A new three-part documentary from Netflix starts on Wednesday about the infamous Woodstock 99 music festival. Supposed to be good.
Television Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 (Netflix)
- Thread starter BusbyMalone
- Start date
I saw the HBO one a few days ago. Very close to my idea of hell on Earth.
Is this the one where they had no facilities and no water etc in scorching heat?
yeah, you couldn’t bring in your own food or drink and then they charged you a fortune - so it all kicked off
If you watch the Netflix version can you give your review on which one you feel is better?
The HBO one was on my watch list but if this one is more comprehensive I'll skip it and watch this one instead.
Does this blame limp bizkit too?
This only needed Axl Rose to tell everybody go f*ck themselves just before refusing to play.
I’m very grateful for how the festivals I’ve been to have been run now.
Eye opening doc on how mob mentality comes into play too.
Eye opening doc on how mob mentality comes into play too.
Only on second episode but yeh Fred Durst was a cnut.
This was so far from the original Woodstock in terms of spirit and the attitude of the people who attended. It was basically a massive frat boy party that went tits up.
The lack of any real security was the main reason this went tits up. Can’t really blame the bands for performing like they do every time they play. Watching it however made me hate the 90s culture even more.
The Netflix version is indeed slightly more comprehensive, if only because it's significantly longer, and it's possibly slightly less sensationalist in that they rightly place more of the blame on the organisers. But they are definitely quite similar and the real footage is mostly the same.
Blaming Fred Durst for anything is always fair, though.
Just found all the information online if you want to save yourself 2 hours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_'99
I binge watched the lot last night; what an absolute shit show from start to finish. Lots of places to point the finger: -
The Organisers
What were they playing at? They made some seriously bad blunders from start to finish. Not securing clean water, ridiculously poor hygienic infrastructure, they might as well not have bothered hiring security the way they half arsed it. Another big one was completely misunderstanding their audience - who did they think was going to show up when you are having bands like Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Limp Bizkit etc... if you're going to poke a hornets nest you need to have the infrastructure in place to deal with the aftermath.
The way they set the portable toilets up was a disgrace, it looked like they let a swarm of pigs in to shit everywhere. And then people thought it would be a good idea to go swimming in all the shit. Unbelievable.
Taking water off people but letting them in with loads of drugs... OK!
The Fans
I get the situation got really bad, but there were a lot of people seemingly that realised they had an option: just fecking leave... don't start smashing up the place like a lunatic. All the nakedness, I just don't get that... is that some sort of festival thing that people always do? It was like something out of Ancient Rome.
Their attitude towards some of the acts was disgusting, absolutely no respect especially to one or two women acts that they shown. I get that they were partying in what amounted to a shit tip but don't take it out on the artists who didn't have a part to play in organising the venue.
They are absolutely not free of blame.
The Bands
Red Hot Chilli Peppers were asked to go back on for an encore and seemingly calm things down after they noticed a bunch of fires kicking of... so they decided to go on and play "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix and make a quip about Apocalypse Now... what a bunch of prats.
Fred Durst, it seemed like he wanted injuries, serious ones. He could see what was going on. Another prat, not free of blame. I don't buy that it was part of his act... you could literally see the crowd in front of your face just moving like some single entity, people being thrown about etc, he could see things being smashed up. He's a dickhead end of.
Korn, from what they showed, wasn't advocating breaking things etc so don't think they did much wrong. But maybe they cut some stuff.
The Organisers
What were they playing at? They made some seriously bad blunders from start to finish. Not securing clean water, ridiculously poor hygienic infrastructure, they might as well not have bothered hiring security the way they half arsed it. Another big one was completely misunderstanding their audience - who did they think was going to show up when you are having bands like Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Limp Bizkit etc... if you're going to poke a hornets nest you need to have the infrastructure in place to deal with the aftermath.
The way they set the portable toilets up was a disgrace, it looked like they let a swarm of pigs in to shit everywhere. And then people thought it would be a good idea to go swimming in all the shit. Unbelievable.
Taking water off people but letting them in with loads of drugs... OK!
The Fans
I get the situation got really bad, but there were a lot of people seemingly that realised they had an option: just fecking leave... don't start smashing up the place like a lunatic. All the nakedness, I just don't get that... is that some sort of festival thing that people always do? It was like something out of Ancient Rome.
Their attitude towards some of the acts was disgusting, absolutely no respect especially to one or two women acts that they shown. I get that they were partying in what amounted to a shit tip but don't take it out on the artists who didn't have a part to play in organising the venue.
They are absolutely not free of blame.
The Bands
Red Hot Chilli Peppers were asked to go back on for an encore and seemingly calm things down after they noticed a bunch of fires kicking of... so they decided to go on and play "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix and make a quip about Apocalypse Now... what a bunch of prats.
Fred Durst, it seemed like he wanted injuries, serious ones. He could see what was going on. Another prat, not free of blame. I don't buy that it was part of his act... you could literally see the crowd in front of your face just moving like some single entity, people being thrown about etc, he could see things being smashed up. He's a dickhead end of.
Korn, from what they showed, wasn't advocating breaking things etc so don't think they did much wrong. But maybe they cut some stuff.
Cheers mate , you are a gentleman and a scholar.
Yeh my take from Fred Durst and Chillis is that they are obviously not to blame for it all happening, but they are almost certainly played their parts in making it worse, especially when as the performing acts they had more power than anyone at the festival to try and calm things down.
I binged this yesterday. Seems like a perfect microcosm of modern society.
Lots of parallels with what's happening in Britain at the moment, in particular; platforming and promotion of agressive and hateful shit-stirrers amplifying and stoking up bad feeling, a total breakdown of services caused by outsourcing of vital utilities, price-gouging for essentials, the people in charge turning a blind eye to obvious problems and instead claiming everything is going swimmingly, and water polluted with human waste. If it keeps on along the same lines, we'll see just the same kind of response from the public.
Lots of parallels with what's happening in Britain at the moment, in particular; platforming and promotion of agressive and hateful shit-stirrers amplifying and stoking up bad feeling, a total breakdown of services caused by outsourcing of vital utilities, price-gouging for essentials, the people in charge turning a blind eye to obvious problems and instead claiming everything is going swimmingly, and water polluted with human waste. If it keeps on along the same lines, we'll see just the same kind of response from the public.
Pretty much. This can be applied to many situations...
Can't wait. We'll only come out of this when the powerful are afraid again. They haven't been for decades, and it shows.
I think there's a discussion about the virtues of taking LSD and smoking weed over drinking alcohol in that comment somewhere.
Woodstock 99 was more Rolling Stones at Altamont 1969, than Woodstock 1969.
Only watched the first episode so far. But that Korn concert looked fecking wild, not gonna lie. I bet it was insane being in the crowd for that. Fair play to Gavin Rossdale for being able to come out and turn the temperature down a bit!
.
.
The organisers don't come across well at all, either in the footage from 99, or the documentary interviews. Trying to save face at the press conferences in particular was pretty shocking to watch. John Scher in particular, when talking about the sexual assault and rape that occurred, he dismissed it like it was to be expected because 'numbers'.
After the carnage on the Saturday night, you'd think they'd just call the Sunday off. It probably would have gotten a pretty aggressive response, but at least they wouldn't have handed out 100,000 candles by that point. A well intentioned, but still colossally stupid idea. The Chili Peppers' response to that was pretty dumb. I sort of agree with what Anthony Kiedis supposedly said, that he wouldn't have been able to say anything to stop it, but they decided as a band to go out there and make it worse.
Did anyone catch what appeared to be a floating head at one of the press conferences? Pretty eerie.
After the carnage on the Saturday night, you'd think they'd just call the Sunday off. It probably would have gotten a pretty aggressive response, but at least they wouldn't have handed out 100,000 candles by that point. A well intentioned, but still colossally stupid idea. The Chili Peppers' response to that was pretty dumb. I sort of agree with what Anthony Kiedis supposedly said, that he wouldn't have been able to say anything to stop it, but they decided as a band to go out there and make it worse.
Did anyone catch what appeared to be a floating head at one of the press conferences? Pretty eerie.
Yes but is the show any good?
A really poor indictment of the late 90s. I mean the violence, sanitation and rampant exploitative capitalism was bad, sure… but that fecking line-up was horrendous. Ooff.
Last edited:
This is why I am glad I was a club kid & shitty DJ in the 90s.
It's all on the greed of the promoters, not having this blamed on the bands. Facilities, security and setup were shocking. The lack of accountability was disgraceful.
Have been fascinated by this festival for a few weeks now after seeing the HBO/Sky documentary, which I have to say is a lot better than the Netflix trio.
Limp Bizkit are painted to be bad guys but watch their set and stuff was being broken off before they played 'break stuff' which was apparently the catalyst to the angst.
The docs paint a picture of hell, and it certainly looked that way, but many that went claim it to be their best time ever.
The organisers should be ashamed and held accountable, but my god was the music amazing.
Korn were insanely good, even Bush were good!
Limp Bizkit are painted to be bad guys but watch their set and stuff was being broken off before they played 'break stuff' which was apparently the catalyst to the angst.
The docs paint a picture of hell, and it certainly looked that way, but many that went claim it to be their best time ever.
The organisers should be ashamed and held accountable, but my god was the music amazing.
Korn were insanely good, even Bush were good!
Towards the end the Woodstock promoter says it’s not possible to profile festival attendees to access the risks.
Contrast that with the young buck earlier in the docu. Who raised the issue that Limp Bizkit, Korn, Rage, Metallica etc was a potential audience risk and was shot down.
Id really enjoy seeing some extra episodes that took a more serious look at the complete feck up this event was, the planning and organization was atrocious.
Contrast that with the young buck earlier in the docu. Who raised the issue that Limp Bizkit, Korn, Rage, Metallica etc was a potential audience risk and was shot down.
Id really enjoy seeing some extra episodes that took a more serious look at the complete feck up this event was, the planning and organization was atrocious.
The issue wasn't the billing, it was the organisation.
The Rage against machine bill went by with zero trouble, to be fair so did Korn bar injuries in the pit.
A crowd used to home comforts being stripped of all comfort and respect only need a small spark to revolt, especially given the freedom to do so.
I imagine those who actually stayed the Sunday when they had the option to go home were probably loving the whole anarchy of it and freedom they had to do whatever. Anyone gone by then were the ones who really cared about their health, sanitation, the heat etc. above all else. No surprise then that the Sunday crowd went ballistic as it got worse and worse.
shocking organisation really, stuff like the cost of water, the state of the portlaloos etc just made me cringe massively, no wonder people went completely insane. Also as the security guy said, blaming Limp Bizkit for being themselves is incredibly dumb. They just didn’t spend nearly enough money on all the essentials at the gig and that’s the real reason people rioted. Something else would have tipped them over the edge instead. Scher is a cnut.
also, what the hell, that Heather girl was 14 and she was able to go in and stay all weekend yet they didn’t let people bring water in? Nuts.
shocking organisation really, stuff like the cost of water, the state of the portlaloos etc just made me cringe massively, no wonder people went completely insane. Also as the security guy said, blaming Limp Bizkit for being themselves is incredibly dumb. They just didn’t spend nearly enough money on all the essentials at the gig and that’s the real reason people rioted. Something else would have tipped them over the edge instead. Scher is a cnut.
also, what the hell, that Heather girl was 14 and she was able to go in and stay all weekend yet they didn’t let people bring water in? Nuts.
It seems hard to believe that the organiser knew so little about the bands that were being booked. As if Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Limp Bizkit etc. were going to create a festival about peace and love ffs.
Those were the biggest bands around to be fair, which is probably why the festival was a bad idea to begin with. Music had changed too much since the original.
There was a gig in Ireland in 2013 (I think) with Swedish house mafia, David guetta and some other shithouse DJs for scumbags too. Needless to say, people got stabbed.
https://www.her.ie/amp/news/absolute-mayhem-in-the-phoenix-park-3-dead-and-9-stabbed-at-gig-19684
Think I've seen all those bands at various festivals over the years and the atmosphere was nothing but pleasant. If anything the issue seemed to be that rather than the normal crowd you'd expect from those metal-orientated headliners, this particular festival attracted an entirely different frat-boy vibe.
That and the terrible organisation are down to the people running the festival, not the type of music.
That and the terrible organisation are down to the people running the festival, not the type of music.
I agree, but the billing contributed. I say that as somebody who hung around that crowd in that era.
alanis Morrissete and Sheryl Crow fans probably wouldn’t have caused similiar mayhem.
Reports of a women raped in the Korn mosh pit. Pulled down from a crowd surf and then held down.
Don’t think I’ll ever see a description like ‘shithouse DJs for scumbags’ again. It’s absolutely perfect.
Don't agree, otherwise every Download festival would end the same way surely?!
From the wiki
Jesus Christ, how the feck do you go from enjoying music to gang rape??? How the feck are people standing around cheering that shit on??? Yeah its hot, yeah its been promoted badly, but feck off if you wanna tell me thats any kind of excuse for raping people or standing around watching it and cheering it on.
I totally agree it was the organization, think I said that in my original post.
But, some crowds are different to others.