'Trainwreck: Woodstock '99' -- Film Review

Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 (2022) is a three-part Netflix documentary series that chronicles the music festival that took place in Rome, New York on very hot weekend in July 1999. The festival was intended to be a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the original Woodstock festival. Things did not go as planned.

The documentary features interviews with festival attendees, musicians, and organizers, as well as archival footage of the event. It paints a vivid picture of the festival's many problems, including overcrowding, heat exhaustion, and sexual assault. The documentary also explores the cultural factors that contributed to the festival's failure, such as the rise of corporate greed and the decline of the counterculture movement.

The documentary features several interviews, including that of promoters John Scher and Michael Lang. When the original Woodstock - also promoted by Lang - was a counterculture movement of peace and love, the '99 version was pretty far from that ideal. Scher wanted to make money off the event, and that is fair. Music festivals are not cheap or easy endeavors and promoters deserve to make money on their events. That said, everything at Woodstock '99 was sponsored within an inch of its life and corners were cut everywhere, including with security. The festival took place at a decommissioned Air Force base (Griffiss) so that meant a lot of concrete and not much shade. Have you ever been on a military installation? I work for the USAF at a massive and important base. There are tarmacs, roads, sidewalks and fencing aplenty but not a whole lot of tree groves everywhere. Buildings are huge and crazy far apart. This was the case with Griffiss. That meant that festival goers were walking close to two miles between stages (horrible idea!) in the middle of a heat wave with little access to clean drinking water.

One of the most compelling parts of the documentary focuses on the lack of clean water. Attendees had their water taken at the entrance gates. Since the food and beverage was part of a sponsorship package, festival organizers had no control over pricing for things like bottled water. The fest promised plenty of free water for folks to use refillable bottles. There were so few water stations, the need wasn't met. There were way too few portable toilets that were disgusting just a few hours into the event. Remember, the heat was hovering around the mid-90s. The shower stall lines were out of control and snaked forever. Some of the attendees got pissed, broke the pipes to spray water and ended up causing a mass contamination. Basically, the mud pits around the portable toilets were really shit-pits. People were rolling around in human feces and also drinking the contaminated water. Trench mouth was common. 

So the largely teen-to-college-age crowd was getting more pissed as each hour ticked by. They were hot, sweaty, thirsty and sick of being price gouged for food and water.

Behind-the-scenes VHS footage, taken by both professional and amateur videographers is compelling and shows how folks were really acting. The cuts of reality juxtaposed next to statement from Scher and Lang basically saying it was a "good event" with a "few bad apples" is pretty compelling.

Korn, Limp Bizkit and Red Hot Chili Peppers are featured because the crowd really went nuts during their sets. Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit egged the kids on, but they were already pissed and ready to cause trouble. Passing out candles for an anti-gun violence memorial during the Peppers hit "Under The Bridge" was a nice thought in theory but disaster in practice. Who knew that fires and riots would break out after the angry crowd had had enough?

The most painful part of the documentary is the discussion of sexual assault and rape at the festival. It was a testosterone-fueled environment and women were being grabbed and exploited nonstop. Things really are different now but this was the 90s and holding a "show me your tits" sign was quasi-acceptable back then. I like to think that such actions today would be met with derision.

If you haven't already watched this documentary, do it. It's terrifying, maddening and entertaining all at once.

And if you don't have time to watch a three-part documentary, here's a two-minute news report of the fires and riots and also some clueless quotes from John Scher.