Trainwreck

Netflix just dropped documentary about the disastrous Woodstock 99 Music Festival and it brings up some interesting questions. This is not the first doc about the calamitous festival as HBO presented theirs last year. Trainwreck previously known as Clusterfuck has a distinctive advantage over the HBO doc because the series consists of three episodes structured to mirror the three days of the actual festival.

If you are a fan of this podcast, you know that we love music festivals and when Robert saw this one come up in the press a couple months ago, under the previous name, we knew we would have to review it here on the show. In this episode we will layout the series, give our review and discuss what we, as a society, music festival goers and fans can learn from the events of Woodstock 99. Let’s kick it off.

Hello and welcome to the Rock n Roller podcast, I am Michele, and I am Robert and here we talk about our love of music, travel, and roller coasters. On today’s show we are going to discuss the Woodstock 99 documentary, Trainwreck that you can watch on Netflix—and want to warn you right off the bat there are plenty of spoilers in this episode, if that matters to you, pause right here, go watch it and come back and listen. So, I am going to break it down and Robert will join us later to give his thoughts.

The Godfather of Soul and Music Festival Royalty

The opening sequence of episode one features real footage of the festival grounds on the Monday morning after the festival. It looks like a warzone. A lot of documentaries and podcast do this now and give the viewer/listener a forecasted view of the ending and then work their way backward to arrive at the beginning of the story. Of course, we have all heard the stories of the festival disaster, but this doc starts off with pure carnage.

Early in episode one and through episode two it is structured with some focus by giving the viewer constant countdowns to remind us that scary as things might seem so far, they can only get worse. If we can set the scene just a bit, most people know about the peace and hippy love fest of the original Woodstock in 1969 and the disastrous attempt in 94 and quickly in this doc we meet Michael Lang, who was the man behind the original music festival and had lofty goals of brining the 30^th anniversary show back bigger and better. Right off the bat we see things are much different but I need to remind you that Woodstock 69 was no walk in the park. There were too many people, too many drugs, a heck of a lot of mud and other problems that occurred in the 94 rendition too. But 99 would be different, right? To start off they decided on a de-commissioned Air Force base that had more than eight miles of space, huge tarmacs, and runways, even a fire station, airplane hangars and more. But one thing is clear, early in this documentary, that this festival was designed to be a money maker. Aren’t they all?

Aside from Lang, there were some heavy hitters in the music and festival promotion game that were a part of this festival and by all rights they wanted to produce the most epic three-day event possible, but it quickly got out of hand. One of the first scenes is James Brown refusing to go on stage because he wants to be paid in full before his performance. This set the scene that cost cutting measures were afoot. We then see Sheryl Crow, The Offspring and others play throughout the first day with the closing act, Korn playing to a massive crowd of more than 250,000 people. You could see the energy that was building, and Jonathan Davis said in his interview, it’s better than any drug when you have that many people in the palm of your hand. The first day, and the first episode ended with a scene of the rave after-party where 60,000 people packed into an airplane hangar to a naked, drug fueled musical ecstasy. As the cliffhanger approached, we knew that there were worse things to come in the following two days.

Break Stuff

There is an effort made to understand why things might have gotten out of hand on day one and the Korn performance, but it was the deliberate finger-pointing in the direction of Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst by the documentarians that fueled the crowd’s rage on Saturday night. One of the journalists equates it to the culture of 1999 that is brimming with sexuality and testosterone fueled angst by an entire generation of “crazed frat boys.” But there is more to that story. This festival was just down right poorly planned. It was not 1969. Society and music had changed right Robert?

[Robert] yes, you must remember that anytime you watch a documentary you are seeing it through the filmmaker’s eyes. Jamie Crawford had a story to tell and the three of four acts that fit that narrative were showcased, namely Sherly Crow and Jewel because of the salacious attempts at male domination along with Korn, Limp Bizkit, Bush, Kid Rock, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers who we will get to later in the show. But there were so many acts playing. We have a full list in our show notes. Namely, there is no mention of Metallica, Ice Cube, Rage Against the Machine, Godsmack, Everlast, and even low-key acts like Alanis Morrisette, Creed, Moby, Live, and Muse. You are right music was at a turning point in 99 and this festival showcased that.

[Michele] Back to episode two… The footage of the concertgoers tearing down the structures remains as powerful today as it was then. It was like watching a zombie movie without CGI. It was real and in your face. Central to episode two was the rave after-party featuring Fat Boy Slim, (real name, Norman Smith) recalls seeing a van rambling through the crowd and recalls the horrific story of a young girl who was sexually assaulted. Smith recounts in somber reality, he says, “in the midst of all those people having fun and me wanting to make everybody love each other, that was going on under our noses.”

The issue of sexual assault is otherwise handled as almost an afterthought, towards the end of Episode three. Woodstock original organizer Michael Lang even says that he didn’t hear about any reports of sexual assault until after the festival was over. “You can’t vet the people who buy your tickets — you just can’t,” he bemoans at one point.

Episode three is much the same—nudity, teenage angst, and rebellion up until the Chili Peppers hit the stage and then all hell broke loose. Through rose-colored glasses of yesteryear, the promoters thought it would be a good idea to pass out 100,000 candles—remind you that this is way before everyone had a flashlight on their iPhone, and asked if Anthony Kiedis could calm the crowd down as they hit the stage for their encore. Of course, a happy ending didn’t fit the narrative of this doc or actual history, and the Chili Peppers came out and sang Jimi Hendrix’s Fire as the crowd literally set the venue on fire! What ensued was almost a half hour of carnage in the documentary as the festival became the gates of hell. The all-out riot included torching tractor-trailers, breaking into the vendor area including looting and stealing from ATMs, and tearing down the massive “art wall” fence and the quelling by storm-trooper-riot-police.