Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 doc

[Huggy]

shipty music played to shipty people in shipty conditions.

The Venn diagram of Limp Bizkit fans and Kid Rock fans is a single circle. Durst (the original prick with a red hat) was a ship-stirrer who appealed to - and wound up - faux-tough, date-raping bros that looked for any opportunity to feed their ids without consequence.

Just like boomers playing "Born in the USA" on the 4th of July or "Glory Days" after the local high school team wins, that same group, deliberately or not, routinely misunderstood and misappropriated RATM's lyrics and intent for general mayhem.

Metallica is Metallica. They were neck-deep in their Hot Topic phase at the time (although the setlist was pretty darn good) and shouldn't have been anyone's idea of mayhem and rebellion. Wacken and Hellfest go off every year without nonsense like that, largely due to much better organization and a crowd that can handle their metal high.

You're last point is spot on. There have been hard rock and metal fests all over the world for decades, many featuring acts much, much more hardcore than what was at Woodstock (some of these fests were part of a doc a few years back called Global Metal that's worth trying to hunt down for those interested in metal scenes around the world) with none of this mayhem.

 

[DanielSimpsonDay]

You're last point is spot on. There have been hard rock and metal fests all over the world for decades, many featuring acts much, much more hardcore than what was at Woodstock (some of these fests were part of a doc a few years back called Global Metal that's worth trying to hunt down for those interested in metal scenes around the world) with none of this mayhem.

If you would also like listeria/covid/norovirus to go with your metal, there's always 70,000 Tons of Metal.

 

[nietsroob17]

Dan Flynn, the former Marietta (Ga.) police chief, is from the NY area and was the security director for Woodstock '94. They wanted him back for '99, and Flynn -- not wanting to do it again -- said he threw out some exorbitant number ($100,000) as his fee, thinking the promoters would scoff at it. Instead, they hired him on the spot.

AROUND TOWN: Ex top cop takes a trip back to Woodstock '99

 

[tapintoamerica]

I watched it last night (I haven't seen the HBO one), man, what a complete shipshow. Amazing the promoters were still in full on deflect, deflect, deflect mode and not all all surpising it was the people on the ground who knew what was really going on while these guys fiddled and Rome (NY) burned

And after two-plus days of carnage somebody still thought handing out candles was a good idea????

Here is Rob Sheffield's report from the show in Rolling Stone (cached in case it's paywalled): Woodstock '99: Rage Against the Latrine

That is so great. I laughed at a line in every paragraph.

 

[Spartan Squad]

Just finished the HBO doc. What it did well over the Netflix one was give a holistic view of the concert and society. Netflix did better documenting the build up.

Michael Lang comes off terribly but John Scher is a complete piece of ship.

 

[Machine Head]

Lang is right there with Scher imo for what went down.

 

[Spartan Squad]

Lang is right there with Scher imo for what went down.

100 percent, Lang is right there. I just mean Lang comes off as a guy who did way too many drugs in the 60s and can't comprehend his fork up. Scher victim blaming and being combative when people called him on his ship is just that greedy ashhole who should have been sued into oblivion.

 

[Justin_Rice]

100 percent, Lang is right there. I just mean Lang comes off as a guy who did way too many drugs in the 60s and can't comprehend his fork up. Scher victim blaming and being combative when people called him on his ship is just that greedy ashhole who should have been sued into oblivion.

Hey if you didn't want your boobs touched, keep your shirt on!

 

[sgreenwell]

Watched it over two nights with my wife. With the caveat that I haven't seen the HBO doc, it was a really effective piece of content. Even with the benefit of time and hindsight, the organizers come across as comically unaware of the chaos they were enabling. Hell - It's crazy that they forked up the first night so badly, and Gavin effing Rossdale of all people managed to realize this and bail them out with Bush's performance, which seemed to bring the temperature down from Korn appropriately.

Along those lines - Limp Bizkit probably shouldn't be your "closer" for night two... except that I look up the night's lineup, and, uh, they weren't. From the doc, you'd think it went Limp, end of live performances, and the pent-up energy of the mob led to the riot at the Fatboy Slim show in the rave tent. Limp Bizkit was followed by Rage Against The Machine *AND* Metallica! While I understand Fred Durst's whipping boy status among music critics now, it's hard to imagine there wasn't a bunch of footage of people tearing ship up during the RATM and Metallica performances as well.

 

[Justin_Rice]

Watched it over two nights with my wife. With the caveat that I haven't seen the HBO doc, it was a really effective piece of content. Even with the benefit of time and hindsight, the organizers come across as comically unaware of the chaos they were enabling. Hell - It's crazy that they forked up the first night so badly, and Gavin effing Rossdale of all people managed to realize this and bail them out with Bush's performance, which seemed to bring the temperature down from Korn appropriately.

Along those lines - Limp Bizkit probably shouldn't be your "closer" for night two... except that I look up the night's lineup, and, uh, they weren't. From the doc, you'd think it went Limp, end of live performances, and the pent-up energy of the mob led to the riot at the Fatboy Slim show in the rave tent. Limp Bizkit was followed by Rage Against The Machine *AND* Metallica! While I understand Fred Durst's whipping boy status among music critics now, it's hard to imagine there wasn't a bunch of footage of people tearing ship up during the RATM and Metallica performances as well.

I thought the HBO doc had a good clip of The Offspring singer calling out people mid-show for sexually ashaulting crowd surfers.

 

[Spartan Squad]

I thought the HBO doc had a good clip of The Offspring singer calling out people mid-show for sexually ashaulting crowd surfers.

Yeah he did his best. I liked his line at the end of his speech telling the women to grab the dudes by the balls as they went by.

 

[Justin_Rice]

Yeah he did his best. I liked his line at the end of his speech telling the women to grab the dudes by the balls as they went by.

For sure. Never been an Offspring guy, but as I cringed watched the HBO I gained many, many levels of respect for them.