Anyone else watched this three part documentary series that's just come out? It's enough to put people off festivals for life. The worst things most people would say about festivals would probably be being on your feet so much, the noise when trying to sleep and the living conditions. The worst things about Woodstock 99 was rapes, violence and fires. The line up was male dominated with a token female on each day like Sheryl Crow or Alanis Morrisette. One day had three angry type groups in a row at the top of the bill in Offspring, Rage Against The Machine and Limp Bizkit, which didn't help crowd matters after a day of drinking. Bryan Holland during the Offspring set even told off the crowd for feeling up women who were crowd surfing.
I thought it was really good. The festival and what happened definitely reflected the attitude of the late 90s, the era of Jerry Springer, ECW, Beavis and Butthead, Jackass. It's not a surprise that it didn't end up like '69. The Fyre Festival documentary on Netflix is worth a watch as well.
Watched it last night, was some watch! Funnily enough I'm off to a 4-day festival on Wednesday but the one I'm off to couldn't be much more different to Woodstock, absolute poles apart
Never heard the Offspring described as angry before! And didn't know Dexter Holland's real name is Bryan
There was a movie length documentary about it last year which is another great watch. Mentions the time period being things like Girls Gone Wild and FHM where women were seen as a piece of meat, so a festival full of young lads at the time seeing women taking their tops off made them act like idiots. Fred Durst fueled the trouble as he had the crowd in the palm of his hand and chose not to try and calm a bad situation like James Hetfield did later on.
Yes watched it other day with my mother. Crazy. Fred durst didn't help did he?! But they definitely weren't looked after properly and paying 13 dollars or whatever it was for a bottle of water on a scorching hot day was only going to exacerbate things.
I am listening to a podcast about it, gives sone interesting perspectives on it while definitely recognising all the problems. The original Woodstock has been over glamorised and the bad stuff forgotten about - most of the stalls were burned down then as well, but no one talks about that. Also whatever part Fred Durst did it did not play the news media certainly stitched him/them up, clipping in scenes of kids burning down stuff with clips from Limp Bizkits’ set even though they happened on different days, etc. there’s also numerous instances of Durst telling people to help anyone who’s fallen over and also saying other things which contradict the received narrative around him inciting a riot.
I was reading the other day that there were 700 people who overdosed at the original Woodstock Festival.
Interesting bloke. Apparently has a PhD in molecular biology (genuine, not just an honorary doctorate for musicians!) and makes hot sauce. Wouldn't mind seeing a biopic of that life!
Thought it was brilliant. Just to allay any fears though, that’s definitely not what festivals are like. The thing that was so disappointing though, was Michael Lang’s refusal to accept any responsibility.
He got his degree and a masters before the band made it big, then quit academia to make music before going back when he was older. Dexter is a qualified pilot and used to fly them to all their gigs - the rumour at one time was that they had to be within a 500 miles radius as that was the flight limit of the planes he could fly at the time... Not quite at Bruce Dickinson or John Travolta levels, but he could probably afford it now if he wanted.
