Woodstock ’99 – What went wrong?

If someone asked, “You know what Woodstock is, right?” the most common response is, “Sure, it’s that music festival with all those hippies and flowers.” It’s not a wrong answer; however, that’s also not correct. There have been three Woodstock, one in 1969, one in 1994, and probably the last in 1999. Woodstock ’69 had all the hippies, flower power, peace, and love. As time passed, America thought we should have another flower-power-filled festival in ’94, and it was a terrible disaster. In 1999, America thought, “We can’t let the Woodstock legacy end on a low, so let’s do another one.” In 1999, the latest and probably last ever Woodstock happened, and it was an even bigger disaster than ’94.

Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, John Roberts, and Joel Rosenman all got together to create a music festival to get people’s minds off of Vietnam and get their minds on good music and a great atmosphere. In 1969, the three-day music festival started on August 15 and, with many weather delays, turned into a four-day festival ending on August 18. A man named Max Yasgur was offered $75,000 for the festival to happen on his 600-acre Dairy Farm in Bethel, New York, and he gladly accepted. The Yasgur Dairy Farm hosted 500,000 hippies on those four days.

The lineup of artists at the 69 Woodstock includes Credence Clear Water Revival, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, and many more. The festival was nothing but people having a great time listening to music. No chaos or hate was anywhere near the farm, and the festival succeeded.

On the 25th Anniversary of Woodstock, all four original creators, minus Artie Kornfeld, were in charge of the Anniversary show and added co-producer John Scher. To create another peaceful music festival, they set the event to occur August 12-14, ’94 , at Winston Farm, 70 miles northeast of the original location.

The outcome of the 25th anniversary of the show was a disaster. Michael Lang and the promoters called it a massive success for their own good and the media. However, the concert sold 164,000 tickets and had 350,000 people attend the show. Security called the farm a war zone and ended with a total of two deaths. Some artists that played were Metallica, Blind Melon, Nine Inch Nails, Primus, Allman Brothers, Aerosmith, and Greenday.

For now, the last of the Woodstock Festivals were anything but three days of peace and music. Michael Lang and John Scher ran the third festival and had it set to take place on Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York. They sold 186,000 tickets with a limit of 250,000 tickets to be sold. The airfield base hosted about 400,000 raging fans from July 23 to 25, 1999.

When explaining what went wrong at the festival, it may be easier to say what went right. Musical artists were able to play music. The celebration ended with sexual harassment cases, riots, looting, fires, and death.

So what led Woodstock 99 to be the actual disaster it was? All three days, the temperature barely got below 90 degrees, and food and water were super overpriced. This did not make people happy, but the artists started performing, and things worsened. Times had changed since 1969, and people weren’t spinning to the Grateful Dead. Artists like Korn and Limp Bitzkit played, which caused mosh pits and got people amped up. Not only did the artist tear up the main stage, but they also had a rave tent with DJs playing throughout the night, so people were constantly active. The cherry on top is that the water had been infected with mud and feces due to a broken pipe near a leaking porta potty.

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The festival was scheduled to have the Red Hot Chili Peppers close out the festival with a claimed “special guest after.” As imagined, people got outraged by the end of three days of nonstop music, high temperatures, and little food and water. The Chili Peppers finally took the stage, and just a couple of songs in, one fire broke out and then another. The band got off the stage and tried to tell people to stop what they were doing and enjoy the music, but the band’s words didn’t do much good. When they thought things settled down, the Red Hot Chili Peppers finished their set and got off stage, and that was the end. No highly anticipated special guest. This got fans furious, and then the actual riots began; more fires and buildings and towers started to get taken down. Security and law enforcement tried their best, but they could not do much until the morning when everyone left and they began the cleaning process.

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Will there ever be another Woodstock? Probably not, but you can never say never. Woodstock’s 50th anniversary was planned to happen in 2019 in New York. Still, no location was found, so Merriweather Post Pavilion offered to host, and it was planned to happen in Columbia, Maryland. John Fogerty of Credence Clear Water dropped a couple of months before the show was to take place, and soon after him, much of the lineup also started to drop. It is sad that Woodstock’s legacy ended so harshly and not how it was meant to end. Michael Lang wanted a festival that brought people together, and he got that once. Some things are better “one and done” and can’t be recreated, and Woodstock is one of those scenarios.