Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage

I was looking forward to this documentary, having previously studied Event Management and being a regular attendee of music festivals.

Whilst it was really interesting to see so much footage from this infamous event, the documentary crew sadly spent less time focusing on the fact that terrible organisation and conditions were the clear catalysts for the chaos that occurred, and instead were too busy giving air time to washed up DJs like Moby who just wanted to blame it all on Limp Bizkit and white dudes.

Odd that no other metal festivals of that era turned out the same way if it's just white nu-metal fans who were to blame. There were some absolutely horrible people in that crowd, without a doubt, but this documentary would've benefitted on diving deeper into mob mentality and conditioning rather than just trying s desperately to pin it on artists and their fans.

Under the poo covered white tarp is a corporate post-hippy type counting the money they made off their victims of systematic regressive behaviour and expensive H2o.

This doco, brought to you by Getty Images and Fight Club, lays blame to the 25yr old kid that listens to nü-metal in their parents basement. Not much attention to the organisers that deigned a festival to exploit their sociopolitical agenda.

Also, don't blame Fred Durst for igniting a flame that was burning well before the festival was premeditated. That's like blaming an NRL player for not scoring a try in your multi.

Imagined timeline if Woodstock was on the Stock Exchange; WoodCorp Pty Ltd (WORP) went public on the ASX with an opening price of 0.69c that quickly shot up to 0.94c then peaked at 0.99c before the big plunge down to 0.19c with the cancelation of 50th anniversary of the festival...and Moby.

Even though I was only 6 years old at the time of Woodstock '99, I've always been interested in learning why exactly the festival failed so spectacularly.

Color me shocked that the root of all evil was aggressive white men and not the total failure of the event promoters to provide an adequate venue and supplies for attendees.

Going to a rock concert is a great place to let out your aggressions but when you're greeted with 100+ degree heat, no easy access to water or shade, and limited staff over a three day period, is a recipe for disaster.

This documentary felt like it was paid for by the Woodstock promoters to point the blame everywhere else but at themselves.

Side note, Moby is the second most pretentious interviewee in this doc right after New York Times journalist Wesley Morris.

I mean white boys.

Jesus, this documentary doesn't know what it wants to say. On one hand it seems to portray '69 and '94 as utopia. On the other, it briefly recognizes '69 was NOT anything like utopia. What problems were grunge bands fighting against? That was a very nihilistic genre, imho. Also, grunge didn't die with Kurt. Pearl Jam still had 3 great albums to come (vitology, no code, yield) and several ok albums.

The WATER was the reason for the riot and frankly, they were somewhat justified.

Nu Metal as a genre was sort of a lower middle class "white trash" form of hip hop. The 90s were the era of NAFTA and major destruction of the unions. These guys had plenty to be angry about.

As someone that attended Woodstock 99 I can tell you it was a $hitshow. Most of what was portrayed in this documentary isn't to make some woke agenda to offend white dudes in 2021 cause this crap did happen so get over yourself. It was a disgusting trash dump, and women did get the worst of it. Sorry if that offends you but it was true. It's a story that needed to be told. It was a recipe for disaster and they should have known better.