07 Sep Trainwreck Woodstock 99
Train wreck Woodstock 99
So if you follow me you know I grew up in upstate New York, in none other than the most famous place in history…Bethel, New York, the home of the original Woodstock.
Yes, the 1969 world famous 3 day peace love and drugs music festival. There will never be another Woodstock but someone always has to try and unfortunately they always seem to fail. This was a once in a lifetime event and I am glad it was in my lifetime and my hometown. Be it as it may, they tried anyway, once in 1994 but the biggest disaster was in 1999.
So in 1999 in Rome, New York they decided to try to recreate the famous Woodstock festival. Since Bethel, New York would not host this, they moved it upstate more. But this was not anything like the original. A quarter of a million young people for 3 days were going to try to make this the “Woodstock” of their generation.
They thought that this would be better than the original but that is not the way it ended up. The original founder of the first event, and the disastrous 1994 attempt, Micheal Lang, wanted to do it again to try to capture the magic one more time.
They decided to do this on a closed air force base not in a field like the first one. So it definitely started out, not like the original one. In their defense of trying to recreate the original, they booked some of the most famous bands in the world. Korn, Aerosmith, Sheryl Crow, Metallica, DMX, Red Hot Chili peppers and more.
They thought that this line up would be historical.
Well, day one happens and James Brown opens the concert and it all seems like it’s going to be a good time.
When Sheryl Crow came out and the crowd started screaming, show me your tits, and you already knew this was not going to end well. These frat boys with their macho attitudes started with their drunkenness. People were getting pissed because everything there was so expensive, like a 65 cent bottle of water they were selling for 4.00 a bottle. This was not peace and love this was commercialism at its
best. This was a perfect storm, hot as hell, drunk and pissed off people. Yeah, this was not going to end well.
The line up that they put together was rough rock and roll with an attitude and that lineup fueled the fire in these drunk, pissed off people. This music was the complete opposite of the peace and love of the original, speaking about coming together, and loving one another.
On Saturday, day 2 you can see that this was going downhill fast. With the mountain of trash as far as you could see, you knew that this was not going to end well. Then throw in one of the hottest days of the year with many people dropping with heat stroke. And prices of water went up to 12.00. There were dirty portapotties, no clean water and food prices beyond what you could imagine, and yet no one saw this storm coming?
More than a thousand people were treated that afternoon alone.
Add to that the lack of security, and the bands riling up the already unruly crowds it’s no wonder that 3 people died and there were multiple sexual assaults and at least 5 known rapes that were reported.
At the end of the 3 days they decided to give candles to promote and honor those who were killed by gun violence. That quickly backfired and bonfires broke out throughout the crowd. Vehicles were flipped and set ablaze. Vendor booths and merch tents were destroyed and used as fuel. Eventually, the New York State Troopers and local law enforcement were able to diffuse the riots, but Griffiss Air Force Base still ended up looking like a bomb hit it
The Huffington Post reported in 2014 that Woodstock 99’s production costs were $38 million, and that there were 400,000 festival goers who paid $150 for tickets. That means organizers raked in $60 million on ticket costs for a profit margin of $22 million.
The San Francisco Gate reported in 1999 that the looting, rioting and vandalism cost “millions of dollars.” It was not clear from the article who paid for the damage.
So today my friends I can tell you that unfortunately there can never be another “Woodstock 69” that was a once in a lifetime event. But I will always have that honor of my hometown who amazingly put on the best festival the world has ever seen and will ever see.
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