It was supposed to be a celebration of peace, love and music, but what they got was feces, anger and fire.
Woodstock '99, the historically gross disaster of a music festival, is the subject of Netflix's three-part documentary "Trainwreck" (which originally carried the even more apt title, "Clusterf—").
It's the second feature-length look at the ill-fated music fest in the last year, following HBO's "Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage" in 2021. Both are highly watchable and contain insights into how the three-day event went so spectacularly wrong; the HBO version does a better job of providing the necessary context about how it happened and what it meant in a larger societal sense, while "Trainwreck" has more on-the-ground footage from the wreckage once it was over.
The buzzy reaction from the two docs shows we're still reckoning with the fest in one way or another all these years later, or we're just fascinated by the symbolism of how, over the course of 30 years, Woodstock turned from a peaceful celebration to a veritable riot.
So let's dive in. Here are 10 lessons learned from Woodstock '99 and its pair of documentaries.
1. Limp Bizkit didn't cause a riot
... although the rap-rock nu-metalheads certainly didn't help matters. The group's set in the early evening of the fest's second day — the full performance is on YouTube, and is worth a watch as an anthropological study — is the most notorious of the weekend, and popular mythology has it that as soon as the group launched into "Break Stuff," the festgoers, well, broke stuff. That's not untrue, but it's an overly simplified version of events. Limp Bizkit's performance was arguably the most anticipated of the weekend; the group's second album "Significant Other" had just been released a month earlier and first single "Nookie" was everywhere, including at the top of MTV's "TRL" countdown (where it oddly traded spots almost every other day with "I Want it That Way" by Backstreet Boys; music in 1999 was weird, we'll get into that later). As Fred Durst and co. took the stage, festivalgoers had already spent a day and a half baking in the hot sun (the fest was held on a decommissioned Air Force base which, surprise, doesn't offer a lot of grass or shade), and the band gave a soundtrack to the stewing anger that was already bubbling up in the crowd. But it could have been much worse — security stopped Durst from surfing a piece of plywood over the crowd out to the delay towers, which would not have been good for anybody — and things actually did get much worse well after Limp Bizkit left the stage.
2. The Chili Peppers got off easy
The Red Hot Chili Peppers closed out the fest on Sunday night as things had already broken down well past the point of saving. It was during their set that the scene in the crowd actually became "Lord of the Flies," with fires popping up all over the grounds, while up until that point "Lord of the Flies" had just been a convenient metaphor for how things were going. It was late, the band could see it was bedlam and they had a choice to make when closing out their set: ramp things up or calm them down. Well, rather than finishing their encore with a cover of, say, "What the World Needs Now," the Chilis dusted off their version of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" and let the chips fall where they may. It was the final song of the weekend, and in the aftermath there were even more fires set, festgoers looted the grounds of whatever was left to loot and New York state troopers were called in to quell the mobs. It's not the band's fault, but "Fire" certainly didn't calm anyone down, and it might not have been the best choice in the moment. (At least they didn't play "Break Stuff.")
3. John Scher should stop granting interviews
Scher, who co-produced the event with original Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang, emerges from "Trainwreck" the clear villain. (He didn't come off so hot in the HBO doc, either.) Scher prioritized profit over everything else, cutting corners that would have ensured a more comfortable experience for festgoers, and maybe not lead to the whole thing devolving into chaos stew. At least he's honest, and there's nothing inherently wrong with trying to make a buck. But his shortsightedness to this day about how things went wrong and why — he still blames Durst, like he's not the one who put him and a bunch of other super aggro acts (Metallica, Korn, Rage Against the Machine) on that stage — coupled with his callousness and lack of empathy when speaking about the sexual assaults that occurred on the fest grounds show just how far removed from reality he was then and still is. Maybe he should just decline the next time someone wants to talk to him about Woodstock '99.
4. There will never be another Woodstock
Lost in the madness of Woodstock '99 is the fact that Woodstock '94 was a successful, peaceful event, featuring legendary mud-caked sets from Green Day and Nine Inch Nails, among others. "Trainwreck" especially glosses over the '94 event, ignoring the fact that many Woodstock '99 attendees were looking to create their own Woodstock '94 moments, not relive '69. Alas, Woodstock '99 stuck a fork in the Woodstock brand and sullied it forever; attempts to revive the fest for a 2019 version — which would have been the 50th anniversary of the original event — went, well, up in flames. But Woodstock is no longer needed; on any given summer weekend, the U.S. concert landscape is dotted with festivals that have established their own branding and fan bases, and Woodstock is where it should be: in the past.
5. Coachella saved U.S. festival culture
The first Coachella festival was held in October 1999, less than three months after the Woodstock '99 fiasco. It was a huge risk, and producers fell well-short of their attendance goals, losing close to $1 million on the two-day event, which nearly put them out of business. At the time, the festival model was still a touring business: fests such as Lollapalooza, Ozzfest and the Vans Warped Tour were traveling circuses that came to the people, rather than the people coming to them. Still, that first Coachella was well regarded by those who attended, and producers learned lessons from what Woodstock '99 did wrong; fans were each handed a free bottle of water, rather than being price-gouged for water at concession stands. There was no Coachella in 2000, but producers retooled and relaunched it as a one-day event in April 2001, expanding to two days in 2002 and eventually molding it into what everyone knows it as today. Taking cues from Coachella, events such as Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza became destination festivals unto themselves, and today's festival landscape is healthy enough to sustain fests from coast to coast, and that acidic taste from Woodstock '99 is a distant memory.
6. Crowd control at concerts has gotten much better
The literal mass of people seen in the crowd footage from Woodstock '99 is both awe-inspiring and terrifying, and the wave of people bouncing in unison during Korn's "Blind" looks uncomfortably like that giant wave from "The Day After Tomorrow." Part of the reason that doesn't happen anymore is it can't happen anymore: crowd barricades are in place at festivals that divide fans into pens, and there are usually long runways up the middle of crowds that are manned by security and keep large swaths of people from teeming into uncontrollable masses. The mosh pits may not be as intense, but they're a lot more safe.
7. 1999 was a weird time for music
Summer 1999 started with the Backstreet Boys' "Millennium" topping Billboard's Top 200 albums chart for five weeks, only to be knocked off the top spot by Limp Bizkit's "Significant Other," which stayed there for three weeks. Then Backstreet Boys took control again for two weeks, only to get knocked off again by Limp Bizkit. And so on: it was teen pop on one side, angsty bro rock on the other, and not a lot in between. In 1999, your music tastes were a declaration of war: you were either team Frosted Tips or team Backwards Cap, "Bawitdaba" or "Bye Bye Bye," and those battle lines were drawn every day on "TRL." This boiled over into Woodstock '99, which was decidedly on the heavy side of the argument, and several artists took pleasure in mocking their pop counterparts (who were nowhere near the fest, it should be noted), with the Offspring taking plastic baseball bats to likenesses of the Backstreet Boys and Fred Durst riling up the crowd by asking how many of them liked NSYNC. Sheesh, can't we all just get along? Today things aren't nearly as divided, and on-demand listening and the lack of a true pop center (like "TRL") has us all playing in our own corrals, rather than trying to make nice in one big sandbox. But the homogeny of the time, when even Korn fans knew all the words to "Baby One More Time" and Britney fans knew "Freak on a Leash," is missed today.
8. The festering anger from the festival never really went away
Let's not tie Woodstock '99 to Jan. 6. But the angst in those festivalgoers was from more than just expensive water bottles, blazing hot temperatures and pre-millennium tension, and it didn't disappear into the night once all the fires on the grounds turned to ash. They took it home with them and what could have be written off at the time as rambunctious youth blowing off steam grew slowly into a rage that now defines so much of our divided nation. This is painting with broad strokes, but the anger and disillusionment that Donald Trump was able to tap into wasn't new, it had been there for quite some time, and we saw it on display at Woodstock '99.
9. I'm glad I didn't go
I have long wondered how I would have reacted as an attendant of Woodstock '99, and I think with "Trainwreck" I finally got my answer: it would not have been good. I was 21 at the time, had never camped, and I'm not even sure I would have had the good sense to put on sunscreen. I think I would have made it out of there with a twisted ankle at best and a felony rap at worst, so I can now say it's better for all parties involved that when Woodstock '99 footage is dredged up, I don't have to worry about my goofy face being any part of it.
10. We need a Limp Bizkit documentary
We begin with the Bizkit, we end with the Bizkit. The lack of Fred Durst's participation is the biggest letdown of both "Trainwreck" and "Peace, Love, and Rage," but the Limp Bizkit story is bigger than just Woodstock '99. How did the Jacksonville outfit get so big, so fast, and how was there a time when a dude in DC shirts, khakis and a ball cap could become the biggest rock star in the world? How did the group's sludgy blend of rap and metal grow so popular? And how was it all gone so soon afterward? (The band's 2000 album "Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water," aside from having a title that still warrants shivers, was huge, but the Bizkit was on its way out by 2003's "Results May Vary.") There's a story here, an American story, of the rise and fall of one of the most popular bands of a generation, and it even has a bizarre post-script, starting with the group's comeback performance at last year's Lolla (it too is on YouTube, and is worth a watch, as an anthropological study). The title for the Limp Bizkit documentary is easy: "Break Stuff," since "Trainwreck" is already taken.
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