Anybody catch this series premiere of a docuseries on HBO or stream it on HBO Max? I thought it was an interesting, albeit highly slanted against the aggro white male of the era, doc on the festival.

I was just starting high school at the time and was just finding my love of nu metal and all it had to offer, lol. I remember hearing bits and pieces of news come out about the festival but didn't know how crazy it got. Interesting to hear some of the stories and background from some of the attendees and performers.

The wildest interview to me was the promoter John Scher who took 0 blame for the who debacle and blamed alot of it on MTV and the media (some of it rightly so).

All in all a great documentary about Woodstock 99 and a little about the music and the large transition of it all as long as you can keep an open mind.

I liked it too. I thought it presented a bunch of different viewpoints and causes, but didn't lean on one too hard. The one that got most of the blame was young white men (probably deservedly so) but facilities, commercialization, the bands, the heat, etc. all got a lot of the blame too.
I wanted to hear more from the people that were participating in the riots. I wonder what those guys are up to now.

Scher at one point blamed the sexual assaults on the women. He came off really bad in the doc.

You look at the lineup of acts, the fact there would be hundreds of thousands of people, and $4 bottled water in the 90's and it did seem like there might of been some "it's Woodstock everyone will be peace love and happiness" type glossing over of potential problems. I bet the heat put it over the edge though.

I agree he was all to ready to blame everyone and accept no blame.

But he's not 100% wrong. He does ask the bands to cool it down on stage bit to calm the crowd, but then they cut to the bands saying "**** it" and playing Fire or Break Stuff.

Watched it the other nights and thought it was great. One of the all time terrible concert lineups in history in hindsight.

Enjoyed it a lot. Hope the others in this series continues to be of similar quality. Some of the talking heads went a little too far into some of their takes (this is coming from someone who considers themself a progressive). I wish they would have focused more directly on the nu metal/rap rock vs rise of boy band pop and how TRL/MTV changed in the aftermath instead of focusing solely on angry white 18-24. I mean yea it was an angsty time but a little too overboard. Still enjoyed it though.

Also Moby is still lame

Quote:

---

I still feel like it's a cop out to blame the bands or the type of music.

---

100%. I didn't watch this but I do remember what was told to me by someone that was there. I was working at Fiesta Texas that summer home from my first year at college and a coworker took some time off to go up there. He was a couple years older (20-25?), really fit, hispanic guy. Absolutely target Limp Bizkit demographic. Of course when he came back we all asked, "What the hell happened?" His story was that it was incredibly hot and the only place to get free water was near the entrance, nowhere near the acts. People started fainting and the crowd was really getting angry. Then a rumor started passing that even the water stations were out, leaving only the really expensive bottled water. No one had cash and you couldn't bring anything in with you. Someone (well, someone male) jumped up on a truck where vendors had water, shirts, etc, and opened the back. He grabbed a flat of water and handed it into the crowd. Someone else then jumped up and grabbed box of t-shirts and threw it into the crowd. Just like that you had a riot but no security anywhere around. Someone else then yelled, "Burn it down!" and it was off and running. The riot started in the back and worked it's way forward to the stage where Limp Bizkit was performing. By the time it made it there, there was no stopping it.

I always thought this sounded pretty logical and believable.

Started it sunday, finished it last night, was so interested in this doc, thought it was a fascinating train wreck to watch. Especially after years of attending festivals over the last 15 years or so.

I lol'd at the end of the doc trying to make the juxtaposition of the first Coachella that happened right after Woodstock '99 and how opposite it was and they gave away free water bottles as you came in and now, Coachella is the MOST commercialized festival there is and one could argue the complete opposite of what the original Woodstock '69 was about.

There is definitely a lot of blame to go around.
Scheduling Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine, and Metallica back to back to back at the end of the second day of a hot, crowded concert is asking for trouble. But you don't schedule Limp Bizkit, and then get to act surprised when they behave like Limp Bizkit.
But I will blame the bands some too. When a crowd is in front of you literally tearing down structures and tearing up plywood, and you play "Break Stuff" that's practically inciting a riot. Or at the end of the next day when the crowd is setting bonfires in the middle of a crowd and RHCP plays "Fire." Especially when the event promoters are literally telling the bands to calm things down. The only other thing the promoters could have done by that point was to stop the bands from playing and cancel the event. Which given the attitude of the crowd would have probably lead to even worse outcomes.

One thing i was little confused about on the timeline for Sunday, it seemed like RHCP possibly finished their set while multiple bonfires were raging, then it seemed like that's when the state troopers shut it all down, but then the dude from Megadeth made it seemed like they played an entire set after RHCP did!

Also while reading wikipedia it looks like Willie Nelson was supposed to play on the same stage that RHCP played that night? or was that earlier?

I watched this kinda on accident. The crappy hbo app goes straight to what is airing and then you have to navigate to the menu to look for what you really want. Well, this was airing and it caught my attention. Great watch. Typical hbo slant, but you know that going in. The whole situation just reeked of people getting in way over their heads with an event of this size. I remember all the disposable cameras from my spring break days! The show could have used less of the femnazi lady, but again, it is hbo and we know their deal.

That's the problem with documentaries. With good editing you can create whatever story and sequence of events you want.
Willie started the last day on the East Stage. RHCP finished the day on the same stage. Creed before them.
Megadeth finished the day on the West Stage. Sevendust,, Collective Soul, Godsmack, Megadeath was the finishing order on that stage.

The uncut RHCP Woodstock set is on Youtube. NSWF because Flea is nude and many topless women.


I didn't watch the whole thing mainly skipped around, but in the crowd shot from the stage I didn't see any visible fires. But the cameras do cut to fires multiple times. First one I saw was 37 minutes in. However at 53 minutes in they play "Under the Bridge" and the lighters come out. Funny to think that's almost been completely replaced by cell phone flashlights. There are pretty regular camera cuts to pretty big fires for the rest of the set. at 58 minutes they leave and come back on stage, they say "Looks like Apocalypse Now out there" and "Make way for the fire trucks" You can then see some large fires from the stage at 1 hour 2 minutes in. At 1: 05 they play "Fire." They finish and walk off at 1:08.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

---

I watched this kinda on accident. The crappy hbo app goes straight to what is airing and then you have to navigate to the menu to look for what you really want. Well, this was airing and it caught my attention. Great watch. Typical hbo slant, but you know that going in. The whole situation just reeked of people getting in way over their heads with an event of this size. I remember all the disposable cameras from my spring break days! The show could have used less of the femnazi lady, but again, it is hbo and we know their deal.

---

lol she was all about the "**** the white aggro male" slant.

You can find the Limp Bizkit show on YouTube but I want to recommend watching the RATM show, it's awesome. Probably one of the few times in history Metallica takes the stage and it calms down the crowd. No one wants to follow Rage.

Thanks! Appreciate the clarification.

The average age of that trash pile now is mid 40s; what an angry bunch! the death spiral of mtv can be traced back to around this time.

West Point Aggie said:

---

The average age of that trash pile now is mid 40s; what an angry bunch! the death spiral of mtv can be traced back to around this time.

---

My first inclination was that the death spiral goes back further, but it's semantics at this point. It did, however, make me recall the moment that I realized it was completely dead, which was the time that MTV was on in the locker room at my gym, and I realized that they were playing a version of Cribs that was not celebrities, but ****ing 12 year old brats showing off the house their rich ass parents own.

But yeah, I'm interested to watch this one now.

Complete Idiot said:

---

Scher at one point blamed the sexual assaults on the women. He came off really bad in the doc.

You look at the lineup of acts, the fact there would be hundreds of thousands of people, and $4 bottled water in the 90's and it did seem like there might of been some "it's Woodstock everyone will be peace love and happiness" type glossing over of potential problems. I bet the heat put it over the edge though.

---

That dude tried to blame everyone but himself. What a POS.

Korn
Limp Bizkit

Those two right there + heat + filthy conditions + in the middle of nowhere = this will end badly!

What a cluster. A definite angry whitey, pre-me too. Slant to this doc; still interesting.

PS: limp bizkit hails from that trashiest of states, florida. That explains so much!

An HBO documentary portraying the evils of white males and toxic masculinity? Riveting stuff.

agdoc2001 said:

---

An HBO documentary portraying the evils of white males and toxic masculinity? Riveting stuff.

---

Yeah, how dare they completely make up this whole event to make us white men look bad????????????

Jasomania said:

---

West Point Aggie said:

---

Korn
Limp Bizkit

Those two right there + heat + filthy conditions + in the middle of nowhere = this will end badly!

What a cluster. A definite angry whitey, pre-me too. Slant to this doc; still interesting.

PS: limp bizkit hails from that trashiest of states, florida. That explains so much!

---

Korn and Limp Bizkit co-headlined two Family Values Tours in 98 and 99 with zero incidents.

I saw Metallica and Limp Bizkit on the Summer Sanitarium Tour in 03 in Dallas at Texas Stadium in Texas Summer heat with again no incidents.

The problem wasn't the lineup.

---

It was PART of the problem without a shred of doubt, but was it THE catalyst? No! To think of them as faultless somehow is naive and clueless. When the lead of LB says to the crowd (already drunk and teetering on violence) to "break something" tonight, many new it was coming.

Sadly it was a convergence of so many bad things; incompetently run, not properly policed, and a weird mix of styles and groups that simply did not blend!

Yea this looked to be the perfect convergence of bad things colliding. Crazy hot, hundreds of thousands of young people being price gouged for days, filthy conditions, just basically the worst conditions imaginable. Promoters blaming the acts and MTV. They put the lineup together, they hired Limp Bizkit to be Limp Bizkit and then blamed them for it. They got pissed at MTV news for telling the world what was going on. I've been going to metal shows of all sizes for decades and never has it erupted into chaos or felt that there was societal collapse on the verge, blaming the acts is weak and shows a lack of accountability. I've seen way worse behavior at NFL games than I ever have at a metal show. Security and crowd safety seemed to be almost nonexistent.

If the lineup was more diverse, the crowd would be more diverse. Regardless of race, men in their early 20s are just walking hormones, and if they don't have a constructive way to channel their energy and aggression, bad things can happen. But the same can be said for dogs and children. The only person I felt specifically blamed this on the whiteness of the crowd was Wesley Morris, but he's a reporter for the NYT so what are you to expect? Also, I don't think he was even there, and if he wasn't his critique shouldn't be included, I want to hear from people that were there as performers or concert goers.

I don't know a single person that went to this from HS or college and I was right there in their target demographic, the idea of going to one of those shows is my own personal nightmare. I've been to numerous Ozzfests, Summer Sanitariums, Tattoo the Earth, etc. The maximum amount of time at a music fest I would ever go to is one day, period.