I had turned 17 in April and really wanted to go. I already had a road trip to Maine the 1st week of July for a friends wedding so I had to pick one of the other.
I knew it went badly but until I watched this documentary on Netflix I had no clue just how bad things were.
How people did not die in droves is pretty amazing.
Supposed to be another documentary about it on HBOmax.

Makes one wonder how things would have gone differently if cellphones and social media were around.

Woodstock '99 (the one on HBO) is really good.

I'm no fan of Limp Bizkit, never have been, but the guy blaming Fred Durst, RHCP and aggrivated white frat-boys for inciting the crowd is just BS.

Somehow huge festivals like Wacken and Hellfest are able to have larger gatherings w/ much more agro bands without any of the same issues as Woodstock 99.

I've always hated large stadium concerts and I always loathed these huge festival gigs like Coachella, etc. Not surprised by the shit at this concert.

I remember being offered a free pair of tickets to see The Stones with Metallica opening and said nope, not in a baseball park. I just can't stand seeing a concert with tens/hundreds of thousands of people. I have been to several of them in the 70s and two in the 80s and for the most part did not enjoy myself. Hell, even a basketball arena with 12,000 people is still too big IMO.

I remember that event back in the day. I never went, but hearing about it, it isn't shocking. A bunch of hippies trying to cash in on a memory in a different era, piss poor planning, did I mention cashing in with overpriced water and not enough porta potties, est... Plus by the time this event happened, I know people had stopped going to Lallapalooza because it was over commercialized and not as cool as the early 90s.

I was stationed there for a couple of years. It was a really nice base. Sad what they did to it.

I grew up in this era and I feel like if anything this was expected behavior of the fans. I can’t imagine many of the bands at the time expected any different but I saw John Davis on that clip. Be pretty pathetic if they preached at all that pent up anger and lashing out only to be like hey guys it’s just music.

I vaguely remember the 99 concert but after seeing the Documentary they certainly didn't learn anything or make it better than the 69 Concert.
It was painful to watch.

I was there, at Woodstock '99.

I left, with my buddy Joe who I was there with, early Sunday morning sometime around 2am or so. Things were starting to get nuts around that time. I left early because I was reporting back to the Academy after summer break that Monday and would not have made it back on time otherwise. I saw some of what was unfolding as we drove out but never imagined it would turn into the carnage that it did. Good thing we left at that time too as the roads were completely empty. I borrowed my dad's 1984 Dodge van for the trip up to Rome, New York from New Jersey. We arrived and parked with the gas gauge on "E". Had we waited and left with the crowd, we would've been screwed. Another guy from the Academy who I later learned was at the concert said it took him over six hours to get out of the parking lot.

My buddy Joe and I had a great time though. I guess we were some of the few lucky ones because we got into the base grounds passed security with all of our alcohol and water that we brought. I was carrying a large hiking backpack on my back with two 30 packs of beer stuffed down in the bottom of it. I only put down the two bags I was carrying for inspection by security who quickly looked at it and waved me through. I never even took off my backpack. I was in! With all the beer and water we brought with us. Then my buddy Joe put his bags down for inspection. He had two bottles of Jack Daniels in his bags. The security guy barely looked through his bag and then waved him through. We couldn't believe it. Meanwhile hundreds of other attendees were sitting outside of the security gate trying to drink all their booze before trying to get in. Well, we were set for the weekend now. I never had to buy a drink inside the venue. I also never drank that shit public water or ever even went near those honey buckets or showers. That's probably why we had such a good experience there, despite the crowd and the heat.

One more quick story, I think the last concert that we saw that evening, Saturday night, was Rage Against the Machine. It was a kickass performance as only Rage can do. Tom Morello was amazing. Then as they're wrapping up their last song, I suddenly see flames erupting on stage. I'm like, "whoa, check that out, dude! Ha!" And then, wait a fucking minute. Is that the American Flag Rage just set fire to on stage? Sure as shit it was. Then Rage was done and walked off stage. I was furious seeing the American flag burning on stage like that. It really pissed me off, but no matter. Our time at Woodstock '99 was over as that's about when we started heading out. I kid you not, as we were walking towards the exit gate which was quite a hike from where we were, the boundary fence next to us suddenly starting shaking and rattling. We moved away, and it suddenly collapsed and came crashing down. People from the other side where the parking lot was starting piling through the opening. Whatever. This was awesome for us though because our van was parked just right by where the fence came down. We had already packed up all of our stuff into the van earlier in the evening so we just had to get into the van and drive off. That fence coming down saved us about a 30 plus minute walk.

Anyway, despite the shitshow that was Woodstock '99, my buddy Joe and I had an absolute blast.

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:

I've always hated large stadium concerts

I think it was 2005, friend of mine got tickets to Jimmy Buffett at Citizen's Bank Park in Philly.

We drove down a few hours early to tailgate and MAN what an amazing time that was. People had fake BEACHES set up with sand and beach chairs and inflatable parrots, volleyball courts, cornhole and lots and lots and lots of beer and other alcohol. Was a complete party scene and we had a really great time.

Gets to be time to head into the concert and we get into our seats and the suckage began. The sound system was horrible, all echo-y and crappy sounding. The fucking people in front of us STOOD the entire damn time and sang LOUDLY at each song so I basically didn't see Jimmy Buffett play nor could I hear him over the din of all these assholes singing along, badly.

The tailgate party ended up being the only good thing about that whole day.

That night turned me off to stadium concerts pretty much for good.

The Who at RFK was a good time at a stadium show.

The Netflix doc was way better than the HBO one. The HBO doc just blamed the white men attending and Limp Bizkit for everything. They, of course, focused on racism and what the left calls toxic masculinity.

I think this was a much more fair documentary that did a much better job exposing the production companies failures. And they did have a couple people defend Limp Bizkit though I thought it was extremely dishonest how they skipped the fact that RATM and Metallica played after Limp Bizkit. The doc made it seem like people left that show all hyped up and went right to the rave. The song “Break Stuff” is pretty mild in its suggestions of violence compared to anything Rage Against the Machine plays.

The fault of that shows lies 100% at the feet of the production company.

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:

I think this was a much more fair documentary that did a much better job exposing the production companies failures. And they did have a couple people defend Limp Bizkit though I thought it was extremely dishonest how they skipped the fact that RATM and Metallica played after Limp Bizkit. The doc made it seem like people left that show all hyped up and went right to the rave. The song “Break Stuff” is pretty mild in its suggestions of violence compared to anything Rage Against the Machine plays.

The fault of that shows lies 100% at the feet of the production company.

Agree completely. And Rage even set fire to the American flag on stage.

I remember specifically the things that people there were grumbling about the most that being the conditions on the ground and most especially the price of everything. The cost of a bottle of water there has always stuck with me. It was initially something like $4 or $5, but I recall that it even may have gone up more than that by the end. Just crazy. And people were pissed about it.

^^^^^^^

That one girl in the documentary said she thought she remembered it reaching as much as $12 on the last day for a bottle of water.

BTW thanks for your firsthand account, it’s awesome you got to go and I enjoyed your post about it. Even after seeing the (literal) shitshow it turned out to be I wish I’d been there.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:

I think this was a much more fair documentary that did a much better job exposing the production companies failures. And they did have a couple people defend Limp Bizkit though I thought it was extremely dishonest how they skipped the fact that RATM and Metallica played after Limp Bizkit. The doc made it seem like people left that show all hyped up and went right to the rave. The song “Break Stuff” is pretty mild in its suggestions of violence compared to anything Rage Against the Machine plays.

The fault of that shows lies 100% at the feet of the production company.

Agree completely. And Rage even set fire to the American flag on stage.

I remember specifically the things that people there were grumbling about the most that being the conditions on the ground and most especially the price of everything. The cost of a bottle of water there has always stuck with me. It was initially something like $4 or $5, but I recall that it even may have gone up more than that by the end. Just crazy. And people were pissed about it.

No mention of Rage burning the flag.
One girl said water started at $4.00 a bottle even had pictures of the concession sign. Though she said last day it was up to $12.

Managment/Promotion folks SAID they farmed out all food vendors and when they signed that deal they had zero say/control in food or drink prices.
Was that the case, who knows??

They also had the guy from the city health department and he stated they send water samples to the lab from the watering stations one of the first days and said all samples were contaminated and the entire lab smelled from the sample growth.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

No mention of Rage burning the flag.

I can say for a certainty that they did. It was one of those moments seared in my memory.

quote:

They also had the guy from the city health department and he stated they send water samples to the lab from the watering stations one of the first days and said all samples were contaminated and the entire lab smelled from the sample growth.

That's terrible. Thank God I never touched that water.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

No mention of Rage burning the flag.

I can say for a certainty that they did. It was one of those moments seared in my memory.

quote:

They also had the guy from the city health department and he stated they send water samples to the lab from the watering stations one of the first days and said all samples were contaminated and the entire lab smelled from the sample growth.

That's terrible. Thank God I never touched that water.

I'm not surprised to hear that one bit.

RATM and Bad Religion were two of my favorite bands when I was growing up, now that I'm older I think more about the words and the message.

Fucking spoiled ungrateful commie shitheads doesn't even begin to capture what I think of them now.

I can't stand them now. Rage is in an elite group of bands that will cause a reflexive channel change, and that's not even considering what a steaming pile renegades of funk is.

Found it.

The video should start near the very end when they light it up. If not, just skip to the last 60 seconds.



Like I said though, awesome set right up until that moment. You have to understand as well that I was just about to enter my second year in a Federal military Academy and quite proud of the uniform I wore, so seeing the American flag burning like that really left me incensed.

Real fuzzy memory, but in the early/mid 90s didn't RATM encourage it's fans to steal CDs from the record store. But not theirs. They want the money.

IIRC the HBO documentary does show Rage burning the flag too. It’s not the only show they did that at.

I also used to love RATM, but they are nothing but hypocrites who continue to barge ridiculous prices for their concerts and merchandise and advocate fir gun control and forced vaccines.