♪ (MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
In telling the story
of Woodstock '99,
it would have been really easy
to structure this as a comedy,
poking fun of all things
late 1990s.
The way people dressed,
the music they listen to.
But, in reality,
as that weekend unfolded,
it played out
much more like a horror film.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
INTERVIEWER: Mike,
what's the worst part
of running one of these things?
-The worst part?
-INTERVIEWER:
What's the worst part
about running one of them?
MICHAEL LANG: I don't know.
-INTERVIEWER: Huh?
-I don't know.
-Do you dig it all?
-Yeah.
I guess the biggest hassle
is dealing with the politics,
you know.
There are a lot
of politics involved,
-you mean with the cities?
-MICHAEL: Yeah.
And you got that solved?
-Well, looks that way.
-INTERVIEWER: Looks that way.
-Where are you gonna go
from here?
-(EXHALES)
-I mean--
-You gonna do another one?
-If it works.
-(BIKE ENGINE REVVING)
♪ (ROCK MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RADIO HOST: Okay, guys.
It is hot out there.
The National Weather Service
has already issued
a heat advisory
for your day tomorrow.
Which's gonna feel like
it's a hundred degrees.
RADIO HOST 2:
How's the traffic coming in?
MAN: It's bad.
It's just backed up everywhere.
REPORTER: When the ball drops
on the year 2000,
it will be a momentous event
for the world
and for the US economy,
which is closing in on
on its longest expansion ever.
The decade has been marked
by strong growth,
the lowest unemployment
in a generation.
And yet remarkably,
little inflation.
MAN 2: How you guys doing today,
welcome to Woodstock.
Where you wanna go, East Stage,
West Stage, Center Stage?
-MAN 3: Center stage.
-MAN 2: You wanna
stay straight--
Straight ahead, okay?
Straight ahead.
Okay, there you go.
Yup, just leave him up here.
So have fun, okay, guys?
-You guys okay?
You got your toilet paper?
-Yes.
REPORTER 2:
A senate panel describes Y2K
as a worldwide crisis.
-Welcome to 1999 on MTV.
-Whoo!
-CARSON DALY: Limp Bizkit!
-MAN: Woodstock '99.
Stay home for the trip
of your life on pay per view.
INTERVIEWER:
And what's the town like?
WOMAN: It's pretty cool.
They're all nice.
Like, this is the first, like,
concert I've been to
where everybody that you'll meet
is really nice to you.
REPORTER 3: The biggest news,
shortly before 1:30
this afternoon,
President Clinton was impeached.
BILL CLINTON:
I'm gonna say this again.
I did not have sexual relations
with that woman.
REPORTER 4: So this is the night
before, the night before
the big day kicking off,
Woodstock '99.
And right here is a little bit
of a party going on.
What's happening
is 350,000 people
are gonna be taken care of,
by about 10,000 staff people,
all looking over
the 350,000 people.
♪ (ROCK MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-♪ (MUSIC STOPS) ♪
-(CROWD CHEERING)
♪ (MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
The biggest concert of the year
was Woodstock '94
in Saugerties, New York.
The fans not only wore the mud
at the festival,
but they also ate it.
What was initially predicted
to be an overhyped,
commercial disaster turned out
to be nothing of the sort.
♪ ("DREAMS"
BY THE CRANBERRIES PLAYING) ♪
♪ Oh, my life ♪
♪ Is changing everyday ♪
♪ In every possible way... ♪
JOHN SCHER: I get stopped
all the time
by people who had
the time of their life
at Woodstock '94.
There was a tone that was set,
an expectation
not only of the artists
that were performing
but an expectation
of how the audience
would perform.
We had probably
three or four hundred
thousand people at the festival.
Its biggest problem
was the fences came down,
so we lost money.
Also, you know, it was raining.
It rained on
and off all weekend,
it was an absolute mud pit.
People helped each other,
loved each other,
no violence.
It was sort of, probably,
the last hurrah
for the baby boomers
and their kids.
-Welcome to Woodstock 1994!
-Welcome to Woodstock 1994!
MICHAEL:
When we did Woodstock '94,
the idea was to function
as a bridge
between the music
that we generated in the '60s
and what was contemporary
in the '90s.
And it worked really well.
The weekend was amazing.
JOHN: We replicated a lineup
that was reasonably close
to what '69 was.
You know, the general peace,
love, and harmony thing
-worked still.
-♪ (DOLORES VOCALIZING) ♪
JOHN: After the festival,
Michael and I looked
at each other and said,
"Okay, let's do it again
in like five years."
-♪ (VOCALIZING) ♪
-(CROWD CHEERING)
MICHAEL: Woodstock seems
to remain the American festival.
And I think we should do it
every five years or so,
so a new generation of college
and graduating high school kids
get to experience it.
JOHN: In '99 we found
a perfect site
in Rome, New York.
They've got this
retired air force base
that they don't know
what to do with.
JOHN GRIFFO:
When Woodstock Ventures
first approached us,
I recognized and realized
that this was an opportunity
for the big event
that a community
could put their arms around.
Bottom line is,
we wanna encourage people
to buy some tickets
and come to Rome, NY
the weekend of the 22nd.
It's gonna be a memorable,
exciting experience.
Five years earlier, we lost
the air force base here
which obviously had
an enormous impact
on this community emotionally.
It was akin
to economic Armageddon
because we lost
thousands of jobs
and thousands of people.
JOHN: The base was ideal
because it had
a lot of infrastructure things
that we would've
otherwise needed to build.
JOHN: Also being
a former military installation,
it was enclosed.
Griffiss was well-suited
to make sure
that people came with tickets,
for a change.
JOHN: And then from
a philosophic perspective,
if you look at Isaiah
and the old beating swords
into plow shares,
well this was planes
into plow shares.
NICK RIZZO: I can sure remember
the lead up to it,
and it was really
all anybody could talk about.
(PEOPLE CHEERING)
NICK: There was a local bar
that was called Stockyard Inn
and then they changed their name
to The Woodstock Inn.
So, you know,
everybody was sort of trying
to get involved and kind of
capitalize on the excitement.
MATEO: Hi, I'm Mateo.
I'm from Rome, New York.
Here at wonderful
Griffiss Air Force Base
with a bunch of other talented
artists here
who are working on the mural.
Two miles long,
going all the way
around this entire park.
ARTIST: These kids right here
helped me create
a 500-foot mural
that's kind of a celebrated,
happy version of a mosh pit.
MICHAEL:
It was always our intention
to do something that was not
your parents' Woodstock.
It was definitely something
for the kids.
DAVID VADNAIS: You know,
I had just graduated
so once I got my money
for graduation
I didn't really have
much of an excuse.
It was expensive,
but I'm gonna see
all these bands,
so it seemed like a no-brainer.
My friend Dave De Rosia
was the guy
who was like,
"Let's go to Woodstock."
My older brother Rob
was next in line
to join in
and then my younger brother
and the girl he was dating
at the time wanted to go, too.
It was gonna be awesome.
MIKE ELLING: When I saw
the lineup, I was like,
"Dude, I am going to this."
Like, I can't imagine
a better lineup
for the music
that I love right now
and they're all in one place
and it's called Woodstock
and I get to go.
DAVID: Everybody wanted
to see Kid Rock.
-KEN HINELY: DMX.
-MIKE: Korn. Metallica.
KEN: Insane Clown Posse?
JESSICA LEVIN: Oh!
Rage Against the Machine!
KEN: And Limp Bizkit.
In 1999,
those guys were massive.
JESSICA: I remember
I had to beg my parents.
I was working at a pizzeria
and I remember
being on the phone with him
and being like,
"Dad, I'll go for you. I mean
you didn't get to go to '69,
I'll go to '99."
I mean I'm graduating
like let's just go do this,
this is gonna be... (BLOWS)
...like the big send off,
you know? It's Woodstock.
(CROWD CHEERING)
JAMES BROWN:
One, two, three, four
♪ ("GET ON UP"
BY JAMES BROWN PLAYING) ♪
-♪ Get up, get on up ♪
-♪ Get on up ♪
♪ Stay on the scene ♪
-♪ Get on up, get on up ♪
-♪ Like a sex machine ♪
♪ Get up ♪
DAVID: I remember vividly
like coming up over the hill,
and you're just--
you're blown away, right?
The thing is huge
and there's people everywhere.
There's people
dressed ridiculously
or not dressed at all.
And I was thinking like,
"How did this many people
already get in here?"
-Two lanes, two lanes!
-MAN: We got a founder.
Let's go!
One day this is gonna be
on some sort of documentary.
MAN 2: Hey Vince,
you got it all?
m*therf*cking Woodstock, baby.
BEN ABT:
Security was relatively minimal.
Especially compared
to the TSA days of today.
MAN 3: Our friend Andy
wound up making friends
with the security guards
up front.
And all the beer that they were
taking away from people
and all the chairs
that they were taking away
from people,
are right here right now.
BEN: The peace patrol,
who were monitoring the gates,
they just kinda looked
in your stuff,
said, "All right,
you're good to go."
Which immediately made me think,
"Wow, I think a bunch of people
have a lot of drugs here."
JOHN: We expanded Woodstock '99
by the pay-per-view
and the MTV coverage.
People running around
topless and...
JOHN: In those days,
MTV held the heartbeat
of the younger generation
in their palm.
TARIQ TROTTER:
When we performed,
it was like 1000 degrees.
Somehow, the way my mind worked,
was that
the fact that the sweater
I had on didn't have sleeves
was going to... (CHUCKLES)
...like that was gonna make
a difference
in the temperature on stage.
LIZ POLAY-WETTENGEL:
I remember it being really hot
and I remember a lot of chaos,
a lot of confusion.
People didn't know where
they were supposed to go
and there was a lot
of white men.
A lot of white boys
I should say.
It felt really young.
Lotta of white boys
wearing backwards baseball caps.
-♪ (MUSIC STOPS) ♪
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JOURNALIST: (OVER PA)
Our hopes are that people have
as good time this weekend
as they did at Saugerties
and as they did in 1969
in Bethel.
I think this is
a better facility
than any place we've been.
So we think that this has
the potential to be, you know,
one of the best things
we've ever done.
And be an incredible weekend
for everybody who joins us.
JOURNALIST: So, given
the distance between the stages,
any advice for people
who are here for the music?
Yeah, yeah.
That's true. It's about
two-thirds of a mile.
And in fact
we have over a 100 acts,
so you're not gonna be able
to see everything.
There's a tremendous amount
to do,
you're not gonna
run out of things to do.
You can go 24 hours a day,
we're open all day
and all night.
We've designed
a number of things in addition
to the two main stages.
There's an emerging
artist stage,
there's the rave for those
who like to stay up all night
and are more nocturnal
than I am.
There is the 24-hour-a-day
film festival,
there's the sports park,
there are a lot
of non-for-profit booths
that political conversation
and dialogue can take place.
This is already very much
taken shape of its own city.
MAUREEN CALAHAN: I mean,
you had two main stages
that were a mile
from each other.
They're on a black tarmac
in the middle of nowhere.
I mean, think about the irony
of Woodstock on a military base.
STEVEN HYDEN: The appeal
of Griffiss for the organizers
was that it was a place
that would be really hard
to gate-crash
because the peace wall.
And really, I mean, like
if we're talking about peace
is a wall, like,
a great metaphor for that?
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MICHAEL: Woodstock '69
was about trying to show
that there was a better way
for people to treat each other.
With more compassion
and more understanding
and given the opportunity,
people will behave that way,
will show their better self.
And then, I mean,
what could be better,
just not being hassled
by anyone, smoking a joint
under the stars
listening to great music?
STEVEN: Michael Lang
is who I call
the Willie Wonka of Woodstock.
He's this guy
who's eternally boyish,
he's presiding
over this fantasy land
that every generation of kids
wants to visit.
But if you spend
more than a couple minutes
at the chocolate factory,
you realize that
it's not the idyllic utopia
that it presents itself to be.
WESLEY MORRIS: The thing
about the Woodstock mythology is
I feel like people
are being selective
about how they're choosing
to remember
what happened,
to suit their own ends.
And the way in which we choose
to romanticize,
it has everything to do
with who is telling stories.
MAUREEN: Unlike
the prevailing lore
would have it,
Woodstock '69 was anything
but peace, love and, you know,
three days
of sex, drugs,
and rock and roll.
It was a mess, there were riots.
The US Army
had to airlift supplies in.
People died.
STEVEN: Really,
it's out of sheer luck
that it didn't end up
worse than it did.
And there's really some
very near disasters
that happened
at the original Woodstock
that nobody remembers now.
For instance,
there was this group called
the Up Against
the Wall m*therf*ckers,
who were upset about
how much was being charged
for food at the festival.
So they set fire
to like a dozen food stands.
The problem is that
instead of learning
from the mistakes
that were made,
we instead created
this romanticized mythology
in the form of the documentary.
People watched the film
and they chose to believe
that that's the way
it really was.
(CROWD CHEERING)
♪ ("LIVE" BY
SELLING THE DRAMA PLAYING) ♪
♪ And to love ♪
♪ A god and to fear a flame ♪
-Whoo!
-♪ And to burn ♪
♪ A crowd that has a name ♪
♪ And to right or wrong ♪
♪ And to weak or strong ♪
♪ It is known ♪
♪ Just scream it from the wall ♪
DAVID: And we ran around
just taking it all in,
everybody's fired up.
The music is great.
The fans are great.
(PEOPLE CHEERING)
-REPORTER: What band
you here to see?
-Metallica baby, yeah!
DAVID: My friend Dave
wanted to see Metallica.
That was his mission.
And he was keeping a journal
the whole weekend.
NARRATOR: "Add Live
to the bands seen.
Very good.
And Jamiroquai, not good.
I waited for people
to get me a coke.
Listened to a horrible set
by Andy d*ck."
Here's my big fat f*cking hit!
NARRATOR: "Also met Mario,
nice guy, but I got the feeling
he was beat.
I, on the other hand,
am doing okay, but tired.
I think we're going to head back
to catch Korn and Bush.
I'll let you know.
Also boob count is too high
to keep counting.
I think we're at around 11,
or 14."
Make a Woodstock baby, '99!
♪ (MUSIC STOPS) ♪
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
I came here with three guys.
And I didn't remember
where the tent was.
I had only been here
like an hour.
WOMAN: This section
is for anybody
who is lost
or is seeking somebody else.
MAN: Hey, I'm looking
for a friend of mine.
I brought him here yesterday
and lost him, and he's 65.
DAVID: It is crazy
to think about it.
Nobody had a cellphone.
Like, or if they did,
they were very few
and far between.
Back then, you really had no way
of getting in touch
with somebody,
finding somebody.
It was massive, so it's not easy
to find people if you got lost.
-MAN: Have you got a moment?
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-WOMAN 1: We lost her...
-WOMAN 2: We lost her...
-...and now, she's found.
-...and now, she's found.
I can have fun at Woodstock now.
-(WOMAN 1 CHUCKLES)
-(CROWD CHEERING)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen
of Woodstock,
a special treat for you all.
The Backstreet Boys!
♪ ("EVERYBODY"
BY BACKSTREET BOYS PLAYING) ♪
♪ Backstreet's back all right ♪
DAVE HOLMES: At MTV,
there was like a tug of w*r
for the TRL charts at the time.
It was the Disney teens
versus the filthy boys
in cargo shorts.
And it went that way
for a couple of years.
And Woodstock '99
was sort of at,
like, the pinnacle of that.
All right,
you guys ready for this?
(CROWD CHEERING)
(GRUNTS)
(GRUNTS)
DAVE HOLMES:
1999 was an interesting time
because the stage was set
for something new to happen.
And what did happen
was teen pop.
NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys
and Britney and Christina
and all of them were,
like, at the top of the charts.
And, as a reaction,
there was all this
sort of weird,
rap inflected,
aggressive rock music.
And now falling
out of the number one spot,
back to number three today,
here is Korn
-with "Freak on a Leash."
-(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
CARSON: In the moment,
TRL became
that cultural touch point
for teenagers,
it was must-see TV.
We had all this inner-genre
of music melding together
in an hour
where that would
never have happened
even a few years ago.
At the time
it felt like it's awesome,
like TRL is a place
like the United Nations,
like we all come together,
everybody coexisted
sort of magically.
But looking back on it now,
you realize that we were really
probably playing with fire.
I'm sick of the (BLEEP)
Backstreet Boys on MTV Live.
I'm sick of that (BLEEP).
-You know, it's f*cking (BLEEP).
-Don't hold back on me.
I'm not holding back.
I hate that (BLEEP).
DAVE HOLMES:
It was a weird time for MTV
because it seemed like
their reputation changed,
their brand changed.
The average viewer,
it seemed like,
dropped five years overnight,
where it had once been
kind of a counterculture-y
kind of a place,
suddenly it was like,
there's Nick Jr.
and Nickelodeon and then MTV.
And Carson definitely got such
a combination
of like rage and jealousy
because he was, you know,
at the center of it.
So, I've never been more happy
to be overshadowed
by someone
than I was that weekend.
(CROWD BOOING)
Awesome this right here,
is Woodstock '99 at its finest.
DAVE HOLMES:
From the second we got there,
immediately we knew
this is not a crowd
that wants us here. At all.
They were mad at us
because we took
their MTV away
and gave it
to their little sister.
We were in trouble.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MOBY: Growing up,
Woodstock in 1969
figured more prominently
as like a cultural touchstone
than anything else in my life.
I can't think of anything else
that even competed
with Woodstock
for cultural significance
in the '70s, into the '80s,
which is why when I got asked
to perform in '99,
I jumped at the chance
because it was
just such an iconic name.
I mean, you think of everybody
who performed
and like the number of times
I've like watched the movies
and listened
to the soundtrack recording,
and you realized it made it seem
even more magical,
like that it happened at all.
Like, everything that could have
gone wrong went wrong.
But somehow it worked...
like it was
as idyllic and utopian
as a gathering
of 500,000 or more people
has ever been in human history.
And I know that sounds like
an exaggeration,
but it really isn't.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
CAMERA MAN:
MOBY: Problem was,
see there's a little expression
of ATD, attention to detail.
My name wasn't on the piece
of plywood.
And there's this little piece
of plywood
that welcomes you
when you come in.
-CAMERA MAN:
And all the artists signed--
-And all the artists' names
are on the piece of plywood
and my name
wasn't on the piece of plywood
and I...
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
MOBY: Who's ever even
heard of these bands?
MAN: All have been slashed--
Okay, let's find bands
we've never even heard of.
Spitfire, Our Lady Peace,
The Umbilical Brothers.
What's that one
that starts with an "O?"
Buckcherry. Oleander.
Buckcherry.
MOBY: I remember.
I looked at the lineup
and I was like, "What is this?"
like, "How did this happen?
How is this called Woodstock?"
It would have made
so much more sense
if it had been called like,
Army Base Rock '99,
featuring Limp Bizkit.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MOBY: There is a sixth sense
that you develop
when you spend your life, like,
going to nightclubs,
going to venues.
Like, I can tell you
a hundred feet away
what the energy in that venue
is gonna be like.
You develop it after decades
of being around venues.
We got off the bus
and I was like,
"Something's not right,"
and this was the first day.
And I was just like,
something...
You could just tell.
And, like, I started walking
through the crowd,
and like everybody was angry,
and everybody was hot,
and everybody was complaining.
and it had only been open
for six hours.
And it was already
off the rails.
(CROWD CHEERING)
MAN: I need everybody
who can see me
to put your m*therf*cking "X"s
in the air.
DMX: Yeah,
that's what I'm talking about.
Woodstock, where you at?
Where ya at?
TARIQ: DMX, at that time,
he was, you know, very much
-a man of the people.
-Is it on?
(CROWD CHEERING)
Is it on?
TARIQ: So I think
he had a persona
that was very accessible.
His performance at Woodstock
was unparalleled.
I mean, I feel like he's a man
possessed in front of, you know,
hundreds of thousands
of people and,
I mean, that stage was huge.
You know, the fact
that he was able
to sort of navigate
and to own it, I think it speaks
to what the moment
meant for him.
-Oh-h*! Oh-h*!
-CROWD: Oh-h*! Oh-h*!
WESLEY: It's call-and-response,
right?
This is a classic,
Black gospel way
of communicating in music form.
The preacher says something
the congregation knows
what to say in response.
♪ ("MY n*gg*s" BY DMX PLAYING) ♪
♪ You won't take this
From me, baby ♪
♪ You will not take this
From me, baby ♪
♪ Come on, come on, come on
My n*gg*s ♪
♪ Some n*gg*s
That you don't wanna try ♪
-♪ My n*gg*s ♪
-♪ Some n*gg*s
That's really do or die ♪
-♪ My n*gg*s ♪
-♪ Will have you cowards
Ready to cry ♪
-♪ My n*gg*s ♪
-♪ Will fry ♪
-♪ My n*gg*s ♪
-♪ Will Rob ♪
WESLEY: You could hear it.
You can hear
thousands of people.
He says it,
and it comes back at him
at twice the intensity.
-♪ My n*gg*s ♪
-♪ Is God ♪
-♪ My n*gg*s ♪
-♪ Will shine ♪
WESLEY: And what's so chilling
about it is
they were ready to do it!
They were like hoping
that he would do this song.
-♪ My n*gg*s, my n*gg*s ♪
-♪ Is fine ♪
WESLEY: You have to understand
this sort of thing
wasn't happening
on a regular basis in 1999.
There weren't a lot of occasions
for Black rappers
to command a crowd exclusively
almost of white people,
where the Black performer
is essentially licensing
the people in the crowd
to say this word with him.
-♪ Is dogs ♪
-♪ My n*gga ♪
(CROWD CHEERING)
DMX: Where you at, baby?
WESLEY: To perform a thing
that they don't believe.
Or maybe they do believe it,
but if you were to ask them
what they believe, if you got
each one of these guys
after the show and pulled
each one of them show aside
and say, "Is it okay
to say the *-word
under any circumstances?"
They would, to a person, say,
"I mean the right answer is no.
Right?"
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
WESLEY: And so I'm wondering,
what is it like
for the other Black people
in a moment like this.
What are they thinking?
If they went with friends
who they didn't think
were *-word sayers
under any circumstances,
what were those friendships
like? What happened?
I mean,
what was the racial dynamic
for the few non-white people
who were there?
And imagine
being a non-white woman,
what that experience
was like for you.
(CROWD CHEERING)
ANNOUNCER: Rosie Perez!
(CROWD CHEERING)
Aw, come on now.
How are y'all feeling out there?
(CROWD CHEERING)
So...
CROWD:
I ain't showing you all sh*t!
(CROWD BOOING)
All right.
MAUREEN:
There was a local radio station
that rolled in
with a little trailer
and they had two naked girls
or topless girls on top,
so it had this anachronistic,
like Girls Gone Wild vibe.
(CROWD CHEERING)
DAVE MATTHEWS: Sometimes
there's an abundance of things,
and sometimes there's a lack.
Today,
there's an abundance of t*tties.
MAUREEN: If you look back,
the Girls Gone Wild cohort
was a sort of reaction
to the first part of the decade.
It was like "Girls, like, no.
Know your place.
You're sex objects
and you're supposed
to be pretty and shut up."
LIZ: I think that
there's a generation of girls
that were brought up
looking at Girls Gone Wild
and thinking "Wow, this is what
I'm supposed to be doing.
This is how real girls get men."
MAUREEN:
There was just a feeling of,
"Let's put these girls back
where they belong,
in their cages,
in their boxes
and let's show everyone
who's boss."
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEVEN: When you watch
the pay-per-view
of Woodstock '99,
it's pretty clear
that the cameramen
are seeking out as much
female nudity as possible.
Okay, I think you've looked
at the breasts long enough now,
can you just move along now?
STEVEN: And, it just seems like,
if you're selling
this pay-per-view
to a young audience that's part
of what you're selling.
So the degree to which
exploitation of women
was not only excused
but formalized
and made part
of the business plan
of Woodstock '99, that certainly
created an environment
where people felt
that exploiting women,
abusing women, hurting women,
was gonna be okay.
And you could get away with it
if that's something
you wanted to do.
WESLEY: In 1999, we were
still dealing with the fallout
from
the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal,
where Bill Clinton drove a truck
over her in trying to wiggle out
of what had actually happened.
She was disposable essentially.
I mean,
we were disposing of women
left and right at that point.
So you've got
your Maxim subscription.
FHM. You've got
Girls Gone Wild.
And it just feels like
women are basically there
to just be sexy for men.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
It's only fair, you know,
they're gonna do it to us.
It's only fair. That's right.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JOHN: Unlike '94,
there were so many naked women
walking in the fields,
that you couldn't count it.
MAN: I think we've pretty much
taken over Woodstock '99, so.
It was the most promiscuous
of my lifetime, you know.
I don't see shows with
naked women running around,
you know, anymore.
-Woodstock '99!
-Woodstock '99!
(SCREAMS)
JOHN: And, you know,
you gotta think
you probably got an audience
of an average age
in their early 20s.
Guys in their early 20s
tend to be horny 24 hours a day.
(CROWD CHEERING)
Because of this MTV
spring break feeling in the air,
you know, there was some people
who were disrespectful.
Five-year plan!
Oh, I will be back again.
JONATHAN DAVIS:
There was a definite
hyper sexuality to that time.
Girls Gone Wild,
porn was in the mainstream,
but that isn't an excuse
for some dipshit
to grab a girl's titty
when she's coming up
over the pit.
No artist wants that,
no one sits there
and goes, "Oh, look at that."
It's disgusting. It's not cool.
And then that's
when you get pissed
that you'll call out a fan,
that can beat that guy's a*s.
I'll get in trouble
and sued for it,
beat that m*therf*cker's a*s
right there.
-"You. You just did that."
-(CROWD CHEERING)
All right, thanks a lot!
Hey, are you guys
having a good time?
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-DEXTER HOLLAND: All right!
g*dd*mn it,
I'm having a good time.
But you know what,
I was noticing something
I gotta call your guys attention
to here for just a second.
I've been noticing
that there's a lot of girls
coming over to the top here,
crowd surfing,
and they're getting
really groped,
you know what I mean?
Now I think just 'cause a girl
wants to go
crowd surfing or whatever,
that doesn't give a guy
the right to molest them,
-you know what I'm saying?
-(CROWD CHEERING)
So if you're a guy and you see
a girl passing overhead,
give her a break, all right,
you know what I'm saying?
And if you're a girl and you see
a guy passing overhead,
I want you to grab
his f*cking ba*ls!
(CROWD CHEERING)
♪ ("SELF ESTEEM"
BY THE OFFSPRING PLAYING) ♪
♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪
NARRATOR: "Friday, July 23rd.
Caught the tail end
of Offspring.
More naked boobs.
It's kind of getting old.
Outlook for a shower, not good.
Tomorrow's goal
get on the Woodstock video
by being in the Metallica pit."
DEXTER: All right,
now do me a favor
and sing along to this one,
all right?
NARRATOR: "Rock on!"
♪ I wrote her off
For the tenth time today ♪
DEXTER: We are on the first day
and it wasn't even quite
nighttime yet.
And, I mean, I like rowdy shows
like that's a lot of the fun
is the energy of the crowd
and stuff,
and you could feel
something bubbling
I can't quite put my finger
on it, but--
NOODLES: It was all the sh*t
being thrown up on stage.
(CHUCKLES)
-DEXTER: Oh, yeah, that kinda--
-And I don't think we even asked
-for it, I mean--
-That's a tip-off.
♪ That's okay, man,
'Cause I like the abuse ♪
♪ I know she's playing with me ♪
♪ That's okay 'cause I got
No self-esteem ♪
It really seemed
like in pop culture,
there's this dark energy
coming from young white males
that entertainment is both
catering to and perpetuating.
TYLER DURDEN: We've all been
raised on television
to believe that one day
we'd be all millionaires,
and movie gods, and rock stars
but we won't.
We're slowly learning that fact.
And we're very, very pissed off.
DAVE HOLMES:
At the end of the millennium,
a lot of movies marketed
toward young people with anger
and with what is sexual as*ault.
And we thought
nothing of it at the time.
It was boys and girls alike
clapped at the end of the movie,
and that was that.
MAUREEN: You know,
you've got this festival
that's supposed to be
espousing countercultural,
loftier ideals when the '90s
were anything but that.
So why attempt to manufacture
nostalgia for Woodstock '69,
an event that none
of these kids were alive for?
(CROWD CHEERING)
WYCLEF JEAN: Hold on.
-♪ (GUITAR PLAYING) ♪
-(CROWD CHEERING)
ROB SHEFIELD: A theme
through the festival
was that artists
kept making echoes
about the original festival
that were completely lost
on those that were there.
Pat, who played
the "Star Spangled Banner"
at the original Woodstock?
-I can't remember.
-Come on, man,
you gotta work with me here.
Try.
sh*t, is the name Jerry?
ROB: Woodstock was something
that was talked about
but not really like
a part of '90s rock culture.
And '90s rock culture
was booming in a way that made
'60s rock culture seemed trivial
and outdated in a lot of ways.
-BUSH: Give me an F.
-CROWD: F!
-BUSH: Give me a U. Give me a...
-CROWD: U!
ROB: And then when Bush
led the crowd
in a F-U-C-K cheer, you know,
that had gotten
Country Joe and the Fish
in so much trouble
back 30 years earlier,
absolutely nobody in the crowd
got that joke
or understood why
it was supposed to be amusing.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ROB: So, you know,
it's interesting,
going back to the way Nirvana
on Nevermind
with their little parody of,
you know,
"Everybody get together, try
to love one another right now."
♪ Everybody get together ♪
♪ Try to love
One another right now ♪
ROB: For the crowd
that was at Woodstock '99,
the idea of Nirvana
and Pearl Jam was as outdated
as seeing
Creedence Clearwater Revival
or the Grateful Dead.
You know, it was not something
that was really in sync
with the kids who were there
to see Korn and Limp Bizkit.
(CROW CHEERING)
♪ ("BLIND" BY KORN PLAYING) ♪
♪ Are you ready? ♪
♪ This place inside my mind
A place I like to hide ♪
♪ You don't know the chances ♪
-♪ What if I should die? ♪
-♪ A place inside my... ♪
JONATHAN: I can't even put it
into words what I was feeling.
I'm feeling numb.
I don't feel anything.
I'm just like in the zone, like,
"Oh my God,
okay, I gotta go out there
and k*ll this."
And I know for a fact
they're not all Korn fans,
so I gotta win
these f*ck over.
(VOCALIZING)
JONATHAN: The crowd was so big
that they had
three sets of PAs set up
and they were time aligned,
but you could see
how sound travels
'cause they would jump in time
so that the crowd
would do this wave effect.
After that, I was like, "f*ck,
I don't have-- I left my body."
I can't tell you what the f*ck
happened after that.
-Come on, Woodstock!
-(CROWD CHEERING)
♪ (ROCK MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JONATHAN: I just went as hard
and as intense as I could go
and still sing,
but it was so f*cking hot,
I literally collapsed
after the last song.
I walked backstage,
and I fell on the ground.
They put bags of ice all over me
and ran IVs
and put me on oxygen.
I was that-- I was gone.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
BEN: My only goal
is to be front row for Korn,
so I fought my way through
and I remember
thinking to myself,
"Wow there's probably
50,000 people behind me."
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
BEN: And then
during the concert,
I started feeling
a little funny.
I was cold
and I thought to myself,
"It's gotta be
110 degrees out here.
Why am I cold?"
And it dawned on me like,
"Wow, I think have hypothermia."
My body's never felt
this way before
and I said, "I think
I'm in trouble." (CHUCKLES)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DAVE HOLMES: I was very near
the stage
and like person after person
was like pulled out of the pit.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DAVE KONIG: I worked
Hurricane Katrina
and Hurricane Rita
and Hurricane Sandy
but whenever people ask me
about Woodstock '99,
I always say
that it was
the greatest disaster
I ever went to.
For any event like this,
environmental concerns
are gonna definitely be
at the forefront,
and the heat
was absolutely atrocious.
So you had to worry
about heat stroke,
heat exhaustion, hyperthermia.
We need to make sure that people
are staying hydrated.
Everybody that was there
was like packed together.
And bodies generate heat
then other bodies
right next to it
are absorbing that heat.
And then they have these
huge runways made of asphalt.
It definitely added to increased
ground temperatures.
Every single night,
we were doing
like a thousand transports
and a lot of them
were just dehydrations
because people didn't have
enough water that day.
I would say 90 percent
of the cases that we saw
were caused by the environment
and the lack of access to water.
REPORTER: The one thing
I would say is,
if you don't like heat,
don't come to Woodstock '99.
It is hot.
Please don't come unless
you are prepared to be baked.
-WOMAN: Anything else?
-MAN: Okay.
Another refreshment coming.
NICK: Everything
was pretty highly regulated
with the vendors all the water
had to be sold
for four dollars a bottle,
which, you know, even now
20 years later
-is a ridiculous cost.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
BEN: I couldn't believe
that bottles of water
were four dollars.
I wasn't prepared
to pay four dollars for water.
DAVE: When the beer
is the same price of water,
as a kid if, if I had a choice,
I would choose the beer, too.
And then on top of that,
the alcohol is actually
dehydrating you further.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-MAUREEN: There were accounts
that security guards
in searching kids
before they came in
were told, "Under no means
let them come in
with their own food,
their own water."
But when it came to drugs,
the guards were happy
to take a 20 or a 50
to look the other way.
JAKE HAFNER: In 1999,
I was 23 years old,
and a good friend of mine
called me up one day
and asked me if I wanted
to work security
at Woodstock '99.
JOHN: The security was hard
to hire. They're a lot of them.
And we had to get licensed ones,
which, you know,
was not that easy.
JAKE: They had
a three-hour class I had to take
and the instructor
basically spent
the last two hours of the class
going through the test
question by question,
giving the answer
and then at the end of that,
then he handed out the test
and we took it.
It was kind of anyone that,
you know, was semi-lucid
and could write their name
was eligible
to be a security guard
at Woodstock '99.
JOHN: At the gates, we had
our most trusted security guys.
So if somebody was trying
to take money,
it would have got caught.
And with drinking water,
it was unquestionably
lots of free water.
MICHAEL: You know,
I mean, we worked
with the health department
to create a water system
that would accommodate
everybody who was there.
You didn't have to buy water
if you didn't want to.
JOHN: Yes, bottles of water
were four dollars.
It was somewhat
on the high side,
but it wasn't as ridiculous
as it got made out to be
and if you're gonna go
to a festival,
you bring money with you.
This was not
a poor man's festival.
INTERVIEWER:
What's this line for?
-The ATM machine.
-CROWD: Yeah.
-INTERVIEWER: The ATM?
-ATM.
-INTERVIEWER: Oh!
-We've been waiting here
a long time.
JESSICA: We're 18. I'm working
at a pizzeria for minimum wage.
We're hot, we're sweaty,
we're tired.
We didn't sleep well.
We're not starting
on the best footing
to start our, you know,
three day of adventure,
you know.
MAN: Turn on the water!
CAMERA MAN:
Dude, what do you think
about the water shortage, man?
-It is f*cked up.
-CAMERA MAN:
sh*t is f*cked up, man.
-No more water.
-CAMERA MAN: Let's start a riot.
Woodstock '99, the riots.
MIKE: I'm a college kid.
I'm 20 years old.
There's a lot of people
that were younger than me.
There's a lot of people
that just like
paid a lot of money
to go to this festival.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MIKE: You would go
to these little troughs
where you're supposed
to be able to have a drink
and there was people showering
in them.
So, while you just wanted
to like douse your face
with water
or brush your teeth
or do something with water,
there was just people like
full-on showering,
you know, shampoo, soap.
And then at some point,
I think somebody busted a pipe
because they were so tired
of waiting for the water.
So, then there was just like,
all this water just going
all over the place
near the campgrounds
and even flowing
into the camp area,
which led to the mud.
MAUREEN: The porta potties,
it didn't take long for them
to become pretty much unusable.
They were backing up
pretty quickly
and then the sewage
was seeping out,
to the point
where you had kids
within the first 24 hours
rolling around
in what they thought was mud
but was really human waste.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-(SCREAMS)
KEN: That mud
that these people were in,
as far as I was concerned,
based on what I saw,
it was mud and sh*t.
So I did see
people covered in that,
thought that was pretty strange,
not a thing I would normally see
where I come from.
CAMERAMAN: We are going
on a mission
that nobody has ever gone on.
Oh, you see. You can smell.
-The place is gruesome... Oh!
-CAMERAMAN: Holy sh*t.
ROB: Plumbing,
always a challenge
at rock festivals. Again,
this was something
that in the '90s,
people did not think
there was a better way
to do stuff like this.
People, in the future,
worth their weight in gold.
-I'm telling you.
-(MAN LAUGHING)
ROB: So the place
smelled pretty gross
by even Friday afternoon.
NOODLES: You know, there's
a festival grounds in Germany.
It was literally built
by Hitler.
And we've played there
a bunch of times,
it's a great venue, lot of fun.
The airbase was less hospitable
than the venue built by Nazis.
(BOTH LAUGH)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
PAX VOLUNTEER: Hi, we're with
an organization called PAX,
what we're doing is
we're getting people
to sign these petitions
against g*n violence.
It's a good thing.
It's basically trying
to get people to stop
getting g*ns
in the hands of kids, you know.
We're giving away candles
for the...
the light ceremony
tomorrow night at eight o'clock.
So here, why don't you
just take one as a souvenir
for coming by and seeing us.
And stop by the candle ceremony
at eight o'clock tomorrow night
and I'm sure you'll see
all the candles
that we've given out. Thanks.
♪ ("BAWITDABA"
BY KID ROCK PLAYING) ♪
♪ Bawitdaba, da bang,
Da dang diggy diggy, diggy ♪
♪ Said the boogie
Said up jump the boogie ♪
♪ Bawitdaba, da bang
Da dang diggy diggy, diggy ♪
♪ Said the boogie
Said up jump the boogie ♪
STEVEN: I think about Kid Rock
coming out
in this luxurious,
white fur coat.
If you were looking
for an easy metaphor
to explain the haves
and the have-nots
at Woodstock '99 and in fact,
I think in 1999 in general
to me,
like that sums it up perfectly.
-(CROW CHEERING)
-DAVE HOLMES: It's a very
weird thing
that you see
at the end of the '90s.
There's just this
simmering anger.
And it manifested itself
through sludge and angst.
♪ My name is Kid ♪
♪ Is Kid Rock ♪
♪ Bawitdaba, da bang
Da dang diggy diggy, diggy ♪
DAVE HOLMES: The DJ
on stage became a weird trope
and you never really knew
why they were there,
just you would hear a faint
sort of wicky-wicky noise
in the background,
and that was enough to sustain
a whole band member.
It seemed like the kind of thing
that would break down barriers,
you know, hip-hop
and rock would be one thing.
But it really didn't.
WESLEY: If you look
at the history
of American music, nu metal
was just bound to happen.
This is a country whose music
was basically forged
in white people
impersonating Black people.
It makes all the sense
in the world
that that would wind up
in this sort of swamp
that nu metal basically becomes.
MOBY: You know, a lot of times
when white people
have embraced hip-hop,
they've ignored the funk,
they've ignored the R&B.
You know,
they've ignored the subtlety
and they've embraced h*m*
and misogyny.
♪ If you don't like Kid Rock
You can suck my d*ck ♪
MOBY: The same thing with metal.
There's a lot of wonderful,
celebratory, joyful, fun metal,
but somehow nu metal embraced
the troglodyte elements.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-KID ROCK: Now listen close.
You want me to get political?
Well, this is about as deep
as Kid Rock thinks.
Monica Lewinsky is a f*cking hoe
and Bill Clinton
is a g*dd*mn pimp.
(CROWD CHEERING)
MOBY: And granted
this is over 20 years ago
and I'm still so baffled, like,
how it went from
the sort of progressive
enlightened values
of Kurt Cobain and Michael Stipe
to misogyny and h*m*.
And the r*pe, frat boy culture
that was at Woodstock '99.
MAUREEN: What happened
in the early '90s with Nirvana
was nothing short of
a generational overtaking.
The acts and the artists
that had been dominating
the culture
were wiped off the face
of the planet by Nevermind.
Boy bands, pop music,
hair metal, it was all done.
Nirvana actually gave a voice
to the unrest
that was happening,
that the gatekeepers
of pop culture
were not aware of.
And so, Nirvana just cracked
that door open,
and it gave an entire generation
this purpose and connection.
STEVEN: You had bands
that were talking about
feminism and LGBTQ rights
and anti-racism.
And I think a lot of people
looked at rock music and hip-hop
as these things
that could actually
make a difference in the world.
MAUREEN:
It was a sudden earthquake
in rock and roll and pop culture
in which the boys and the girls
want to level the playing field,
So you have Kurt in a dress,
gender bending.
You have Riot grrrl,
you have the second
most relevant band
of that decade,
The Beastie Boys,
maturing and apologizing
for their sexism and misogyny.
Especially in terms of like
girls becoming empowered
and becoming sure of themselves,
you know.
If we could help with that,
that was kind of cool.
MAUREEN: And on top of that,
you have this generation
of young men who really,
for the first time,
had been raised by moms
who came of age during
the real first wave of feminism,
or had been raised
by single moms,
and so you sort of felt
that there was
this unprecedented parity
in this generation
between the boys and the girls.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
But that said,
grunge was very short lived.
It became commodified
and commercialized so quickly.
This negative energy
just makes me stronger.
We will not retreat.
This band is unstoppable.
And then in April of 1994,
you have the death
of Kurt Cobain.
The hope that people had
in the early '90s was gone.
MOBY: Then like culture went
from progressive to aggressive.
It went from inclusive
to violent and misogynistic.
Honestly, and this might sound
overly simplistic and glib,
but it was money.
You know, the major labels
the alternative rocks stations,
MTV, Spin, Rolling Stone
all of a sudden, they realized
they made more money
because their demographic
was expanded.
SCOTT STAPP:
Our peak started around '99.
That's when nu metal
came in, too.
So we were all kinda blowing up
at the same exact time.
But post grunge, you know
where Creed was born,
we really had something to say
and we were looking inward,
really expressing these feelings
of frustration,
that time in our life
where the idealistic view
that we had of the world
was crushed and crumbled.
And then, the nu metal,
took it a step further
with its angst, this aggression.
It became the mouthpiece
of the generation
along with naivety, bravado,
talking trash, being rebellious
and I think
that's why it connected.
TARIQ: There was also
that underlying fear
of the unknown. The angst,
and anxiety associated
with just not knowing
what was gonna happen
at the time
of the new millennia.
And people needed some way
to sort of exhaust that energy
and I think that genre of music
provided the perfect vehicle
for people to just say,
you know, "f*ck it."
MAUREEN: You know these artists,
they tapped
into something very real
and something that had been
sort of pushed down
in the earlier part
of the decade.
And so I don't necessarily think
that acts like Korn
or Limp Bizkit
were fomenting something
in the culture
that wasn't already there.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
REPORTER: They hated jocks,
loved the internet.
They were known
as the Trench Coat Mafia,
question is
why didn't anyone know
they turned so violent.
And they, like,
started blowing up
and sh**ting everyone
in the cafeteria.
REPORTER: They are a group
of disenfranchised kids
that have threatened revenge
in the past
for kids making fun of them.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEVEN: Just three months,
before Woodstock '99
the school sh**ting
at Columbine took place.
And it's such an extreme act
of violence,
but I think it's an example
of people
who are really struggling
to be seen.
BILL: And we continue
our reporting
on the corrosive effects
of the popular music world
on some American children.
NEWS REPORTER: We now know
that one of them also posted
violent lyrics on the internet.
MAUREEN: I think the blaming
of artists, musicians,
filmmakers. It's all just
political maneuvering
and an easy way
to misdirect your eye over here
when the real problems
are so much more difficult
and really require digging in.
I think if anyone like Hitler
or Mussolini were alive now,
they'd have to be rock stars.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-♪ (HEAVY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Hey, what's up?
-Are we doing all right?
-MAN: Yeah.
-Everything going good still?
-Everything's going great man.
We were just hanging out
with Puff up there, man.
-He's a cool guy.
-MAN 2: Yo, D!
-What's up, how you doing?
-MAN 2: What's up, man?
♪ (MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NARRATOR: "Saturday,
July 24th, 1999.
Busy day.
Just made it back
to the tent for some R&R.
We saw in this order
Tragically Hip,
I know why they do so well,
they bring Canada
to all their shows.
Kid Rock,
I'm getting that album.
He played every instrument
during each song.
That rocks.
Wyclef Jean
and the Refugee All-Stars.
I remember saying
of someone's mother once,
something about nothing nice
to say?
Counting Crows,
not the same live, but not bad.
Dave Matthews,
nothing needs to be said.
My shoes got soaked twice.
Oh, well.
Now to build up strength,
because I'm going to the pit.
(SIGHING) Hippies beating
on drums down the road.
f*cking hippies."
(METAL CLANGING)
MIKE: So there were these
trash can drum circles.
I had never seen anything like
that in my life.
(CLANGS)
MIKE: You would find the most
insane looking characters
just banging on anything
they could find.
BEN: All day long
for that whole weekend,
a bunch of people
had taken trash cans
and tipped them over
and were banging
on them incessantly.
Not really in rhythm
just banging, banging, banging.
And we thought it was kind
of funny
but we also thought like,
"Well, I wonder who is going
to put these trash cans
back over and put them back
where they were."
MAN: (ON MICROPHONE) Sixty-nine,
'94, a poster for '99.
Anybody else?
-...up here and you can do this.
-(PEOPLE CHEERING)
(PEOPLE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
On Saturday, you could see
that we, as a group
kind of abused the place.
You have so many people,
not enough receptacles.
So, like you would expect,
a camping trip, a lot of BO,
sweat, mud
and garbage everywhere.
Excrement, you know
it was not good.
It was not good. A lot of it,
you know.
ROB: Every night I slept
on a pile of pizza boxes.
Pizza boxes
were very good surface
to sleep on cause pizza boxes
are white and it's important,
because they're white
you can tell
if they've been urinated on
or not
because every flat surface
there had been
so thoroughly urinated on
by Friday evening.
KEN: The showers,
I wanted no part
of those things really
from day one.
They basically had just
one big communal shower,
like one for the women,
one for the men.
When we went in there,
the water was like shin
to knee deep,
so you're basically
just showering in filth.
Then, the women shower
was next to ours,
also separated by a tarp.
So, there were like dudes like,
pulling the tarp back to, like,
look at the women
who were showering next door.
WOMAN: I did not take
a shower there.
I definitely saw
that there were showers
and was not comfortable
with that.
That did not seem
like safe space.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DAVE: The site, it reminded you
of like a refugee camp
from the movies.
That there had been
some sort of big battle
and there
was just trash all over,
so you just saw
that break down
of both the structure
and civility.
(ALL CHEER)
DAVE: Also,
it was just interesting
because the security
at Woodstock '99
was a little bit
of a different beast.
You could just tell,
just from the interactions
with them
that they just didn't act
like usual security guards.
CAMERA MAN:
How was your f*cking job?
-Awesome time, man.
-Was it nice? Did you get p*ssy?
Did you use that pass right
there to get some p*ssy?
-Yes, I did.
-Did you?
-Yes I did.
-I hate you. I'm jealous.
The vast majority of them
were just doing whatever it was
that they wanted.
Security didn't really work
with anyone else.
(PEOPLE CHEERING)
♪ ("IRONIC"
BY ALANIS MORRISSETTE PLAYING) ♪
♪ An old man turned 98 ♪
CROWD: ♪ He won the lottery
And died the next day ♪
-♪ It's a ♪
-CROWD: ♪ Black fly ♪
-♪ In your ♪
-CROWD: ♪ Chardonnay ♪
♪ It's a death row pardon ♪
♪ Two minutes too late ♪
♪ And isn't it ironic
Don't you think? ♪
♪ It's like rain
On your wedding day ♪
♪ It's a free ride ♪
♪ When you've already paid ♪
JEWEL: Woodstock '99
definitely felt like
it lacked a cohesive feeling.
Was it because, in all honesty,
the Gen Xers and next generation
really weren't fighting
anything.
But we wanted to be angsty
and we wanted to be deep.
I think the only thing
we were really fighting
is we didn't feel like
we had a purpose.
You know, difficult times
galvanize you.
It galvanizes you
around a cause.
But the '99 Woodstock
just seemed like
it was trying to relive
a nostalgic moment
along with commercialism
and kind of capitalizing
and trying to maximize profits,
but not having
a real soulful purpose
for the show.
♪ It's like rain
On your wedding day ♪
BEN: Somebody made a decision
about this lineup,
like, we're gonna have a bunch
of metal bands here,
and we're also gonna have,
you know, Jewel and Cheryl Crow.
♪ Advice
That you just didn't take ♪
MAUREEN: I have no idea
what went
into the thought processes
of the promoters
in booking
only three female acts.
JOHN: I didn't think in any way
in terms of male-female.
You either had to be a rock band
or you had to have the charisma
to be able to pull it off.
We didn't say there has to be
X number of female acts.
We booked who we thought
belonged on it.
STEVEN: It seems like
it was a deliberate choice
because each woman
is on a different day
of the festival.
It was like there was a quota
for estrogen at Woodstock '99.
DAVE HOLMES: Saturday,
I remember watching
Alanis Morissette
and feeling aggravation
from the audience,
literal angst bubbling up
in the crowd.
And then I saw what
was on the bill
for the rest of the night,
which was in a row,
Limp Bizkit,
Rage Against the Machine,
Metallica.
That is a lot of aggression.
♪ And isn't it ironic
Don't you think? ♪
♪ A little too ironic
And, yeah, I really do think ♪
(CROWD CHEERING)
ALANIS MORISETTE:
Thank you very much everyone.
I love you.
(CHUCKLING) So much.
Have a great night.
-Bless you each.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
CAMERA MAN: How you doing?
-WOMAN: Good. How's it going?
-Woodstock, baby.
-We're here.
-CAMERA MAN:
You see Limp Bizkit?
I'm gonna go see him later
today?
There was a lot of buzz
around Limp Bizkit.
It was probably the apex
of their career and I loved it.
I kinda looked like Fred Durst,
and I was just ready
to be a part of it
and I couldn't wait
for their show.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-We're here on MTV.
And we're ready for you,
Woodstock.
I'm here to see Limp Bizkit.
MIKE: The morning
before their show, I was on MTV
rapping Limp Bizkit lyrics
with a crowd behind me.
And I just started saying,
"I did it all for the 'Nookie.'"
"Come on. The nookie.
Come on, so you can take
the cookie
and stick it up your..."
-ALL: a*s!
-Stick it up your
-Your a*s.
-Stick it up your...
MIKE: People are screaming,
"Stick it up your a*s,"
"Stick it up your a*s,
Stick it up your a*s."
This is Fred from Limp Bizkit.
Let's find out who we are
on Ultra Sound this Sunday
at 10:00. Punk.
Limp Bizkit, huge MTV artist
at the time.
"Nookie." A smash.
You know any time
we would put them on
or have them as guests
or whatever
it would rate really well.
Right now,
we've got another performance
from Limp Bizkit
who has an amazing album
coming out on...
CARSON: It was a mutually
beneficial relationship
between the two.
Yeah, like MTV and Limp Bizkit
were just, like, synonymous
it seemed in 1999.
And that's one
of the greatest ascensions
of a band of that caliber
that I've seen in a long time.
-You want the worst?
-(CROWD CHEERING)
Well, you got the worst.
The one, the only...
-Limp Bizkit.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
MIKE: Before they took the stage
I looked around,
and I had never seen
that many people before.
(CROWD CHEERING)
KEN: In the moment,
it felt like, "Man,
we're seeing
something special here."
And the crowds
were f*cking bananas for them.
MIKE: By day two, people
were like a little bit drunker,
a little bit hotter,
a little bit angrier.
And then Limp Bizkit's
bass player came out
and he was just giving everybody
the double middle finger.
Now, that was kind of the vibe
that Limp Bizkit started with,
and then Fred Durst stepped in.
This is 1999, m*therf*cker.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-♪ (HEAVY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Take your Birkenstocks
and stick 'em up
your f*cking a*s.
MIKE: People
were just pumped up.
They had a lot of energy,
lot of like college dudes.
College white dudes,
it looked like
that was the crowd,
just like angry white,
fraternity college dudes.
And that was when I realized
I was the kind
of the perfect demographic
for Woodstock to market to.
I was like the exact person
that they wanted to go.
(CROWD CHEERING)
DAVE HOLMES:
The typical festival
has many different cliques.
They tend to go
for different genres
and different fan bases
and whatever.
This seemed to aim directly
at the most furious 24-year-olds
in your life.
-Kid Rock, you going
to see Kid rock?
-MAN: Nah, bro.
I'm going to check out
f*cking Limp Bizkit,
Rage, Metallica, bro.
BEN: When you have a crowd
who are excited, inebriated,
hot, and now you give 'em a band
that helped them release
that energy,
what do you think
is gonna happen?
(CROWD CHEERING)
FRED DURST: Hey, let me ask you
a personal question.
How many people here
ever woke up one morning
and just decided,
it wasn't one of those days
and you're gonna break
some sh*t?
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-(DRUM BEATING)
Well, this is one
of them days y'all...
where everything's f*cked up,
and you just wanna break
some sh*t.
You feel me?
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-Let's feel it.
♪ ("BREAK STUFF"
BY LIMP BIZKIT PLAYING) ♪
♪ Its just one of those days ♪
♪ Where you don't want
To wake up ♪
♪ Everything is f*cked
Everybody sucks ♪
♪ You don't really know why
But you want to justify ♪
♪ Rippin' someone's head off ♪
♪ No human contact
And if you interact ♪
♪ Your life is on contract ♪
♪ Your best bet
Is to stay away m*therf*cker ♪
♪ It's just one of those days ♪
♪ It's all about the he-says,
She-says... ♪
JONATHAN: They had the crowd
going insane, but by that time
people were walking around
in sh*t and piss
because all of the f*cking
porta potties overflowed.
They were dehydrated,
passing out.
It was too many people
for what the facilities
they had, and then,
it just went from there.
♪ It's all about the he-says,
She-says bullshit ♪
♪ I think you better quit... ♪
DAVE HOLMES: And I know
that he had an image to maintain
and they wanna do, like, put
on a proper Limp Bizkit show.
But, you know, like even
a liquor commercial says,
-"Please Drink Responsibly."
-♪ (MUSIC PLAYING CONTINUES) ♪
Time to reach
deep down inside...
and take all
that negative energy...
all that negative energy.
And let that sh*t out
of your f*cking system.
You got girl problems,
you got boy problems,
you got parent problems,
you got boss problems,
you got job problems,
you got a problem with me,
you got a problem with yourself,
it's time to take all
that negative energy
and put it the f*ck out.
-You feel me, Woodstock?
-(CROWD CHEERING)
All right, let's bring it out.
When this song kicks in,
I want you to f*cking kick in.
You got it?
♪ I feel like sh*t ♪
♪ My suggestion
Is to keep your distance ♪
♪ Cause right now
I'm dangerous ♪
♪ We've all felt like sh*t
And been treated like sh*t ♪
♪ All of those m*therf*ckers
Who want to step up ♪
♪ I hope you know
I pack a chainsaw ♪
♪ I'll skin your a*s raw ♪
♪ And if my day keeps going
This way ♪
♪ I just might break
Something tonight ♪
♪ I pack a chainsaw
I'll skin your a*s raw ♪
♪ And if my day keeps going
This way ♪
♪ I just might break
Your f*ck' face tonight ♪
♪ Give me something ♪
♪ Give me something ♪
♪ Give me something to break ♪
♪ How bout yer f*cking face ♪
♪ I hope you know
I pack a chainsaw ♪
-♪ What! ♪
-♪ A chainsaw ♪
-♪ What! ♪
-♪ A m*therf*cking chainsaw ♪
♪ What! ♪
♪ So come and get it ♪
(CROWD CHEERING)
That's some tight sh*t
right there,
the crowd surfing
on the plywood.
JOHN: Fred Durst was a moron.
He was completely defiant
in between songs.
We went up to him,
you know, and said, "Hey,
calm things down" you know.
He was out of his mind.
He was completely
out of his mind.
f*ck, we're Limp Bizkit.
That's right. f*ck you, too.
MIKE: People tried
to blame Fred Durst.
I don't think you
can blame Fred Durst.
Fred Durst was being Fred Durst.
He was doing what people
wanted him to do.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JOHN: A normal Limp Bizkit show,
he doesn't jump
into the audience on a piece
of plywood, get passed around
and keep screaming
"Break things, break things,
break things."
He caused a lot of trouble.
It's a miracle nobody got hurt
because we still
had another day.
CHRIS CONNELLY: How scary
was it for you up there
when they started ripping
that place apart,
when they started taking
the plywood off the towers
-and stuff?
-Oh, my God.
Dude, it's not our fault.
JONATHAN: It gets me pissed off,
you see I'm swelling up
right now. It makes me mad
because they blame us.
Rock music has always
been the escape,
I mean, "Hey, I feel
a connection with this person
'cause he's going
through what I went through,
and if he got through it,
I can get through it."
MAUREEN: 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?"
STEVEN: It's very convenient
to say that,
"This aggressive rock band.
It's their fault."
But I think that if you look at
what was going on in the culture
and the rot that was setting in,
in a lot of places,
it's bigger than nu metal.
And it's certainly bigger
than Limp Bizkit.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-♪ (METAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEVEN: I think when we look
back on 1999,
it was a very top-down world
and I think in general,
the 20th century
was a very top-down era.
♪ ("k*lling IN THE NAME"
BY RAGE AGAINST
THE MACHINE PLAYING) ♪
♪ k*lling in the name of ♪
STEVEN: It was very easy
for the government
or corporations
or whoever was in power
to dictate the way
that the world was going to be.
And there really was nothing
that the average person
could do to stop it.
♪ Some of those
That work forces ♪
♪ Are the same
That burn crosses ♪
MAUREEN: One
of the most offensive things
about Woodstock '99
was that these guys
who were relics of the '60s
felt that this was something
that Gen X needed,
that we somehow needed
our own experience
of what they had.
♪ Burn crosses ♪
♪ k*lling in the name of ♪
WESLEY: The idea
of older generations
subjecting younger generations
to the way they wish things
would be,
is such an American thing.
And accepting that your moment
has passed is really hard
for people to fathom.
And you know a lot of what
doesn't get done in this country
doesn't get done
because older people
are scared of younger people.
♪ Now you do
What they told you ♪
MAUREEN: No one was asking
for another Woodstock.
There was no desire for it.
To me it's the narcissism
and the self-regard
of the baby boomer generation
which continues to hang on
to power in every way
in America.
It's political, it's economic,
it's cultural.
Like the reins have
not been turned over.
They will not be turned over
until they're all probably gone.
♪ f*ck you, I won't do
What you tell me ♪
ALL: ♪ f*ck you, I won't do
What you tell me ♪
STEVEN: In 1999, you're starting
to see instances
where power dynamics
were changing in the country.
And technology
was gonna make it impossible
for the world to continue to be
that way in the new century.
-♪ (MUSIC STOPS) ♪
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-♪ (MILD MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-Welcome to Hastings.
NEWS REPORTER: Most of us
head out to a music store
to buy CDs,
but not Mike Chestworth.
and he doesn't pay for it.
STEVEN: For years you had people
who were being forced to spend
18 dollars on a CD
when they only wanted one song.
And there was really no recourse
for those people.
So, when there was finally
a means to circumvent
the record companies
in the form of Napster.
I think people knew
that they were stealing music
but they didn't care.
Part of what we're trying
to do here is make
people understand that what
they're doing is ill*gal.
I'm not even gonna get
into the moral issue.
MAUREEN: When Napster
came along in '99
and it looked like it was gonna
profoundly shift the way
that music was produced
and sold and consumed,
and what it meant for artists
and their revenue streams,
Lars Ulrich
had the very unpopular opinion
that this was not good.
It sort of seemed like
a cranky old man voice,
like you can't get in the way
of technology.
In all due respect to Lars
and Metallica,
I look at Napster as power
going back to the people.
DAVE MUSTAINE: For me I--
see I remember back
when I was in Metallica
that we used to trade tapes.
That's how we
even discovered bands.
I don't know, I can't blame Lars
for doing the things
that he does.
He-- who knows
why a guy does that?
I mean does
he have enough money?
Probably, right?
I mean I can't--
my brain's going
"Don't say it, Dave,
don't say it, Dave,
don't say it, Dave." (CHUCKLES)
And you're going, "Say it, Dave,
say it, Dave, say it, Dave."
(CHUCKLES)
(CROWD CHEERING)
We are Metallica.
And this is what we do best,
m*therf*cker!
♪ ("FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS"
BY METALLICA PLAYING) ♪
(CHEERS)
(ALL CHEERING)
DAVID: That second night
when Dave and I went
to see Metallica.
He was so excited,
and there was just
that very much, like...
(INHALES SHARPLY)
"This is it, this is the goal,
this is why I'm here.
I'm gonna get in the mosh pit.
This is my Everest."
I had never been
in a mosh pit before.
I was a little uncomfortable.
And people are crowd surfing,
and you're kinda
like getting kicked in the head
and whatever, but it's cool.
MIKE: It was so intense
and people just doing
their thing in the mosh pit
like throwing people around.
And you'd feel like
you could just get trampled
and nobody would care about you.
♪ (TRIPPY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
It was a weird mass of humanity
where it was just a sea
and you just kind of undulated
in all four directions.
MIKE: It's so tightly
packed together
and it's so claustrophobic.
You literally cannot control
your own body.
You'd feel your feet getting
lifted up off the ground
and you move with the crowd
because the organism
becomes stronger
than any individual person.
DAVID: I just get to a point
where I'm like,
"This isn't for me,"
and I feel bad
because Dave's been cool,
you know,
but he recognizes even, like,
this isn't my scene,
you know, so, he's like,
"You can go if you want."
I'm like, "Well, I'm gonna try
to go that way,
I'm gonna try to go back."
I don't know how many people
I walked through,
I don't know
how many football fields
I walked through,
but I got out of there.
I'm usually the last person
at things that I go to.
But by Saturday night
I couldn't take it.
And I knew that Sunday
was going
to be even more brutal.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-♪ (MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
BEN: After Metallica,
they had DJs every night
and I've never really been
to a rave
or I wasn't really into DJs,
but I thought, "Hey, we're here.
Like, let's check it out."
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MAUREEN: I felt the rave hangar
was very cynical, very soulless.
"Let's shove in some DJs,
and some drugs, and some kids,
and we'll just keep
this going all night."
MOBY: We were excited,
this is one of the biggest show
I'd ever played,
you know, it was Woodstock.
And the rave tent was supposed
to be sort of like
an idyllic separate area
from Woodstock,
but it still had been infected
by that like, broken,
dusty, sad, angry vibe.
♪ (UPBEAT SONG PLAYING) ♪
MAUREEN: It made no sense
to me, whatsoever.
There's no crossover,
there's no world in which a kid
who is there for Limp Bizkit
is also, like, looking to go
do ecstasy in the rave tent
and like bliss out to Moby,
it's just not happening.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MOBY: We walked offstage
and we were like,
"Get out of here, like,
we need to leave right now."
Our plan had been to park up
and stay for the whole weekend,
but that, like, atavistic part
of our brains
-collectively said, "Leave now."
-♪ (HEAVY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
It's bad
and it's not getting better.
MAUREEN: To have music going,
acts going,
like churning through the day
into night 'til 5:00 a.m.
and there's no rest,
there's no breaks,
there's no rhythm,
there's no come down,
what are you expecting
to happen?
Everybody's going like this,
and they can't sustain it.
It's gonna crash.
It's gonna crash in a very big,
cinematic, cataclysmic way.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JESSICA: The last morning,
I remember
for a sleeping arrangement
it was--
I fell asleep
on the wood chips.
What woke me up basically
was someone yelling out,
"Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!"
And I was like,
"Holy sh*t, Pink Floyd is here?"
And I was like, "This is what
I'm talking about, man!"
I was like, "This is what
the Woodstock
I wanted it to be."
Like, they're gonna
have someone unexpected
like that to pop out.
And I ran and it was just people
basically pushing the wall down.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JAKE: By Sunday, a lot of people
that were security,
that were peace patrol quit.
And essentially
I could have worked 24 hours
a day for all three days
if I wanted to.
We found that... (CHUCKLING)
...basically
the very first day,
a lot of the peace patrol
got their credential
and they got their shirt,
and then they just put
their credential
in their pocket,
and just waded off
into the crowd.
And them attendees were left
to their own devices.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(ALL CHEERING)
GIRL: All these crazy people
breaking down this wall,
I think it's badass.
I know that it took time
to put up, but it's kinda like
a trademark of Woodstock '99.
I'm just destroying the wall
for fun,
-just 'cause I'm at Woodstock.
-MAN: We want Hendrix's face.
"Why not?"
That's the real question.
We got bored.
There's nothing else to do.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I think it just symbolizes
the disrespect that people have.
I mean, people spent a lot
of time working on this.
You know it symbolizes peace
and they're just
like going crazy.
BOY: It's been a great time,
but there are a lot
of really stupid humans
around here.
Yeah, all we've been hearing
is "Show us your t*ts,
show us your t*ts."
MEN: Flash your t*ts,
flash your t*ts!
Flash your t*ts,
flash your t*ts!
Flash your t*ts,
flash your t*ts!
Flash your t*ts,
flash your t*ts!
Flash your t*ts,
flash your t*ts!
DAVE: I was taking like
a five-minute break
outside of the dispatch office.
And one
of the medic units pulls up
and there's someone
in the front seat with them
that I didn't recognize.
I was like looked and turned out
to be like some little girl.
The medic jumped out,
he's not wearing his shirt,
and grabbed his two walkies
and yelled over to me,
"Yo, do me a favor.
Watch that girl.
Don't let anyone near her."
And about two minutes later,
he comes out with a nurse.
So I back up a little bit,
he opens the door,
the nurse goes in,
she has a blanket.
She unfurls the blanket.
She puts it over the girl,
takes her out of the cab,
and you know, basically
guides her
into the main medical.
After that, I look at the medic,
the medic looks at me.
And I'm like, "Dude,
what's up with that?"
And he just looks at me
and he's just like,
"Dude, they're just savages.
-Just straight up savages."
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
DAVE: And that's when suddenly
the light bulb went off
in my head, and I was like,
"Oh, she's wearing his shirt...
because she had no clothes...
because...
she was sexually assaulted."
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DAVE: This wasn't Woodstock '69.
This wasn't Woodstock '94.
This was gonna be Woodstock 1999
where love might be free,
it's not necessarily gonna
be given,
but it's also gonna be taken.
MAN: Hey, guys, back.
Give her some room.
You're gonna scare her.
JOHN: There's no question
that a few incidents took place,
but if you go back
in the records
of the police and state police
and stuff,
you're not talking
about a hundred, or even fifty.
-You're talking about ten.
-MAN: Woodstock '99!
JOHN: I am critical
of the hundreds of women
that were walking around
with no clothes on.
And expecting not to be touched.
They shouldn't have
been touched.
And I condemn it. But, you know,
I think that women
that were running around naked,
you know, are at least partially
to blame for that.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MAUREEN: I mean, seriously,
the audacity of these guys.
How dare you say it's our fault
that men
can't control themselves,
so what does that say about men?
One girl told me
that she found herself
in the crowd surrounded
by young men
and that there were three arms
on each of her limbs,
and that they were penetrating
her digitally.
And that she heard one
of them yell, "Rip her apart."
When it was finally over
and she was just able
to just run out of there,
she didn't even really think
to complain to anyone,
to find anyone
to report this to,
and I think there must have been
an overwhelming sense
given the sheer anarchy
of what was going on
that, you know,
"What would be the point?"
Over there, we camp
out over there.
If you guys walk over there,
you're gonna hear
some noises from me.
Come on, bring everything
you got to 'em.
We'll f*cking party
our asses off.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-Yeah!
LIZ: There was a very masculine
centric attitude going on
that "I can do and take
what I want here at Woodstock."
BOY: Well, I'm just saying that
if you just do whatever
you want--
The laws of normal society
just don't apply here...
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Show us your t*ts for the media.
GIRL: No, we're not lifting
our shirts up!
I felt unsafe and so I left
for my own security.
Based on what I saw,
I knew that there was
so many women that didn't tell
their stories
or they certainly weren't going
to the police.
I wonder where they are
and how they're doing.
And so we started
this little organization
called Fans Everywhere,
and we put a little thing out
on the internet saying,
"Did you have a bad experience
at Woodstock?
Do you need somebody to talk to?
Do you need some advice?
We promise it's going
to be anonymous.
We promise
we're not gonna tell anybody,
but we're here to support you."
And I got dozens upon dozens
of emails
from women, young women.
Women as young
as 14 years old, saying
"I had a bottle shoved
up my vag*na,"
or, "I had all of my clothes
ripped off in a mosh pit,"
or "I was r*ped in a tent
on Saturday night."
"And I was screaming.
And nobody did anything
to stop it."
And then to have all these girls
say, "But was it my fault?"
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
DAVID: I woke up Sunday morning.
I kinda heard my brothers Rob
and Brian talking.
I come out of my tent.
And there's no Dave.
Nobody really knows where he is.
But we're thinking, you know,
"Dave was looking
for a good time."
So we wouldn't be surprised
if he went to the raves
that were out all night
or made some friends
'cause he was an easy dude
to like.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DAVID: As the day kinda
went along, you know,
it kinda goes from that,
"Okay, he'll turn up,"
to "Where the hell are you?"
to, you know, "Where are you?"
I don't think any of us
were really overly concerned.
It was almost even like
there was more anger,
like, "Where the hell
is this guy?"
"What the heck, dude?" "Like,
the day's gonna start,
and we're leaving today."
"We wanna know what
the plan is."
So, we start the search
and kinda looking around.
Like, I would head out
to the east stage.
We'd take turns going
to the hangar,
like that central place
where the board was,
and kinda the first aid was.
Well, we just keep walking,
keep walking, keep walking.
And we keep going back,
and, you know,
I don't think anybody
had any real sense
of dread or fear. It was still
more of the "He better be hurt
because I'm kinda
getting pissed now."
And then Rob was the one
who finally found out
what had happened to Dave.
They said it was hyperthermia.
His body temperature rose
too high
when he was at Metallica.
But for some reason
they administered, you know,
paddles on him, in line
with what they were thinking
-that he was OD'ing.
-♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DAVID: It was crazy
because we didn't do anything.
(CHUCKLES) We didn't do drugs,
we didn't bring drugs,
we weren't drinking.
And then you would hear
nobody really seemed
to take his temperature
'cause they didn't have
the core thermometers,
that they weren't treating
him properly.
They were not prepared.
Dave was going to a show
to go see his favorite band.
I just...
It wasn't really something
you ever thought, you know...
I just remember thinking like...
(SOBBING)
"This didn't happen...
and somebody's gotta
go call his mom."
NEWS REPORTER: I need
to talk to you as well
regarding public safety
because it was such
a dangerous atmosphere
out there.
I was backstage.
The mosh pit medical unit
looked like
a Vietnam triage unit,
and not only that,
but MTV News was forced
to get off of home base.
We felt that it
was too dangerous,
there were people throwing
glass bottles everywhere.
In all of the concerts
I've seen-- come on,
there were kids.
I talked to kids later
who were petrified out there.
-And I'm sorry I'm not--
-JOHN: Excuse me,
do you have a question?
Can I answer your question
or you wanna editorialize?
If you'd like to editorialize,
come on up
and you can editorialize
for everybody.
Can I answer the question
if you'll stop talking?
MTV set the tone
because they would
only really go on the air
with people who were pissed off.
You think that aggro vibe
had anything to do
with what happened?
SHERYL CROW: Yeah, I mean,
I definitely think that
that's what drew the large,
young, white, male,
frustrated, upper-middle class,
"I've been given everything
and still I'm mad,
but I'm not really sure
why I'm mad," kind of attitude.
CARSON: As things started
to go down
I remember feeling like things
were literally going out
of control and there just became
a quintessential moment
where we were told
by our bosses
"MTV and, like, Viacom
can no longer
guarantee your safety." Like,
"Run for it", sort of thing.
And so we packed a van
and we drove in this white van.
I remember just, like,
speeding through corn fields,
like, to get away
from the Woodstock set.
-And it really was terrifying.
-♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JOHN: MTV news made it
into as if
it was an animal fest,
and it just wasn't.
Bloodthirsty maniacs trying
to k*ll me.
It was disgusting.
I was molested.
And I hate all men now.
JOHN: So it terribly
got manipulated by MTV,
especially Kurt Loder.
He just wasn't on the team.
There have really been
some scary moments here
just with crowd violence.
I'm just laughing.
I think Michael, at one point,
called him a w*r journalist.
That was really
what he wanted to be
and this was as close
as he was gonna come.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JAKE: A film crew came through
and they had the promoters
with them.
And they stopped right
in front of us basically
and did a little interview.
And they talked
about how great everything was
and what a success it was.
And we're looking at each other,
thinking like
"What are these guys
talking about?"
Knowing full well
that in a few hours
this place was gonna turn
into a complete sh*t show.
INTERVIEWER:
We are backstage
at Woodstock '99
with the Woodstock organizers,
Michael Lang and John Scher.
How's it going?
You look all happy,
things must be going very well.
JOHN: So far, so good.
The music's been amazing.
-Right.
-JOHN: Kids are having
a good time.
The biggest problem
has been a little bit
of too warm temperature,
but other than
that we're doing great.
-MC: Woodstock!
-(CROWD CHEERING)
MC: Please welcome
Atlantic recording artist Jewel!
(CROWD CHEERING)
JEWEL: When I went out,
the crowd felt strange.
They felt really tired
and very depleted.
Felt like there was a grey,
dense fog
hanging over everything,
and for me to try
and figure out,
"How do I cut through that?"
"How do I create a tone,
or a voice, or a sound
that's gonna cut through
this really strange,
heavy energy,"
was definitely at the forefront
of my mind while I'm singing.
I didn't know what
was going on particularly.
-But you could just feel it.
-♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MAN: I think we should leave.
It's so hot in here.
I'm so weak.
-I can't feel my legs anymore.
-BOY: Me neither.
STEVEN: The thing, I think,
that amazes me most
is that so many people chose
to stay.
It does seem like
mass psychosis,
at some point on Sunday.
Because otherwise I have no idea
like,
why the hell you're still there.
-It's filthy.
-BOY: Piss and sh*t everywhere.
Piss and sh*t everywhere.
KEN: And you could just tell,
like,
people were not having fun
and happy to be there anymore.
And after Jewel, Creed played.
They brought out a guy
from The Doors
to play with them,
but as a 19-year-old, that meant
less than nothing to me.
They're trotting this guy
out on stage.
This is Robby Krieger
from The Doors, man.
(CROWD CHEERING)
SCOTT:
There wasn't this excitement
that I think people would expect
or assume,
that we had because it just--
it wasn't Woodstock '69.
But it was our, you know, way
of wanting to kind of bring
someone from that era to 1999.
And tie those two festivals
together.
DAVE HOLMES: I remember
you look at the crowd
and the crowd
is all 22 years old,
and Robby Krieger
could not mean less to them.
Like, Creed barely means
anything to them.
Thirty years ago
when this festival
first started...
people came together.
They came together to love.
(CROWD CHEERING)
SCOTT: They came
together to show the world
that they could unify
for one cause
and that
the young people's generation
could make a difference,
you know that?
DAVE HOLMES: By Sunday,
it's not the market
for nostalgia,
specifically nostalgia
for 30 full years ago.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
BEN: As we were walking
from one band to another,
I started seeing people
with candles
and I was like,
"Why do you have a candle?"
And there were more people
with candles
and more people with candles.
ROB: They handed out candles,
specifically trying
to get people
to set fire to them.
And hold them aloft, you know,
in a sort
of Melanie lay down candles
in the rain sort of vibe.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MAUREEN: It makes
complete sense.
It's a horrible irony
that it was a group
of non-profit volunteers
who were looking
to hold a vigil in memory
of the victims of Columbine
that they handed
these candles off to kids
who then just torched
everything.
(CROWD CHEERING)
FLEA: Hey, if you have at home
or in your car,
if you have a g*n,
be sure to throw it away,
throw it in the garbage.
Just get the f*ck rid of it.
-Don't need that sh*t.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
MAN 1: The east stage
is on fire.
-MAN 2: East Stage is still
on fire?
-MAN 1: Yeah, they're on fire.
Hey, they started the east stage
on fire.
BEN: We started to make
our way over
to Red Hot Chili Peppers,
and we can see in the distance
big fires sh**ting up
in the sky.
♪ ("UNDER THE BRIDGE"
BY RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
PLAYING) ♪
♪ Sometimes I feel like
I don't have a partner ♪
♪ Sometimes I feel
Like my only friend ♪
♪ Is the city I live in... ♪
MAN 1: sh*t, it's real fire.
MAN 2: What do you guys see?
What do you guys see?
Yo, the east stage,
fire there with the big trucks.
-Yeah.
-It's Lord of the Flies
down there.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JOHN: Hey, guys, as you can see
if you look behind you,
we have a bit of a problem.
Chili Peppers
are gonna come back.
Calm down. We don't want
anybody to get hurt.
So the fire department
is gonna have to come in
with a firetruck to put
the fire out.
If everybody can cooperate,
we'd appreciate it.
You guys who are back there,
all the way back, near the fire,
if you can hear me, back away.
MTV HOST: This
is a very dangerous situation.
Everyone is trying to get out
of here.
-Yes.
-I think we're going to go.
JOHN: So let's back away.
Let the fire department
do their job.
-Make sure nobody gets hurt.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
JOSEPH GRIFFO: That night,
I went to Anthony Kiedis
and said to him,
"You need to help us.
We need to quell this crowd
in order to get there
and take these fires down."
Holy...
Holy sh*t.
It's Apocalypse Now out there.
Make way for the fire engine.
You wanna do it?
You wanna do it?
-f*ck you!
-(CROWD CHEERING)
♪ ("FIRE"
BY JIMI HENDRIX PLAYING) ♪
JOSEPH: And what he did
is went out
and on his encore played "Fire"
from Jimi Hendrix.
♪ You don't care for me
I don't-a care about that ♪
♪ You got a new fool, ha
I like to laugh at ♪
♪ I have only one
A-burnin' desire ♪
♪ Okay, let me stand
Next to your fire ♪
♪ Let me stand
Next to your fire ♪
♪ Let me stand
Next to your fire ♪
♪ Let me stand
Next to your fire ♪
♪ Let me stand
Next to your fire ♪
♪ Oh, come here, girl ♪
ROB: At that point, the violence
in the crowd
had already started to spread
and started
-to get really destructive.
-(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
ROB: All weekend long
the promoters spoke a lot
about turning swords
into plow shares,
but what we saw Sunday night
was a lot of turning back
into swords.
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES PLAYING) ♪
(ALL CHEER)
KEN: Things escalated
pretty quickly.
There was tension in the air,
but by the end of that set,
-it was like a powder keg.
-(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KEN: We kind of graduated from,
like, just trash and wood fires.
We ended up going to get
into the trucks
where they had the supplies,
like the food and drinks
and stuff.
And then
I specifically remember,
like, one of the trucks
I went into
had frozen pretzels,
so we're flinging
frozen pretzels
through the fire like a bunch
of idiots.
MAN: It's free! Let's go!
KEN: I had more water
Sunday night during the riots
than I probably had the rest
of the weekend combined.
Because we finally
had access to all this stuff.
(PEOPLE CHEERING, SCREAMING)
KEN: And that night, you know,
from the Chili Peppers' set
onward,
like, we had the power
at that point,
like, we controlled everything
that was happening
from that point forward.
It did feel like
this unifying force,
like these are my people now,
and we're gonna go crazy.
-(EXCLAIMS)
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
KEN: And I don't know,
I'm not a guy,
I never in a million years
would have thought I'd somehow
gotten drawn into a riot,
but, man, it just-- it was just
kind of-- it just happened.
-(CROWD CHEERING)
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
It's like a 20-dollar
f*cking value box.
-MAN: How much did you pay
for 'em?
-Free!
-And jackets.
-Free!
MAUREEN: When kids
are ripping open ATM machines
with their bare hands
and lighting Mercedes-Benzes
on fire,
I mean, they're telling you
what they think of your greed.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(MAN WHISTLING)
KEN: I mean,
it's a little concerning
that I could go from, like,
a pretty mild-mannered kid
on day one and then
by midnight on Sunday,
it is straight Lord of the Flies
out there,
and I'm losing my damn mind
like an idiot.
When in Rome, I guess,
I don't know.
GUARD OVER RADIO:
GUARD 2 OVER RADIO:
MAN: Turn
that f*cking camera off.
MAN 2: They've got
the cops here now.
GUARD OVER RADIO:
MAN: f*cking you better
be worried, guy.
GUARD OVER RADIO:
JAKE: When things started
to get really bad,
I had everybody turn
their shirts inside out
and put their credentials
down inside their shirts
because I didn't know if,
you know,
we were all of a sudden
gonna become targets maybe.
-(SIREN WAILING)
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JAKE: When the police
finally did roll in,
you know, it was like hats
and bats
and shields and, you know,
here they came.
-Here we go.
-Party's over.
POLICE OFFICER:
This is outta control!
KEN: You know, we're a bunch
of 20-year-old white kids,
so when we start burning
a bunch of stuff down
and, like, stealing from ATMs
and just burning
this whole thing down,
the riot police,
they come in very polite,
you know,
and just move people out.
Man, they talk
about white privileges
like, Jesus Christ,
like if this
was a hip-hop festival in 2020
and people started burning
it down,
-it would not go so nicely.
-♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Yeah, dude, you're the man.
JAKE: There was a sense
of all the people
who were rioting
for lack of a better term,
at that point,
were kind of like together
in that rioting, you know.
It was like,
they finally all had
a sense of purpose.
Listen, look right there.
See the little yellow light?
That means
we've got five minutes left
till the end of Woodstock 1999.
(CROWD CHEERING)
Okay, so we have a time
for one more song.
SCOTT STAPP: And then
it just couldn't have been
planned better, you know,
with Megadeth closing.
And closing with their tune
"Peace Sells...
but Who's Buying?"
♪ Peace sells
But who's buying? ♪
♪ Peace sells
But who's buying? ♪
DAVE MUSTAINE:
We are in a service business.
Those of us who are troubadours.
And what's happened
is along the way
the tax collector came in.
MAN 1: People are sick
of being ripped off.
This was a great time,
but there's no way
it was worth paying four dollars
for a water.
I mean, they were all
about making money off us
and we're all about getting
wasted and partying.
I mean, it's just not cool
and we're pissed.
You know, the question really
very quickly
became, not "How could this
have happened?"
But "How could it not?"
JOURNALIST: John,
there was a kind
of gradual breakdown
of the whole infrastructure
and as the day went on
I didn't really see much
of a presence at all
of the security guards
except maybe
at some of the gates.
Can you speak to that?
Where were the guards
when the fires were being set?
JOHN: You know,
I think I used this term then,
there were a bunch
of knuckleheads.
You know? A bunch
of knuckleheads
that caused those problems
and despite those problems,
the overwhelming number
of people
that attended had a great time.
Really the biggest problem
was that MTV set the tone
so we got k*lled in the press
and I didn't figure
on Fred Durst inciting a riot.
-(CHUCKLES)
-♪ (MILD-TEMPO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEVEN: About three months
after Woodstock '99,
the first iteration
of Coachella debuts.
And you couldn't ask
for a more stark
like Goofus and Gallant version
of music festivals at this time.
MOBY: It was in Palm Springs,
and it was balmy.
There's Bjork performing
and there's enlightened,
progressive hip-hop.
Coachella '99 really
was everything
Woodstock '99 should have been.
STEVEN: When people
were walking in,
they were handed
a free water bottle.
There was free parking. I mean,
those two things seemed like
they were in direct response
to the excesses
at Woodstock '99.
I will say, however,
that as Coachella progresses,
and this is also true
of all the big festivals now,
it's pretty clear
that the power dynamics
that come into play
haven't really changed,
it's just that they're cleaner.
And if you wanna assert
your power,
you just have to be
a really wealthy person
who can afford to be backstage
and look
at all the people out there
who aren't as lucky as you are.
And then you're gonna be able
to take photos of yourself
and show the world
that you are someone
who literally has a badge
on themselves
that says,
"Very Important Person."
MAUREEN: I think progress
is all fits and starts, right?
It's never one direction,
it's never completely linear.
And with the expl*si*n
that was Woodstock '99,
there is a definite
umbilical cord
between the dark,
sexual, cultural,
political underbelly
in the country at that time
to where we are now.
WESLEY: A lot of that energy
that was permeating
that crowd that day,
it just wound up in chatrooms
and Reddit boards,
and it's just fascinating
to think about
because I don't know
if it's possible to get
that collection
of people together
in 2021 without it
being a cause for concern.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEVEN: To me,
the ultimate tragedy
of Woodstock '99,
is that almost all the problems
that occurred that weekend
were foreseeable ahead of time,
and therefore preventable.
This again speaks
to the mythology of Woodstock.
That this was almost like
magic fairy pixie dust
or something that you could just
sprinkle...
(CHUCKLES) ...over all
this poor planning
and because it was Woodstock,
it would work.
But, when you take off
the rose-colored glasses,
and look at Woodstock
and what it actually was,
it was about sequestering
yourself from society
and really living the kind
of life
that wouldn't be sustained,
like if we all did that.
Like if we all went into a field
with no police,
do a lot of drugs and listen
to rock music all day long,
I mean, things would fall apart,
I think, pretty quickly.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NEWS REPORTER 1:
At the Woodstock '99 concert
in Central New York,
what was supposed
to be three days
of peace, love and music,
ended in a night of looting--
NEWS REPORTER 2:
Commercialism,
that's what some people say led
to the fall of Woodstock '99.
I mean, the kids were hungry,
they were thirsty, they were--
NEWS REPORTER 3: The fires
were put out this morning
and most festival goers
had left the site by 9:00 a.m.,
but the Woodstock name
may have sustained
lasting damage.
NEWS REPORTER 4: First person
charged with sexual violence
at last weekend's
Woodstock festival
turns out to be
a New York state prison guard.
The prison guard was charged
with sexually assaulting
a 15-year-old girl.
NEWS REPORTER 5:
Here's another horror story
from Woodstock '99 today.
The police are now investigating
four cases of women
alleging they were r*ped.
One woman says she was attacked
right in front of the stage
as the band played on
and a lot of people stood by.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MICHAEL: Had we programmed
this more
along the lines of '94 or '69,
it would have been
a different event
and attracted
a different audience.
But the intention here
was to do something
very contemporary,
and that's what
contemporary was.
GARRET: Do you think there'll
ever be another Woodstock?
There always
could be another Woodstock.
I mean, I've just learned
never to say never about that.
♪ ("THE KIDS AREN'T ALRIGHT"
BY THE OFFSPRING PLAYING) ♪
MICHAEL: We're taking steps
to protect everybody.
We want it to be
a completely safe event.
You know, there will be
zero tolerance for anything,
you know, other than, you know,
proper behavior.
♪ When we were young
The future was so bright ♪
♪ The old neighborhood
Was so alive ♪
♪ And every kid
On the whole damn street ♪
♪ Was gonna make it big
And not be beat ♪
♪ Now the neighborhood's cracked
And torn ♪
♪ The kids are grown up
But their lives are worn ♪
♪ How can one little street
Swallow so many lives? ♪
♪ Chances thrown
Nothing's free ♪
♪ Longing for used to be ♪
♪ Still it's hard, hard to see ♪
♪ Fragile lives
Shattered dreams ♪
♪ Go! ♪
♪ Chances thrown
Nothing's free ♪
♪ Longing for, used to be ♪
♪ Still it's hard, hard to see ♪
♪ Fragile lives
Shattered dreams ♪
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
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