Woodstock '99 on Netflix

CaseOfAce

Absolutely the worst possible perfect storm any festival could conceive and endure....

Aggressive nu-metal from the late 90s, catastrophic heat on a tarmac'ed airifield with no shade, an abundance of drugs and alcohol to a mainly frazzled frat boy audience colliding headlong with human greed and indifference from the organisers.

It really was the gig Limp Bizkit were doomed / born to play. 

Fascinating to watch - must have been terrifying to have attended.

Special mention to Norman Cook describing fleeing the scene like something  from the Fall of Saigon...

Boromedic

Been waiting to watch this, looks very interesting on the trailer.

lustycourtier

No clue why theyve made another. There was a much better musicbox one last year, also on Netflix. Utterly horrific situation. 

Boromedic

lustycourtier said:

No clue why theyve made another. There was a much better musicbox one last year, also on Netflix. Utterly horrific situation. 

I never caught that one, I looked for it late last year and it had gone is the title the same? I'll try and find it again. Cheers

Edit: found it again, Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage.

Leisceoir

Good documentary, but there's a lot of stuff they seem to have skirted over. There's more detail in this article....

https://www.spin.com/2019/07/woodstock-99-live-report/

The description of what happened to the girls in the mosh pit is horrific. Medieval stuff. 

Switch625

Leisceoir said:

Good documentary, but there's a lot of stuff they seem to have skirted over. There's more detail in this article....

https://www.spin.com/2019/07/woodstock-99-live-report/

The description of what happened to the girls in the mosh pit is horrific. Medieval stuff. 

Wow that was a pretty horrific read.

CaseOfAce

Wondered why there was no Rage Against The Machine footage in the doc? Did they not sign off / authorise the use? Given the whole "F*ck you .. I won't do what you tell me" vibe they certainly didn't put out a peace and love '69 vibe at the event? 

dindude

Interesting watch, the promoters were utterly delusional in their post-match assessment and pathetic during the event, I’m surprised they didn’t face criminal charges. 

LPManic

Nothing more American and more shit than nu-metal.

Handsome_Chris

LPManic said:

Nothing more American and more shit than nu-metal.

Then you really do not want to hear blues rock. :P

88CuzJ

Such a shame that after the 69 festival things went down the way they did. Sign of society moving in the wrong direction. 

LPManic

Watched this last night. Initially it was nice to see all the 90s stuff as this was my era but I found it really really disturbing. What a horrible horrible event on every single level - from the organisation, to the punters, to the music. Even the documentary itself as a documentary is pretty awful.

I really don't think it's particularly worth watching (I zipped through 2 and 3 after watching the first episode). There's some 5 or 10 second backstage stuff that is cool to see here and there but there is nothing to learn from it. 

What a shit time for American culture and music. Toxic beyond belief.

RocknRollDave

Watched it tonight.
Fascinating and utterly disturbing.


For some reason, I don’t even remember there BEING a Woodstock in 1999, but that’s by the by.

euan

I had to watch it as it felt like they were revelling in some pretty horrid shit 

AsterixTG

Interesting to be watching this while seeing that this year's Reading is trying to have a go at copying it.

I suppose they could call the cops and interrupt a Macarena somewhere...

ICBM

Finally got around to watching this. Disturbing - but the thing that came across to me most clearly if you compare it to the first Woodstock documentary is that actually, it was no worse organised than the original festival - Michael Lang in particular seemed completely clueless then as well... it’s just that in ‘69, the people were peaceful and calm, when things went wrong they muddled through, and there was a lot of improvisation to help each other by the crowd themselves. It was equally a disaster waiting to happen, but just didn’t - that gave the ‘99 organisers an unfortunate misguided sense that they knew what they were doing.

There was certainly a difference in the atmosphere of the music which didn’t help, and the excessive greed of some of the organisers, but in fact the ‘69 one was similarly turned from a money-making enterprise to a free festival when far more people arrived than planned for and ticketing couldn’t be enforced, there was a similar lack of proper sanitation and security, and some of the scenes at the end after Hendrix played, with trash covering the whole field, aren’t too dissimilar apart from the fires in ‘99. Three people died at each festival, in similar circumstances - two drug overdoses and one run over by a car in ‘69, two heat exhaustion and one run over in ‘99. There seems to be some evidence of rapes at the original festival too, just less well reported.

It’s true that an enclosed Air Force base was less suitable than open farmland with natural water, but overall most of the rest of it just looks like an object lesson in not repeating something which you got away with by luck rather than judgement the first time. Lang has to bear a lot of the responsibility for that, his apparent lack of awareness was remarkable throughout. He was also involved in organising Altamont, which I hadn’t realised until I read a bit more about him.

The difference in behaviour of the crowd themselves is possibly worrying, but maybe that just reflects how the world changes though huge societal shifts driven by media and culture. [/Old Man]

jonnyburgo

Yeah it's horrible stuff, the same frat boy mentality that used to see Hardcore punk kids getting the shit beaten out of them in the 80s by Camaro driving dickheads, those clowns who turn their baseball caps backwards when it's time to fight. I guess this is what happens when the alternative becomes mainstream.

lustycourtier

a horrific watch. Cant even begin to imagine what it mustve been like to be there. 

Leisceoir

That's really interesting @ICBM I never knew there was also bad stuff happening at the original Woodstock. Not surprising I suppose when you think about it, but I'd believed the whole Peace & Love line. 

ICBM

Leisceoir said:

That's really interesting @ICBM I never knew there was also bad stuff happening at the original Woodstock. Not surprising I suppose when you think about it, but I'd believed the whole Peace & Love line. 

The full Woodstock documentary makes it pretty clear that the whole thing was total chaotic mess that somehow stayed just on the right side of full-on disaster - it would have taken very little to tip it over. The organisation was appalling and most of the crowd were left to their own devices - but there was huge community spirit, the vast majority still had a great time, very little serious harm was caused, and it became mythologised as an incredible experience and the defining event of a generation.... which it was, but that was almost nothing to do with the promoters. Unfortunately they came to believe their own myth as well, with the consequences we've just seen.