But publicly MTV was not trashing it. They trashed it privately. They still were plugging it up on MTV as this great event. Like kids were just having fun breaking things apart, or they were upset at the price of water. They kept it up until the fires, when it was clear that things were out of control and getting dangerous.

MTV did not get into the high costs, exploitive prices inside, insane amount of drugs and sexual or any of that on the air.

They took Woodstock 99 on the road the next Summer it was called the Metallica Summer Sanitarium stadium tour, Korn, Kid Rock in tow. Same crowd and everything, coming to a town near you. It was my first concert I was 15 and by far the worst concert I ever been to(it essentially killed Metallica for me). Watching the documentary about Woodstock 99 had all of the elements of the crowd there at Texas Stadium that night. At least Hetfield showed up for Woodstock though. 

Yeah Summer Sanitarium and Ozzfest 2000 were both shit shows because of asshole crowds. I passed on both. Local Big Day Out and 104 fests I hit and had shit crowds.

2001 things started to shift in CT at least, as the hardcore kids had it with the guidos and started to just beat the living shit out of them at shows. Pledge of Allegiance, Ozzfest 2001 and Tattoo the Earth were all bloodbaths but they got the point they were not welcome anymore. The guidos would get super rough in the pits throwing punches or just slamming you excessively hard, but they would also drink a lot and CT hardcore was straight edged. Can kind of see where this all goes. Eventually one person has it, and wails back a guido, and a brawl starts up until the band has to stop playing and calm things down. By then be a group of people bloody on the floor we were laying into with kicks.

Of course a few years later no hardcore events would be held here, as people started to go to shows just to fight. Some weeks guidos, some weeks doc martin skinheads.

One big thing the 99 movies did lie about was Woodstock 94 being peaceful. It was not either. Metallica and NiN saw the med areas get overloaded with inquiries. During Green Day they ripped up the grass and threw piles of it on stage. That set itself ended with Green Day fighting the security staff on stage. Girls talked about being raped in the raves. Kennedy could not go live between the raves and dawn as there was so much drug above and questionable sex stuff happening MTV could never show it without heavy edits. Rapes and serious injuries were reported, as well as widespread drugging of girls with GHB.  They whitewashed the shit out of that concert, then expected 99 to conform to the whitewashed version despite the shore culture really changing attitudes in that region. Then they pack the show with hardrock bands which proved really problematic in 94, while also expecting people to be all chill and peaceful while listening to songs like Break Stuff or Killing in the Name Of. Like we had Ozzfests going on with unruly crowds in that same exact area, but they somehow felt that with the same music, the Woodstock name would instantly mellow out people. It is all absurd.

Those two organisers interviewed on the documentary are straight up villains.

The fat, bald one is just a angry nerd and the curly haired guy who couldn't stop smiling through the whole thing is just a stone cold prick.

My question to you guys is, was there outrage at the time in 1999 and 2000?

Or was it something that developed later, I certainly didn't hear a lot of negative press about it (albeit on the otherside of the world) and it didn't stop me buying the CD.

I had just gotten into MTV around the time and I thought the general reception was that Woodstock was just one of those events that was better off left in the past. It was considered this horrible event, but nobody really went in-depth as to why. I'm sure over in c's neck of the wood it would have been much bigger news.

Clearly nobody in Australia paid attention and we had our own tragedy at Big Day Out 2001 when we lost Jessica.

Mar 9, 2023 10:14:09 GMT Big Pete said:

I had just gotten into MTV around the time and I thought the general reception was that Woodstock was just one of those events that was better off left in the past. It was considered this horrible event, but nobody really went in-depth as to why. I'm sure over in c's neck of the wood it would have been much bigger news.

Clearly nobody in Australia paid attention and we had our own tragedy at Big Day Out 2001 when we lost Jessica.

That's what I was going to bring up next. We have already covered it, so I won't hang too long on it - but Limp Bizkit were the biggest band on Earth for a brief moment and I'm sure the BDO organizers knew that and wanted some of that cash, knowing damn well they'd have no issues selling tickets with LB on the roster. It was a hell of a sight watching Channel V live from the BDO and seeing that crowd for Limp Bizkit. Weirdly only 2 years or less removed from Woodstock 99, BDO booked one of the bands some what responsible in some ways at Woodstock, and then they did nothing to split the crowd (even at the advice of Limp Bizkit apparently) and in saying that, I can't recall a single band being ostracized for being part of Woodstock 99, inciting a riot, or telling punters to burn the place down.. the world just seemed to move on. Limp Bizkit were making theme songs to major motions pictures a year later, etc. 

Mar 9, 2023 3:05:16 GMT Neo Zeed said:

They took Woodstock 99 on the road the next Summer it was called the Metallica Summer Sanitarium stadium tour, Korn, Kid Rock in tow. Same crowd and everything, coming to a town near you. It was my first concert I was 15 and by far the worst concert I ever been to(it essentially killed Metallica for me). Watching the documentary about Woodstock 99 had all of the elements of the crowd there at Texas Stadium that night. At least Hetfield showed up for Woodstock though-pussy. 

Mar 9, 2023 9:49:08 GMT nath45.47 said:

Those two organisers interviewed on the documentary are straight up villains.

The fat, bald one is just a angry nerd and the curly haired guy who couldn't stop smiling through the whole thing is just a stone cold prick.

My question to you guys is, was there outrage at the time in 1999 and 2000?

Or was it something that developed later, I certainly didn't hear a lot of negative press about it (albeit on the otherside of the world) and it didn't stop me buying the CD.

No it was a disaster all the way around, the end of the year recaps had the Woodstock 99 riots as one of the biggest news stories of the year up there with Columbine. The VHI behind the music for 1999 that came out in 2000-2001 had a big piece on how big of a disaster it was.

As far as limp biz kit getting the blame I think that is something that snowballed over the years. In real time it was like they were just part of the shit show, over the years seems like most of the blame for all of it got shoveled onto them. One interview with Jon Davis I seen around 2013 he put the blame squarely on them.

Mar 9, 2023 9:49:08 GMT nath45.47 said:

Those two organisers interviewed on the documentary are straight up villains.

The fat, bald one is just a angry nerd and the curly haired guy who couldn't stop smiling through the whole thing is just a stone cold prick.

My question to you guys is, was there outrage at the time in 1999 and 2000?

Or was it something that developed later, I certainly didn't hear a lot of negative press about it (albeit on the otherside of the world) and it didn't stop me buying the CD.

Not really.  The outrage was the prices at the event.  And people got over it really fast.  Most of us thought people should have expected what they got.  Woodstock 94 had price gouging and this show continued the trend.  I may be way too close to this though as that was only an hour drive away.

Also that was the era of rowdy crowds and violent concerts too in the area with Hatebreed shows routinely ending in riots and metal shows having increasing violent mosh pits.  Seemed more and more would come to these shows just to fight.

TV highlighted as a big event, but did not seem to direct outrage at it.