Editor’s be aware, September 19, 2024: This piece was initially printed on August 27, 2019, when the eighth episode ofBreak Stuff: The Story of Woodstock ’99 was launched. To mark the current twenty fifth anniversary of the pageant,The Ringer is resurfacingBreak Stuff by itself devoted Spotify feed.
In 1999, a music pageant in upstate New York grew to become a social experiment. There have been riots, looting, and quite a few assaults, all set to a soundtrack of the period’s most aggressive rock bands. Extremely, this was the third iteration of Woodstock, a pageant initially recognized for peace, love, and hippie idealism. However Woodstock ’99 revealed some laborious truths behind the myths of the Sixties and the hazard that nostalgia can engender.
Break Stuff, an eight-part documentary podcast collection now accessible on Spotify, investigates what went fallacious at Woodstock ’99 and the legacy of the occasion as host Steven Hyden interviews promoters, attendees, journalists, and musicians. We’ve alreadyexplored whether or not Limp Bizkit was in charge for the chaos, how the story of theauthentic Woodstock is generally a delusion, how the host cityready for the pageant, howthe primary night time of Woodstock ’99 set the stage for what was to return, whatthe human toll of the pageant was, the sexual violence that occurred, and theriots that individuals bear in mind the pageant for. Inthe final episode of the collection, we’ll sift by way of the pageant’s wreckage.
Beneath is an excerpt from the eighth episode ofBreak Stuff. Discover the collectionright here.
After Woodstock ’99, the pageant was excellent fodder for comedy packages like The Day by day Present.Beth Littleford spoofed the pageant on Jon Stewart’s present in 1999.
“It appeared loopy this weekend with the fires and 200,00 individuals. What’s it truly been like?” Stewart asks Beth Littleford.
“Jon, this has been essentially the most superb expertise of my life,” she responds. “Lots of people have been speaking about these fires, however it’s a lot greater than that. There’s additionally violence. And looting. I received this $50 T-shirt for completely nothing. Oh, and I received you a Jewel hat. You realize, for some motive, nobody else was taking these.”
However what’s most hanging when revisiting the real-time response to Woodstock ’99 is how slowly info moved again then. Most individuals didn’t have cell telephones. They couldn’t take pictures of the mud individuals or ship fearful texts to pals because the riots unfolded. The web existed again then, however there was no social media.
The kind of real-time reporting that occurred throughout the collapse of the Fyre Competition—which turned schadenfreude over the pageant’s demise right into a worldwide viral occasion—wasn’t potential throughout Woodstock ’99. The complete extent of how unhealthy it was wouldn’t turn into recognized for days, weeks, even months after the pageant.
“Web was in its infancy,” says Jonathan Davis, lead singer of Korn. “All people didn’t have their face caught of their fucking cellphone, watching it by way of their cellphone. Individuals have been extra relatable. They weren’t so fucking useless, worrying about their Instagram fucking pictures. It was simply, like, a fucking good time.”
Others, nonetheless, wonder if fashionable expertise would have prevented among the unhealthy issues that occurred at Woodstock ’99.
“I extremely doubt something like this may ever occur at this time,” says journalist Maureen Callahan. “It wouldn’t occur within the iPhone period. It wouldn’t occur within the web period the place everybody has a digital camera of their pocket.”
Callahan wrote in regards to the pageant for Spin journal. She hints at what has turn into an accepted reality within the fashionable period: We’re at all times being watched. If you happen to step out of line in public, all it takes to turn into the subsequent unwitting viral star is for somebody to catch your unhealthy conduct on digital camera. What if that sense of preemptive disgrace had existed in 1999?
“A Woodstock ’99 would by no means have gotten to that time or have gone on that lengthy with an iota of these items going down,” she says. “Being live-streamed. And it nearly feels antediluvian that one thing like this might have occurred. It looks like it occurred in a little bit bottle, and it wasn’t till Monday morning that the world actually noticed the devastation and the wreckage.”
As an image of what went fallacious on the pageant emerged, the media made Woodstock ’99 a cultural bellwether. It was seen as an end-of-an-era second just like what Altamont signified on the finish of the ’60s. Again in 1969, Altamont was seen because the darkish underbelly of the Woodstock dream, a actuality examine suggesting that American youth tradition wasn’t so enamored of peace and love in any case.
With Woodstock ’99, many questioned whether or not the progressivism that marked mainstream rock within the early ’90s was a mirage. Was the violence and machismo of Woodstock ’99 thetrue signal of the place we have been at as a tradition?
“It’s so attention-grabbing that it was 1999, in a means placing the punctuation level on the tip of the last decade, pop culturally,” Callahan says. “It’s attention-grabbing particularly to look again now at this second after we’re into Time’s Up and #MeToo and the unmasking of Harvey Weinstein. And it’s an analogous feeling, just like the masks has been ripped off a bit. And it’s unhappy and it’s scary, however I believe that’s what makes revisiting Woodstock ’99 vital at this time.”
Even when Technology X had its personal screwup, child boomers nonetheless discovered a technique to name again to their generational touchstones. Within the aftermath of any well-publicized fiasco, insightful commentary at all times commingles with a good quantity of scorching air. It was straightforward to take a look at video of the riots at Woodstock ’99 and overreact, and paint a complete technology with a broad brush.
Trying again, among the individuals who have been there are reluctant to connect any larger which means to the pageant.
“Issues can go fallacious in a short time, and just some fallacious selections in a row could make a superb factor into a foul factor,” says then–MTV host Dave Holmes. “And I don’t assume that has something to do with an 18-year-old in 1999 versus an 18-year-old in 1969.”
Holmes rejects the notion that Woodstock ’99 has any bigger cultural significance for Technology X.
“I don’t know that it says something particular in regards to the disaffected youth of the late twentieth century,” he says. “I believe it was only a shitty pageant.”
It’s regular for there to be conflicting impulses when assessing one thing as unusual and mindless as Woodstock ’99. Will we attempt to study from this or put it behind us? Is there any worth in revisiting it or do you simply find yourself wallowing in an enormous, disgusting mess?
One one that appears a little bit bemused by the curiosity in Woodstock ’99 is John Scher, one of many promoters. He’s been fascinated by the pageant extra these days than he has in years. He advised me within the spring that his cellphone was ringing off the hook with calls from reporters wanting to speak about Woodstock. These calls have been provoked by the troubled launch of Woodstock 50, overseen by his former collaborator Michael Lang.
Scher doesn’t appear to have any regrets relating to the pageant, save one: He needs he hadn’t booked so many laborious rock acts on Saturday—the night time with Limp Bizkit, Metallica, and Rage In opposition to the Machine––that many individuals mistakenly consider was the night time of the riots.
MTV interviewed not less than one attendee who felt the aggressive music on stage fueled the aggressive conduct within the viewers:
“They’ll’t have Limp Bizkit after which they arrive out and say, ‘All proper, the gang’s gotta relax.’ After which they’ve Rage In opposition to the Machine come out. ‘All proper, you guys gotta relax.’ After which Metallica come out? You may’t do this, there’s too many loopy individuals round right here on medication.”
However Scher additionally believes that the media overstated how aggressive the music was on the pageant.
“Most of it was mellow,” he says. “We had a variety of mellow acts there. And so much and a variety of variety.
“We tried actually laborious with Michael Lang to ebook a pageant as we did in ’94, that was artistically just like ’69: a variety of completely different sorts of acts. ’69, you had everyone from Joan Baez to laborious rock acts. And we tried to copy it, and I believe we did. If you happen to have a look at the acts on paper, it’s extraordinary. It’s extraordinary. I imply, you’ll be able to’t paint this pageant with one brush. There’s so much happening.”
Sadly for Scher, Woodstock ’99 didn’t occur on paper. It occurred at an Air Drive Base that was trashed by rioters.
The months after the pageant have been an intense interval for the promoters. Their hope of constructing hundreds of thousands from the pageant—aided by a soundtrack album and movie—had actually gone up in smoke. Within the media, they have been pilloried as grasping hucksters who created an atmosphere that engendered a lot violence.
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Sygma by way of Getty Pictures
John Scher’s criticism of the media at all times appeared to middle on one individual: Kurt Loder.
Do you bear in mind Kurt Loder? He was just like the Walter Cronkite of MTV. A critical music journalist amid a discipline of video jockeys. So cool. So dryly witty. I worshipped him as a child. Scher, nonetheless, is just not a fan.
“He noticed a chance to sensationalize it––and there have been unquestionably a few furry moments,” he says. “The primary furry moments have been on Saturday, not on Sunday, when Limp Bizkit and their moron lead singer actually tried to trigger hassle. Badly tried to trigger hassle. And whereas that definitely was newsworthy, once more, no person received damage or not less than not very many individuals received damage.
“And he spent from that point by way of Sunday attempting to sensationalize that. Getting headlines, then being there with cameras and having the ability to choose and select what they needed to placed on the air.”
Loder declined interview requests for this podcast. Regardless of that, I’ll at all times love you, Kurt.
Nevertheless, Holmes denies that the music channel had a vendetta in opposition to the pageant.
“I used to be there and it was fairly ugly,” he says. “I believe that what we did was report on what was happening fairly precisely. … I don’t assume anyone actually had any curiosity in shitting on it earlier than it occurred or whereas it was occurring and even after. It was simply harmful and unsafe and poorly deliberate.”
As for Scher, he stored on being a big-time live performance promoter after the pageant. In reality, in 2000, the live-music commerce publication Pollstar named him promoter of the yr. That’s how rapidly the trade moved on from Woodstock ’99.
Since then, Woodstock ’99 has been overshadowed by the Fyre Competition, which was immortalized by two documentaries in early 2019. Scher watched not less than a type of, by the way in which.
“I haven’t seen the Hulu one but, however I’ve seen the Netflix one,” Scher says. “And I watched it and I associated to each single second and within the first possibly 20 minutes, half-hour I used to be saying to myself, ‘This man’s fairly good. He’s gonna pull this off.’ However then clearly he didn’t.”
