I happened across this documentary last night on HBO+. It gave some insight into how the Woodstock '99 festival devolved into stage fires, looting, and various assaults. Has anyone else gotten around to watching this yet? What were your impressions?
As soon as I noticed it I watched it straight through. I heard about it being an unwashed washout but wasn't following this music or pop culture in general at that time so a lot of this was news to me. They had the footage and told the story and they also had a lot of diverse opinions on what was actually happening and why. I did not buy every theory put forth but that's OK as the point is to provoke thought. Promoter John Scher needed to put some more thought into his answers as he comes off very poorly.
I will probably jump back into this thread later as both my wife and I watched this doc over the weekend and found it very interesting and engaging! Caught for time at the moment… So many perspectives on how and why this event turned horrible… we very much liked the doc.
I turned 30 in 1999 and had just gotten married in February of that year, so I was a little too old to be interested in Woodstock at that point in my life, but I had no idea how out of control it got.
I thought it was a fair appraisal of what likely happened. The organizer seemed blindsided by many problems he should have foreseen. I do however wonder what people thought they were walking into when they bought a ticket.
Those run/taxiways were built to handle fully loaded B52s. They are thick and reinforced so they are usually the hottest places during the summer and the coldest during the winter. No wonder those kids were hot. Also it appears that many of the support buildings were demolished so they had to use porta-potties. Phew! I think the documentarian should have used additional "talking head" experts with differing viewpoints. He did a good job but perhaps the situation was a bit more complex.
The whole use of a decommissioned Air Force base was such an “over correction” for the previous festivals’ problems with gate crashing… Just to ensure that everyone paid and there were no entry breaches, it appears the organizers picked a pretty unaccommodating place to hold a long music festival.
If you are running a business it's pretty important people pay, I don't think it was the venue itself, the organizers did a crappy job providing security and the whole thing descended into anarchy.
I lived about a half hour away (When I was a kid I lived about 20 minutes away from Watkins Glen.) The combination of the acts, many of which were among my least favorite at the time --neither my wife, nor I liked rap-rock or nu-metal, and my advanced age kept me from it. I remember they were charging $10 for a bottle of water. I don't have HBO, but I would like to see this.
I enjoyed this Luminary podcast a couple of years ago, I expect this doc is similar in approach. Luminary. A new way to podcast
They should have seen it coming a mile away: hard rock/rap + air force base + hammerheads + alcohol + $4 water + female nudity = disaster. Could have been a lot worse, though.
I had read about most of this before, but seeing it and hearing from people who were there (particularly those working security) was truly shocking and disturbing. And some of the quotes from the organizers were infuriating. I want to know more about Woodstock 94 now. From the little bit they mentioned, it sounded like a much more appropriate and successful tribute to the original, but a lot of the same bands played both 94 and 99.
I don’t really remember this festival at all. At the time I was not interested in the majority of the artists involved and had not watched MTV in years. Out of curiosity I watched this documentary. After viewing all I can see is that this documentary was not necessary. Most of these same problems at this festival has happen at numerous other festivals around the world. The movie was leading up to something huge, that just was not there with the exception of the 1 person who died and some fires. It is not like this was The Who Cincinnati incident or Pearl Jam Roskilde or even the Fyre Festival.
One thing the documentary did mention is the current romanticized version of the original Woodstock isn't very accurate.
Yeah that's pretty much true, below is a short documentary on the Bull Island Festival from 1972. I'd never even heard of this event until a couple of weeks ago when I ran into this YouTube. It's an entertaining watch.
It was crazy hot there. And a big giant flat concrete military base is a horrible choice for a festival. Vibes were really crappy from the get-go. I'm struggling to think of even one band I saw there that made all the effort worth it.
Political correctness aside, I would still like an extensive/complete video/music Blu-ray release of this'99 festival.
not enough music, we all know it was a cluster****, so show us the bands and how they added to or detracted form that cluster****. poorly done IMHO.
It seems like they had the story about the guy who died and did a story about everything that happened around that. Unfortunately it was not that compelling. Even the friends that went with him had odd takes about the festival. One of them mentions that how can his friend die from going to a concert, yet he also mentions that getting kicked in the head was kind of cool.
i was at woodstock '94. yeah, there was "gate crashing", but the way the promotor talked about "losing money" due to gate crashers had me laughing. you already sold the number of tickets you were gonna sell...exactly how do people coming in for free after that (and buying merch, food, etc) result in you losing money?
94 was a lot of fun, and didn't have bad vibes. it was on a farm, in the grass, and yeah it rained and everything turned to mud (and **** near the porta potties), but overall it was a very enjoyable time. the bands were killer, too.
