Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 (2022) s01e03 Episode Script

1
Woodstock '99
wrapping up today.
Quarter of a million sweaty,
sunburned folks,
and they're all battling the elements.
Uh, welcome to day three
of Woodstock '99.
We had a, uh, satisfying
and eventful day yesterday.
I know you've got a lot of questions.
Last night, fans starting
to break off pieces of a production tower.
Woodstock officials are actually
downplaying that mess,
but I can tell you that many people
were treated for injuries.
Woodstock '99
was coming to an end,
and the press conference on Sunday morning
is where it got most testy.
John, where were you
during Limp Bizkit's set?
What sort of setup do you have
for accountability?
How many security guards
do you have onsite?
We had about 200,000 kids on that field
last night, having a great time.
John Scher was trying to paint
this rosy picture
of what was happening on the ground.
When he went up there, he knew
that he needed to control the narrative.
We had some amazing music.
You know, you've got knuckleheads,
maybe 50 of them, causing the trouble.
So let's try to focus
on the overwhelming positiveness
But the press had now seen enough
to know that things were going wrong.
I saw everything
that was going on.
I had a bird's-eye view,
and it was violent,
it was dangerous, it was hostile,
and there was a sea of kids
causing trouble.
There were people
being mistreated.
There were people getting maimed.
They were glossing over all of that,
and it was only going to get worse.
Sunday, day three. Final day.
Oh gosh.
Walking back onto site was like waking up
from a drunken night in bed
with a total stranger who's unattractive.
You're like,
"What the hell have I just done?"
Amazing grace ♪
How sweet the sound ♪
That saved a wretch ♪
Like me ♪
I wanted Willie Nelson
opening Sunday morning,
almost as a religious experience.
I was in heaven.
But now I'm found ♪
Wrong house.
Was blind ♪
But now ♪
I see ♪
People I encountered on Sunday
just seemed exhausted and burned out.
Let's just share
in this moment with them.
By Sunday, it was like a refugee camp.
I mean, it looked like what you would see
on the news,
with just tent city, garbage,
and it was disgusting.
It smelled so bad,
and there's, like, nowhere to wash off,
because by that point,
the shower station line
was so freaking long.
People just got mad enough,
but they smashed the pipes.
So, it was just, like, this river.
A mix of the showers
and nasty runoff from the porta-potties.
Most people didn't realize
it was shit mud.
You wanna come to Woodstock?
Get in the mud!
Yeah!
We were supposed to have places
to refill our water bottles,
but either the water was gross
and running brown, or they were broken.
Turn on the water!
So, all the water out of the faucets
is Are not
It's tinted. I wouldn't say it's brown.
That's an exaggeration. But it's tinted.
My job
in the health department
was making sure that our water supplies
are safe for the public.
As the event was going on,
we went out and took samples
of drinking water from around the site,
that we submitted to the lab.
Sunday morning, I went up to the lab.
We opened up the door to the incubator.
The smell nearly knocked you over.
They looked at the samples,
and most all of them were contaminated.
Any free drinking water
that had been available
was soiled from feces.
The thought that
people are out there,
drinking this, exposing themselves,
bathing in this stuff
It was like the worst nightmare.
Yeah! This is the life! Yeah!
So I wake up Sunday morning.
I have a very sore throat.
Cold sores all over my lips.
I had ulcers all over my tongue
and my gums and in my mouth.
And I can't eat.
I can't drink. I can hardly talk.
I found out
that I had something called trench mouth,
basically from drinking unsanitary water.
This isn't what Woodstock
was supposed to be.
We thought it was gonna be
this beautiful thing.
We packed up our shit, and I think by,
like, 1:00 in the afternoon,
we were out of there.
There are a lot of people leaving.
Everybody is tired, wore out,
totally just incapacitated.
Hey, Carson here,
right outside Woodstock '99,
and the concert's not quite over.
And as you can see,
there's a steady stream of cars,
and people, and tow trucks
making their way out of the concert.
Where are you guys going?
The show's not over yet.
- We're leaving.
- Why?
- It stinks in there.
- Too dirty.
We're exhausted, man.
The heat totally drove us to the ground.
On the road again ♪
I just can't wait
To get on the road again ♪
The life I love
Is making music with my friends ♪
And I can't wait
To get on the road again ♪
So, by Sunday,
people were fed up.
I don't think anybody
had any money left over,
and then the price gouging
on top of that was ridiculous.
A lot of the vendors were out of stock,
so the few that seemed to be left
could charge whatever they wanted.
Everything's ridiculously overpriced,
but you pay it everywhere.
That's what you gotta do.
But we're in stock.
It went from
four or five for a bottle of water to,
I want to say, 12 bucks
a bottle of water by the third day.
There was just
that negative energy
that was really starting to run through
the crowd on Sunday.
The only thing anyone had a sense
of optimism about
was that there was a rumor that had
been going around for a couple of days
that there was gonna be
some special end-of-Woodstock event.
Have you confirmed
the closing act?
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
are the last official act
that are going to close on Sunday night.
And we're still cooking up
a little something for the end.
It's gonna stay a surprise
for the time being.
That was the chatter,
that somebody's coming on
after the Chili Peppers.
And I remember asking around,
and the big rumor
was that Prince was going to play.
I heard Guns N' Roses
was coming out of retirement, apparently.
Even the staff in the office
had theories about who was gonna turn up.
One rumor was Bob Dylan.
A rumor is Bob Dylan's coming?
You know, the Grateful Dead.
The Rolling Stones.
We had heard rumblings of Michael Jackson.
It was a good reason to kind of hang on
'til the bitter end.
Sunday afternoon, the crowds
They were pretty jumped up.
So, we tried to stay reasonably mellow,
and Jewel fit that slot just perfectly.
Here we are at Woodstock, everyone.
Being backstage, I was reading the crowd,
trying to figure out
what the set list might be like.
This is 13 songs.
Going, all right, what combination
of things on Earth possibly can begin
to attempt to try
and get people to focus?
They tell you about the mud?
Everybody's been getting pelted.
Sheryl Crow got totally pelted.
- So, anyway, don't take it personally.
- She always does.
I know.
Please welcome
Atlantic recording artist, Jewel!
If I could tell the world
Just one thing ♪
It would be we're all okay ♪
We get back to the barricade,
and I think by that point,
I was close to, like, my breaking point,
just looking for the moment we could
get back on the bus and go back home.
By the time Jewel came on,
the tone had definitely changed.
The environment
was starting to really shift,
and it was hard to put your finger on,
but it felt like a crowd
that could turn at any time.
There was a real unpredictable,
weird energy.
Things are going south,
and we need to get out of here.
That was Jewel!
Jewel!
We just went straight
to the bus right behind the stage.
Keep stepping up, guys.
Keep it moving. Come on.
You need to give her some space.
You know, you were just like,
"Whoa," you know? "That was different."
And we left.
There was definitely
a palpable sense of anger,
and it wasn't just the overstimulated
testosterone young males at this point.
I think everybody was pissed off.
The kids are getting agitated.
They had about had it with the trash,
with the heat, with the expenses,
and they're gonna do something about it.
Entrance to the gates of hell.
In today's world,
we would be tearing this festival apart
on TikTok and Snapchat and Instagram,
but that didn't exist back then.
There was nothing else the kids could do
besides turn on the staff and the venue.
They're tearing the wall down, man.
This is un-freaking-real!
Tear down the wall!
Tear it down!
Tear it down! Bring it all down!
Whoo-hoo!
This is fucking history, folks!
This is history.
Whoo-hoo!
They had had enough.
The kids had had enough.
You know, there were some
naysayers out there,
and they said that we couldn't handle
the traffic, and we did.
And they said that the security
wouldn't work, and it did.
And now some of them are saying
we can't clean it up.
And we will.
Sunday night was a great press conference.
Don't know if you can get the footage.
This was fabulous. These kids are great.
It's unbelievable. Perfect.
We're happy. All is well.
We haven't had any tough incidents.
Yes, are you aware that parts
of the wall has been torn down now?
I think the exterior wall
just makes an amazing souvenir,
and people just couldn't resist it.
They were breaking it up
into small pieces, I guess,
just to have a piece of Woodstock.
I saw what was going on.
I had spoken to enough people.
I knew that they were full of shit.
Uh, there are, we estimate, anyway,
about 150,000 people still on site
um, that are having a good time.
The mayor was there.
They're slapping each other on the back.
I was feeling phenomenal
at that point.
We were declaring a premature success.
I think it's been a memorable,
exciting concert for all those involved
and all those who have covered it,
and the community as a whole, so
And I remember one question said,
"Well, how do you feel? You got it done."
I said, "Not yet.
We got three more hours."
I'm so confident that things will go well.
I'd like to, at this point in time,
Michael, to extend an invitation
to come back to our area again.
We'd be more than happy to host you,
and rock and roll in central New York.
And all these, you know, officials
just couldn't wait to invite us back.
It was the most amazing event.
Thanks, you guys have been great
for the most part,
and we really appreciate it.
I walked out of there feeling just great.
Party.
Get a shot of this kid
smoking some pot.
Whoo! Woodstock '99,
there's a storm coming.
Michael and John are optimists.
So, for them, it was kind of,
it's all positive, it's all positive.
But, you know, we were all on edge,
because we'd seen the face of a disaster
in the night before.
But the show was gonna go on.
So, we hoped for the best
and that calmer heads would prevail.
- The Chili Peppers are doing their thing.
- Awesome.
Wild and crazy.
We're about to get out of here.
The finish line is in sight.
We just got to get through
the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Flea is butt-ass naked,
and if I remember correctly,
very many people in the audience
were also butt-ass naked.
All around the world, we can make time
Rompin' and a stompin' ♪
'Cause I'm in my prime
Born in the north ♪
And sworn to entertain ya ♪
Chili Peppers?
It was kind of a blur.
It almost felt like you went to war
by that point.
It was like,
"Oh man, we've been through the wringer."
So, Sunday night,
I'm in the production office.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
were still performing.
We had gotten collectively
probably four hours of sleep.
So, we were exhausted.
They're all just passed out.
They've worked too hard for too long.
I'm exhausted,
and I'm in my office with all the radios.
All of a sudden,
I hear the producer's channel,
and that's the channel with Michael Lang,
John Scher.
Everybody on stage, do you copy?
And they were going
to hand out 100,000 candles.
Oh man.
Wow.
My boss and I
looked at each other and just like
Yeah, Michael's the candle guy,
all right?
You know, Michael's the candle guy.
I mean, I knew very little about it.
So, we planned for this candlelight vigil
to occur toward the end
of the Chili Peppers' set.
Columbine had just happened
a few months before.
The issue of gun violence
was really starting to come to focus
in American society.
And there was this thought
that anti-gun violence could be our cause.
The idea was that we would
light up the night at the end,
the culmination of the festival,
with these candles,
and that that was going to be
a big visual demonstration
of this generation
speaking out about gun violence.
I knew nothing about plans
for a candlelit vigil.
Immediately I started screaming
into the radio,
"You can't do this.
It's not approved by the fire marshal."
I don't know what's going on
And John Scher just tells me to shut up
and get off the channel.
Villagers are calm.
Everything's okay. Don't worry about us.
The joke was, you had taken
everybody's flammable items for days,
and now you're gonna do
the total opposite
and ask people to light candles up.
So I'm standing
on the side of the stage.
Like, Flea's naked butt
is ten feet away from me,
like, literally ten feet away from me.
They started playing "Under the Bridge."
Sometimes I feel like
I don't have a partner ♪
Then all of a sudden,
there's just a vast sea of candles.
I don't ever wanna feel ♪
Like I did that day ♪
Take me to the place I love ♪
Take me all the way ♪
I don't ever wanna feel ♪
It was one of the most
beautiful things I've ever seen.
The light spread through the whole crowd
of hundreds of thousands of people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
Hold me, no-no, yeah, yeah ♪
And it was very original Woodstock,
because it was supposed to be a peaceful,
you know, like, happy thing,
bringing everybody together.
Peace, baby. Peace.
But that's not how it turned out.
To give flames to an audience
that is three days
into being treated like animals
It was not a very smart decision.
I saw off in the distance
what looked like a fire.
We turned to each other,
and it's like, "Well, this isn't good."
This is security at the East Stage.
You better stop the concert.
I'm on the side of the stage.
I was very concerned.
First of all, I was afraid
somebody was gonna get hurt.
Secondly, I knew this was gonna be,
you know, a newsworthy issue.
All right,
welcome back to Fifteen-Fifteen Live.
A fire has broken out by the main stage.
The concert was stopped moments ago.
Heaven knows what's happening here.
This has been a festival of extremes
all the way from day one.
We need a fire truck out here fast.
It was this main fire
that was my concern.
Things like that that go uncontrolled
can lead to more chaos.
- Calm down, we don't want any
- Whoo!
We had a fire department on site.
Michael hopped off the stage
to go to the firehouse.
I decided to go on stage.
As you can see, it's not part of the show.
It really is a problem.
So the fire department's
gonna have to come in with a fire truck
to put the fire out.
If everybody could cooperate
Michael radioed me and, you know,
said they won't go out. They're scared.
Get your ass back here.
I couldn't believe that these guys
were not willing to go out.
I mean, I told them I'd go out with them.
Basically tell them to go fuck themselves.
You know? This is your job.
There's a fire there.
Go out there and put the fire out.
I then have a conversation
backstage with Anthony Kiedis.
I said to him, "We need you
to be helpful, to quell the crowd."
But his response was,
"They're not gonna listen to me."
"I don't have anything
I can say to add to this."
Holy shit, it's Apocalypse Now out there.
You wanna do it?
You wanna do it?
Fuck yeah!
The first song he played on the encore
was a tribute to Jimi Hendrix.
"Fire."
Okay, let me stand next to your fire ♪
Let me stand next to your fire ♪
Let me stand next to your fire ♪
As the Chili Peppers are playing,
you start to see
more of these fires start to pop up.
Oh girl, let me slip it into your fire ♪
Let me stand next to your fire ♪
Let me stand next to your fire ♪
Then another one pops up,
and then another one.
Come on ♪
Now dig this ♪
Red Hot Chili Peppers!
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
finished their set,
and everyone was anticipating,
like, some type of special artist.
We want more! We want more! We want more!
Oh, we were, like, super excited.
But, boom, the show is over.
Hope you all had a great time.
We sure did, and it was great
having you with us.
Be safe and careful going home.
We'll see you again soon.
So, you now have all these pent-up people
with all this energy, and disappointed.
The only thing that they did
is they showed Jimi Hendrix
up on the big video screens.
I think that was like the final match
on the gasoline pyre
that just set everyone off.
The crowd certainly took it as a signal
to go and just burn down the place.
Burn, motherfucker!
Whoo!
Just light it on fire!
Anything they could get their hands on,
they were throwing into the fire.
More wood! More wood!
It was scary, because I could see people
becoming infected with this, like,
angry mob mentality
where people that would never do this
in their normal everyday life,
they just went with it
and gave their all into mass destruction.
And it just spread like wildfire.
The sky turned orange.
There was fires everywhere.
Everywhere you look, there was fires.
It was mayhem after that.
The roof, the roof is on fire ♪
We don't need no water ♪
Let the motherfucker burn ♪
- Hendrix plays while Rome burns.
- Oh my God.
I don't know if you can see behind us,
the sky is kind of orange, lots of smoke.
- Right.
- It's crazy out there.
It felt like panic.
And I remember seeing PAs
coming out of the production trailer
and just throwing the monitors
and the towers into a 15-passenger van.
It kind of felt like
the fall of Hanoi or something.
- We are going to get out of here.
- Yes.
- I think we're going to go.
- Time to go.
It's getting pretty inten
They were like, we're done, we're out.
And they loaded us onto the bus.
Everyone, now move. Let's go.
Move out.
There was more
to be covered, but they were like,
"We're not gonna risk your safety
or anybody else's. We are outta here."
Woodstock '99, goodbye,
and maybe good riddance.
We were on one of the roads
that leave the festival site.
Just go a little further!
I was looking out the window,
and we start to see as we're driving
Holy shit!
- Dude, this is Oh my God!
- You getting this on video?
I'm like, shit, something's gonna
happen here, and we need to get this.
I was out of the car
like Dukes of Hazzard.
We're moving in.
We got fires everywhere. Look at this!
We're getting closer now.
I started running towards the action.
Everybody else is coming out.
We're trying to get back in.
I didn't know what was gonna transpire.
Yo, get this.
Things are just getting out of control!
What the hell happened?
This is just fucking, I don't know,
Lord of the Flies, man, I guess.
People pushing the tower.
It is very clear that they're trying
to tear down this tower.
I think the tower
is about to fall.
You can start hearing it creak.
Be advised the tower's gonna go down.
No!
Oh my God!
There were people hanging
from the speaker towers.
It was like Planet of the Apes.
Once you become part of a herd,
you become like animals.
And all of these people
were acting like animals.
They're all about making money
off us, and we're pissed.
You can't stop
fucking a riot in the '90s.
Get the helicopter out of here.
You're causing a riot.
We were monitoring
from the air traffic control tower.
Pull your people out of there.
Well, you have to secure the area
before we send medical personnel in.
At this point, it was an emergency.
I expected deaths,
people trampled, or assaulted and killed.
Lives were at stake.
I need some backup.
I'm being hit with shit up here!
Get over here!
So we started getting calls
over the radio
from the production office saying,
"Be prepared for the worst."
Um, "Get ready
to batten down the hatches."
This unruly mob of kids got bored
with dancing around the bonfires
in front of the East Stage
and decided to extend
their carnage and rage
to the rest of the festival grounds,
which unfortunately put
our vendor village right in their path.
We're gonna stay here, stay for sure.
So as we started hearing more
and more frantic calls over the radios,
my team and I went around
to the two big vendor tents.
Some of them had 60, $70,000
worth of cash on them.
How you guys doing?
- You all right over here?
- Yeah.
We told all the vendors
to shut out their lights
and pull down their tent flaps
in front of their stalls,
and just to lay low, that we were
shutting down the vendor village.
Of course, trying to do this
as calmly as possible
to not spread any sense of panic or fear,
whereas inside, I was crapping myself.
We started hearing
sort of a chanting noise,
and it looked like a black cloud
was rolling down the tarmac towards us.
It was a giant mob.
They were singing
Rage Against the Machine.
"Fuck you. I won't do what you tell me."
"Fuck you. I won't do what you tell me!"
Fuck you
I won't do what you tell me! ♪
Fuck you
I won't do what you tell me! ♪
Holy shit!
Free! Free!
At this point, it's kind of like anarchy,
and chaos, and mob mentality.
People are just grabbing
these boxes of CDs.
Obviously, I'm gonna go in there.
Like, everyone else is doing it.
In the middle of our vendor tents,
we had a bank of six ATM machines.
Somebody in the crowd spotted it,
and it was like a record scratch.
Someone screamed out, "ATMs!"
And immediately, the whole crowd charged.
Renegades ♪
Money!
Hold on.
Now they're tearing the ATMs apart.
Oh my God!
At that point,
anything that was Woodstock-related
was on these people's destroy list.
Okay, I got through.
I'm on my way over to you.
Pretty much anyone who had a laminate
or anyone we knew was showing up,
and wanting to hide in the office.
My four radios
were just going off like crazy.
One of the guys that worked in our office
just got to the main doors
and just started barricading them.
Everyone's wondering,
"How the fuck is this going to end?"
I remember hearing like an explosion.
Several trailers are on fire
down there.
We saw there were trailers on fire.
So we were like, "We gotta get that."
So we're running over.
There was a row of trucks,
and each truck had a gas tank
or a propane tank as part of it.
This thing blows,
it's gonna hurt a lot of people.
We're, like, front and center.
I'm like, this is it.
And then all of a sudden
holy shit.
Boom, went like, whoa!
Boom!
It was like a bomb going off
in the middle of the festival grounds,
and another bomb goes off.
Fuck. This is not good.
We definitely made a lot of noise,
motherfuckers!
Let's get a head count
and get the hell out of here.
This ain't worth this shit.
It was like the walls
of Jericho had fallen, right?
That was the moment where we said,
"Okay, we need to get out."
I just hear an explosion.
And people just running.
Running, like, for real this time.
Next thing I know, boom,
get billy-clubbed right in the stomach,
and I look up,
and it's a dude with a mask on.
Move it!
Go back. Here we go. We're here.
Guys, the state troopers have come.
Pull out.
Let the state troopers handle it.
I mean, they were like
storm troopers in a row
with the big giant batons and the shields.
I'm like, "Oh shit."
The state troopers are wrapping stuff up.
Let's regroup
and get the hell out of here.
Michael was
never going to show his alarm.
Um, I'm sure he was very alarmed
at what was going on.
I just followed him out,
and I imagine he was going to check
on what was going on
with the National Guard.
I went out into the middle of it,
to get a feel for it.
I thought it was a terrible ending
for a decent weekend.
And I thought
this is gonna be a huge cleanup.
So, he walked
into our vendor village,
and I hadn't seen him at all
in the weeks that we'd been up there.
And I'm thinking, "Oh my God.
You're Michael Lang. I'm Colin Speir,
and this is
You know, I've always wanted to meet you."
But he just walked around
the remains, and that was it.
He didn't address us, you know,
much at all about, like, "You guys okay?"
It didn't really seem like
he gave that much of a shit.
It was disappointing
that it ended that way.
Um, very.
But that's what it was, you go on.
It was just It was kind of sad.
It really felt like this is it.
Like, there is never gonna be
another Woodstock after this.
Michael. Michael.
Pilar, go away.
It's the most peaceful way
to deal with it.
It's great.
I think that was kind of like
Yeah, that was
that was the end.
6:30 in the morning.
Pilar goes, "Mom, Mom,
you gotta see this."
And we get in her car,
and we drive around.
Oh my Lord.
It looked like a war zone.
Trash and smoking fires everywhere.
And we come upon
the 12 semi tractor-trailers,
and I said, "Pilar that was Woodstock '99
burnt to the ground."
Here we have Duke Devlin,
who's been with the festival since '69.
How are you doing this morning?
There was ugliness involved
in a lot of stuff here.
And when this is all over and done with,
I think Woodstock is done.
It's just sad, that's all.
I can't say too much.
Monday morning,
shit was blown up everywhere.
So, there was news camera crews.
And because there were no cell phones,
we knew our parents would be bugging out
because they had seen shit went down.
There was riots, and it was nuts.
We saw a lot of people blowing stuff up,
and bonfires.
People jumping over bonfires
and throwing stuff.
And it was wild. It was
A lot of crazy people.
If there's another Woodstock,
would you come again?
Oh yeah, definitely. For sure.
No questions asked.
It sounds ridiculous, but although
I had kind of a scary experience,
it was a blast.
I saw the bands that, I mean, I loved.
It was an experience of a lifetime.
It was the best time I've ever had,
and 22 years later,
it's still probably
the best time I've ever had.
There were no rules.
I could just kind of do whatever I want.
You know, complete anarchy, it felt like.
I had the time of my life, you know,
at that moment is like, wow, that's like,
I'm glad I got to experience that.
What a story, what a ride.
It was complete freedom
with no responsibility,
and that felt like
a dangerous combination.
I think we were all pretty much expecting
just to wrap our stuff up,
feed whoever we had to feed,
write the stories we had to write,
and, uh, then this happened.
The entire planet now knew that it became
a total and complete shit show.
The images were everywhere.
Woodstock '99, a weekend of rock and roll
in Upstate New York
turned sour last night.
Fans attacked tents, concert equipment,
and food trailers
Woodstock '99, hidden in a cloud of smoke
Vending stalls were looted
and light towers toppled.
as the celebration
of rock and roll turned into a riot.
We went into the office
the next day
and, yeah, we had
all these non-disclosure agreements
that we had to sign, nobody was allowed
to speak to the media after that.
"Okay, what started out as peace,
love, and music festival ended in a riot
at Woodstock '99."
What is anybody going to tell you
that's worse than what people saw?
Everybody had their own theories
as to what happened and why.
Rumors were circulating like wildfire.
I often wonder, did the producers
get all the way until Sunday and say,
"All we've really had here is a big,
fairly well-controlled rock festival."
"We didn't have a Woodstock."
And then all of a sudden,
these things happen Sunday night
to make it a Woodstock pandemonium,
possibly to enhance sales
of the merchandising
that goes on after the event.
That's absurd. It's absurd, I mean, uh
It's just not true, you know?
In the interest of keeping this
press conference in this millennium
On Monday morning,
they called the final press conference.
our promoter Michael Lang.
Hi.
There was not supposed to be
a press conference Monday morning.
Obviously.
The stakes couldn't have been higher.
The Woodstock brand
was in serious trouble.
I was out in it 'til 5:30 this morning.
I saw a very small group of people.
They went from place to place,
setting fires, inciting people.
But I certainly would not condemn
this crowd for the fuck-up
of, excuse the language,
of a few assholes.
Essentially,
they took zero responsibility.
Their take was that this was
just a few bad apples.
Anybody with eyes, who saw the footage,
knows that there were thousands of kids
looting, rioting,
doing property damage, setting fires.
Rome burned.
But the real issue
wasn't who was rioting, right?
The question was, why were they rioting?
I think it's just a cultural thing.
There are some anarchists
among us always, and some are
a little bit more strident than others,
and we just have to get
some of the more strident ones.
I don't think it was about issues.
I think it was just about energy.
They were so amped up from the weekend
that they just weren't ready to stop.
You know, they wanted more of anything,
more of the experience.
And I think it was that,
they weren't ready to put it to bed.
They're the lunatic fringe.
That segment of the population
was both entitled
and, uh, fearful of growing up,
of having to have a real job
and, you know,
have a family and stuff like that.
And they had lots of angst.
Lots and lots of angst.
Get out!
What do you sum up
went wrong with this festival?
I can say it in one word: greed.
The user experience
was totally thrown out the window.
I mean,
these kids were taken advantage of.
They treated people like dogs
once they got their money. Dogs.
The riots were the culmination
of everybody being angry over the prices,
and it was hot, and we smelled,
and we were tired and hungover.
And I think that people had had enough,
and they gave in to,
you know, their worse nature.
That press conference
just left a bad taste in my mouth
and everybody else who was there too.
Saying goodbye to Woodstock '99.
Good riddance, you piece of shit.
But then things got even worse.
So, after the festival, um,
when I got back into the office,
I started getting phone calls.
It was a hysterical mother
talking about
how her daughter had been raped.
New York State Police
are reportedly investigating allegations
that four women were raped
at last weekend's
Woodstock Music Festival.
The Washington Post
reports today that detectives
are looking into the rape reports,
and that crisis intervention workers
say they witnessed
many more sexual assaults,
some right in front of the stage.
In the aftermath,
all the stories that I've heard
of women being molested, even raped.
Given the climate of the guys there,
I'm not surprised by it.
You know, it's like this
pervasive entitlement.
We see that with race,
we see that with sexism,
we see that with classism.
It's that idea that I'm better than you,
so I can subject you to anything,
and you gotta take it.
Back then, you were supposed to just
deal with what you had to deal with
and suck it up.
So, I didn't hear
about any of the allegations for rape, um
or attacks on women
until after the festival was over.
And the way women were treated
was really horrible.
I thought, um, we were responsible
for everybody on site.
And so, we bear responsibility
for, you know, what happened to the women.
But, you know,
it happened in secret.
It happened in tents and
Somebody said it happened in the mosh pit.
I can't even imagine that.
Woodstock was actually
like a small city, you know?
All things considered,
I'd say that there would probably be
as many or more rapes
in any sized city of that.
I'm not condoning it.
It was wrong. It was horrible.
I wish we caught everybody.
I'd put 'em all in jail.
Um
But considering
there were 200,000 people there, um
it wasn't something
that gained enough momentum
so that it caused any on-site issues,
other than, of course,
to the women it happened to.
That's bullshit.
Woodstock '99
did not have enough proper security.
They tried to cheap out on it.
As a promoter,
if you're going to put on an event,
your first responsibility
is the safety of the crowd.
But they were completely unprepared.
It was like, let's just get
a quarter-million people together,
and let's see what happens.
For anyone to get hurt,
there's no excuse for that.
Girls should be able to fucking have fun,
just like a guy.
Movements like "Me Too"
really evolved as a direct response
to the kind of horrible behaviors
we saw at Woodstock '99.
You know, a lot of people
complain about woke culture,
but looking back,
I'm glad that we don't accept
what happened anymore.
In '99, we were the kids.
But we're the adults now.
We're the parents now.
I'm glad that my daughters
will never have to walk around
and see that
and think that it's just the way it is.
It's like we learned
who we don't want to be.
And we've put in place boundaries
and things that will prevent us
from devolving back into that madness.
The way Woodstock '99
sort of sits in my memory
is a lost opportunity.
I think in the '90s,
kids were in a different headspace.
They were there for the music.
I don't think they were able
to embrace the social issues of the day.
And there was an element
that just was, you know.
There were assholes in the crowd.
You can't vet the people
that buy your tickets.
You just can't.
Woodstock will never go away.
Woodstock '69 was its own thing
and its own kind of magic. Um
Did '99 damage that?
Maybe a bit.
Okay.
Thank you.