Anyone who had fireproof Down as the worst festival ever has obviously never heard of Woodstock ’99. An event meant to evoke the ethos of peace and love of the original music and arts festival in 1969 ended in violence, riots and outright slaughter, leaving the venue and attendees looking as if they had been at war. Fyre now looks like a complete success in comparison.
British director Jamie Crawford explores what happened on the apocalyptic four-day weekend in a three-part Netflix documentary series called Netflix Train wreck: Woodstock ’99 Documentary. Speaking to key organizers, the musicians who performed and some die-hard fans, the series helps piece together the shocking story and uncover what went so horribly wrong.
The whole event is a wild story that seems to have been largely forgotten in recent years. Here are the most shocking moments in the gripping documentary:
The blinded organizers downplay the whole mess
Crisis, what crisis? With the festival literally burning around them and a ‘sea’ of young people raging, organizers Michael Lang and John Scher hailed it as a success in front of the assembled media. Footage of the daily press conferences show that they not only downplay all violent incidents, but completely misrepresent the truth. In the old footage, Scher tells the press, “We had great music. Then you have imbeciles, maybe 50 of them, causing trouble… so let’s try to focus on the overwhelming positivity.”
As an angry reporter says in the film, “There were people who were abused, there were people who were mutilated. You sugarcoated it all.” True Fact: A year later, Scher was named Pollstar Magazine’s 2000 Promoter of the Year. Funny how the music industry works, isn’t it?
The attacks and the lack of accountability from the organizers, even now
Amid all the wild behavior, four rapes and reportedly many cases of sexual assault were reported over the weekend. The organizers dealt with it as with everything else: downplay and denial. One of the festival’s staff members recalled a particularly harrowing moment after the weekend: “When I got back to the office, calls started. It was a hysterical mother talking about how her daughter had been raped.”
One of the organizers, John Scher, even now, 23 years later, takes no responsibility for the horrors women endured at the festival: “Woodstock was like a small town, you know? All things considered, I’d say there would probably be as many or more rapes in any town of this size…but it wasn’t anything that gained enough momentum to cause any problems locally, except, of course, the women it happens to is.”
Netflix
People essentially drank raw sewage, leading to outbursts of rift mouths
With water priced at $4 ($7/£6 by today’s standards) a pop – which rose to $12 at the end of the weekend by grocers’ mercenaries – it’s no wonder amid the heatwave there are 25-minute queues at the public water wells on site. But after the festival cut sanitation contractors, a health and safety inspector found that human feces were seeping into drinking and shower water, creating a toxic “shit sludge” in which many people happily splashed around. As one festival-goer revealed, she woke up on the last day with “a very sore throat, cold sores all over my lips, ulcers on my tongue and gums and in my mouth,” adding that she “couldn’t eat, drink or speak… I found out.” that I had something called Trench Mouth”. Yes, this is the same Trench Mouth that originally affected World War I soldiers when they experienced prolonged periods of trench warfare, which meant they couldn’t brush their teeth and ended up with sore and bleeding gums. Bald.
Courtesy of Netflix
The truck crashed into Fatboy Slim’s truck
A chilling part of the festival’s demise happened during Fatboy Slim’s set at the rave hangar. After being told “Oh, it’s a bit messy out there” (to put it mildly) during his headline, a group of people stole a van and drove it right into the middle of the tent, which was packed with thousands of ravers. A machete was found in the van, as well as a young girl who the stage manager believed had been sexually assaulted. Fatboy Slim’s set was stopped, the crowd turned against him and he was taken out of the hangar for his own safety. “The adrenaline rushed out of my ears. I did exactly as I was told and ran,” he recalls in the film.
The Peace Patrol sells their work shirts for $400 each
The Peace Patrol was anti-establishment security of sorts, but it turned out they were just a bunch of local kids drafted in to help run the festival. And what do children do at a festival? What everyone else her age does: get drunk, get high, and try to hit. However, one of the former peace patrols in the documentary revealed that the festival brought out his entrepreneurial side as he tricked players into believing that the brand’s bright yellow t-shirt granted VIP access, and two of his shirts for 800 US dollars sold. That’s just enough for a bottle of water and a slice of pizza at the food stands.
Netflix
Recordings from Monday morning after the festival
A charity group had the unwise idea of handing out 10,000 candles to attendees (to wave aloft during Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Under The Bridge). It wasn’t long before people started using the open flames to set everything on the site ablaze and rampaged through the festival. “It looked like a war zone. Garbage everywhere and smoldering fires,” Pilar Law comments as she inspects the site with her mother Lisa. There’s a scene where twelve large trailers are literally burning to rubble, to which Lisa recaps, “That was Woodstock ’99, burned down.”
The fact that many participants still consider it one of the greatest weekends of their lives
Ultimately, one would expect festival-goers to still suffer from PTSD. Not correct! “Even though I had a kind of scary experience, it was a blast!” says Heather, who was there as a 14-year-old teenager. “It was an experience of a lifetime.” Two others agree, “It was the best time I’ve ever had, and even 22 years later it’s still the best time I’ve probably ever had … I had my time.” Life!” Create up to three lucky punters out of 400,000.
Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 is now streaming on Netflix.
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