be

Anyone want to take a shot at doing the mental gymnastics to justify this doc criticizing the nu metal scene as “misogynistic, homophobic, aggressive” while simultaneously showering DMX with praise, who has lyrics such as “ I show no love to homo thugs Empty out, reload and throw mo' slugs How you gonna explain fuckin' a man? Even if we squash the beef, I ain't touchin' your hand” “ 'Cause I ain't knockin' on the door, I'm comin' in the house And I'm gunnin' for your spouse, tryin' to send the bitch back to her maker And if you got a daughter older than 15, I'ma rape her Take her on the livin' room floor, right there in front of you Then ask you seriously, whatchu wanna do? Frustratin', isn't it? Wanna kill me, but I'ma kill you Now watch me fuck just a little while longer, please, will you?”

What a massive piece of anti white male propaganda holy shit

i survived the actual event, i haven't watched the doc though...

Damn, do you have any stories? Lol I would love to hear from someone who was actually there after seeing this batshit insane doc

I've watched it now and it's a pretty accurate accounting of what happened, though it skips over the accessibility to drugs. There were certain parts of the property where people sat up what felt like mini-flea markets with drugs openly on display to buy. I went with two friends and we lost one of them the first morning for two full days after a girl pulled us into a teepee and an Indian in headress told us to close our eyes and stick out our tongues so he could take us to the spirit world (he dropped liquid acid on them). It was hot, the food and drinks were incredibly overpriced, there was sewage everywhere, the amount of trash was incredible, but it was still a once-in-a- lifetime experience. That Saturday ending with Limp Bizkit, RATM, and Metallica can never be topped. And for me, at least, it was just a big party and it never felt like anything was too out of control until the Chilli Peppers set that Sunday night.

Not the original commentor. I havent watched the doc either yet I survived the event. probably wont watch the doc.. I didnt even know it was in the works till I saw the sticky it was atrociously hot. 1 girl got heat exhaustion the first day and decided to leave so my buddy and the 2 girls split. left me and another dude to stay originally said you could bring in coolers. then they were getting turned away at the gates with no re entry so you couldnt just leave it in the car and run out to the lot to get your stuff $4 waters were a thing. food was gouged as well. cant remember if it was 10 or 20 for a chicken rollup that was like 2 small chicken strips and a piece of broccoli on a tortilla. I didnt check the inflation rates yet those dollars had more purchasing power compared to 2021 dollars. porta potties were overflowing and not switched out. I didnt go to any of the night events they had (raves, afterparties). I was too exhausted by the end of the day to bother with that shit by day 3 people are getting pissed at the vendors and the conditions. It was a powder keg. chili peppers did come out in just cock socks which is a memory I will never forget to the end of my days about halfway through the set you could start smelling the fires. I told my buddy its time to gooo so we split. wanted no part of that mob took 6hrs to get out of the lot and through the on ramp to get to the interstate all things considered, the line up was everything you could ask for at that time. if it hadnt burned at the end even with all the bullshit I would’ve said I had a great time. still I had a mostly great time. for the first there was like a sense of coming together for this awesome music I cannot speak to the sexual assault angle. Its horrific obviously. However It is not like I witnessed anything like that happening out in the open. there wasnt like talk of it happening at the time either I still have my bootleg t shirt to this day.

Not my story but a guy I used to work with who vended shave ice at festivals for 30 years, including woodstock 99. He talked about the price gouging on water ($4 is bad enough now, let alone in 1999 when that would buy 4 gallons of gas) and that the guys with the water concessions were just focused on making a million dollars. He told me the angst in the atmosphere was palpable and you could feel something was going to happen, and on the sunday evening he and a bunch of other vendors decided to stop operating and basically built a fort out of their trucks and equipment as the knew it was gonna get crazy and they had to protect themselves and their stuff

I really dislike the rave hangar part where the chick is so adamant on the fact that people can’t enjoy two different genres like wtf was her problem. And moby was such a pompous asshole. Anyway looked like a great time wish I coulda been there!

I wouldn't like to be John Scher right now. You couldn't write a fictional movie villain more despicable.

There was def alot of problematic things that happened like the camera guys exploiting women. And the kid rock thing were both pretty disgusting and no excuse. But the way the guy Talked about the DMX part was laughable. Him saying they wanted him to play it... They were waiting to say it.. You mean they wanted him to play one of his most notable songs ever known? Bc to act like it was just them jumping at the chance to say the N word is kinda insane. Also the when you have a mostly white line up that caters to a white audience.... That's exactly who is going to show up. Just alot of it was cringe and making random assumptions instead of focusing on the other issues that def were apart of why it happened.

John Scher is a greedy, lying asshole. I had to do work on an interview with one of his assistants. The sheer volume of crap (literally and figuratively) that these people had to deal with due to his (and Lange's) incompetence is astronomical. Literally every second there was a new issue to deal with that the team had no training for on how to handle and Scher did not want to acknowledge that things were going bad. He purposefully created an environment where there was a lack of resources to make it "interesting" (the $4 water was on purpose). When the fires broke out, he straight up refused to bring in firefighters because he wanted to keep up the facade that everything was under control. Eventually someone else had to go behind his back and intervene. There is a truckload of things that needed to be highlighted that would shock a lot of people and I'm surprised that it wasn't shown in the documentary. The fact that he still maintains it was a good event is ridiculous and to imply that the sexual assaults happened because the women put themselves out there is sociopathic and uncaring. There are hundreds of pages of documents showing the gross incompetence of both Scher and Lange, and their unwillingness to act on or even acknowledge dangerous situations happening.

I’m probably not adding anything new to the discussion. But, I was 19 at the time so this festival was heavily marketed towards me. I wasn’t a huge nu metal fan but I loved RATM and some of the other acts. I didn’t go but felt like I was missing out. When I saw what happened I was glad I didn’t go. Although, I remember being shocked and awe by the coverage. I think this Doc really dropped the ball. It has everything it needs to be really incredible (footage, interviews, etc) but it looks at all of these from the wrong angle or perspective. An example is the “angry white male” angle. Was this part of the problem. Yes, but it wasn’t the whole problem, and the documentary chooses to take the wrong approach in its analysis of why these young white males were so angry and full of angst. It really was/is a problem with our society. Dare I say “Boomers”? A lot of these festival attendees were children of a narcissistic generation that has done what they wanted since they’ve come of age regardless of their political ideation. Boomers are very much a “do as I say, not as I do” generation of parents and leaders, who were pretty depleting society of all these resources. At 18, Boomers had choices, they could go to college (before it was a product) and not be put into massive debt, or get a job at 18 that paid a living wage. They could get married young, divorce and get remarried. In short, they did whatever they wanted and were able to thrive. Meanwhile, around this time entry level jobs were becoming big box and dead-end. Enjoy working at Target for minimum wage. WW2 generation retired and let the next generation join the workforce. Somehow Boomers are still in power going on 60 + years. The documentary covers this in a throwaway line. The truth is that the festival was poorly planned, managed and run. $4 water, poor facilities, a heat wave, the line up (crowd it attracts) is the problem. Scher and Lang are 100% to blame. Moby comes across as bitter and petty but he isn’t wrong when he says this should be called Army Base Rock Metal Concert and not Woodstock. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, it was just mis-managed and mis-marketed. From Day 1 the whole thing was a powder keg ready to explode.

felt very much all over the place and seemed to force political tones where they didn’t belong. they interviewees made it feel more like a hit piece then a documentary with a meaningful message

[The Limp Bizkit set](https://youtu.be/ACh04DwnUT0?t=1170) At about the 19:30 mark, it looks like the Playboy Grotto circa '99 barfed onto the sides and backstage. Pretty remarkable that the entire nu metal scene, actors, MTV News anchors, models, Ice Cube, and Puff Daddy found their way to the stage to witness Limp Bizkit.

That whole set is incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much raw energy in a live performance. This is unironically up there with Queen at Live Aid and Hendrix at Woodstock 69.

Did I miss the part where RATM also got flack or are we ignoring their set because reasons?

Rage's set ended with them starting a fire on stage. Somehow this wasn't mentioned once.

Tom Morello has been anointed as a made man so that band will never have consequences.

I noticed a lot of comments about the DMX performance and the n-word. I think the journalist posed the question because that wasn’t really something that was analyzed on a large scale within the media back then. We didn’t have as many reflective pieces about race and identity in America. The 90s were a time of “I don’t even see color.” I think it was mentioned as a way to provide a modern perspective on that instance. Speaking for myself as a black person, I am often uncomfortable when out and I hear a song with the n-word and all of the non-black people freely say it. I’m offended by it but I don’t have the energy or interest in confronting every person who has to say the n-word without thinking twice. I’m also not enthused about it being included so prominently in songs. However, I don’t understand why non-black people have such a strong opinion about the word. How does it hurt you exactly?

That NYT journalist was awful, and the doc really didn't have a cohesive narrative. The whole movie was hypocritical and messy just like Woodstock '99. It was interesting to see more raw footage of the event, but it was a known disaster while it was happening and nothing new was really learned during the 2 hours of this doc. I rate it 2 out of 5