There's A Woodstock '99 Documentary In The Works And It Claims To Make The Fyre Fest Doc Look Like A Grand Old Time By Comparison
Deadline - Netflix is developing a docuseries focused on the infamous Woodstock ’99 music festival, a four-day event designed to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the original 1969 Woodstock festival that ended in fiery chaos, sources tell Deadline.
The project, which we hear has started production, hails from Raw, which produced the Netflix documentaries Don’t F**k with Cats and Fear City: New York vs. The Mafia, the latter released last month, and BBH Entertainment, the development arm of the global creative agency BBH, which co-produced the 2019 Depeche Mode concert/documentary film Spirits in the Forest.
According to sources, the series will delve deep into the culture that created Woodstock ‘99 and tell the real story behind how “three days of peace, love and music” went down in flames. Featuring unseen archive footage and intimate testimony from people behind the scenes, on the stages and in the crowds, the series aims at telling the untold story of a landmark musical moment that shaped the cultural landscape for a generation.
Love it.
A lot of shit went down in that weird time period just before the internet and social media made sure everything was documented in detail to the nth degree.
Woodstock 99 was a perfect example.
I remember watching the chaos unfold on MTV with the legend Kurt Loder describing what we were seeing on tv.
Not to spoil it for anybody but as people joked that the Fyre Festival "went down in flames", Woodstock 1999 actually did go up in flames.
And a lot of it had to do with Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit.
“There was a hateful, hostile [feeling] coming off the crowd in waves — kids were throwing bottles at each other and at security guards and stagehands. It was just ugly and out of control, and Fred Durst just exploited that and jacked it up,” Loder told Entertainment Weekly.
Here's their entire set from the festival if you're into that sort of thing -
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(Fun fact- did you know Fred Durst "makes movies" now? He put out a movie with John Travolta called "Moose" in 2018 about a star and an obsessed fan that he claims he based on his own experiences.
Shit really got crazy when they dropped "Break Stuff".
Concert-goers began tearing plywood from the walls during the song and sexual assaults were reported including one rape.
Durst fired back, telling the Washington Post that he and Limp Bizkit were unfairly blamed:
“They needed someone to point the finger at. They needed a scapegoat.”
“They’re not gonna put it on the dumb-ass who handed out candles to everybody and said, ‘Let’s capture a moment. I bet everybody’s gonna light them and hold them up,'” Durst told the Post. “After these living conditions, after everything that happened, are they gonna do that or are they gonna burn it down? They’re gonna burn it down.”
The living conditions Durst was referencing were the extreme heatwave that hit upstate New York over the weekend of the fest coupled with outrageous prices charged for water and food heat. The campgrounds were also deplorable and included backed-up sewage seeping out onto the grounds.
The fire Durst referenced occurred on the festivals closeout show, performed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Mayhem broke out when candles handed out to the crowd, intended for a vigil, were used to set fires to sections of the plywood “Peace Fence” erected to keep non-ticketholders from entering. The band covered Jimi Hendrix' "Fire" as real actual fires started to break out. A melee erupted with festival-goers looting ATMs and destroying vendor tents. It ended with dozens of arrests and thousands of concert-goers injured.
It also featured a fully nude Flea.
Syracuse.com - According to Variety, Woodstock '99 began quietly with bands like Vertical Horizon, G. Love and Special Sauce, Lit, Jamiroquai, The Offspring, Moby, Sheryl Crow, moe. and Bush over the first two days. Saturday and Sunday's top performers were highlighted by more angry rock, nu-metal and hip-hop acts like Rage Against the Machine, Godsmack, Ice Cube, DMX, Insane Clown Posse and Limp Bizkit.
Frustration also started growing within the crowd as temperatures neared 100 degrees (and felt as hot as 118 on the tarmac), bottles of water were sold for $4 (though some have claimed prices were higher), pizza cost $12, and little relief was available after fans paid $150 (or more) for tickets to a very commercialized event live-streamed on MTV. Other issues included garbage piling up, portable toilets overflowing, mud pits (that may not have been all mud), and a massive crowd on a site that shouldn't have held more than 50,000 people -- who had to walk more than a mile to get from the East stage to the West stage to see various acts.
Kid Rock began stirring up the audience on Saturday, encouraging them to throw plastic bottles in the air. Fred Durst told people not to "mellow out" like Alanis Morissette and go wild during the song "Break Stuff." A truck drove through the crowd during Fatboy Slim's set. And Red Hot Chili Peppers closed out the weekend by covering Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" as actual fires and riots began breaking out.
By the end of the event, three people died; 700 people were treated for heat exhaustion and dehydration; women reported sexual assault and rape; 44 people were arrested; hundreds of fake passes were confiscated; and multiple cars, tents, booths and ATMs were destroyed.
Mayhem indeed. This documentary should be pretty incredible when it does come out.
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p.s. - Here' Rage's full show. Kinda hard to watch/listen to this and not wanna jump around and break stuff to be honest.