On Saturday night, the wife and I watched on HBO, Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage. I thought the doc was good, worth watching, maybe I’ll review it later. What I thought the doc did well, was reminding me about the world I lived in around 1999, and that Summer.
What I remember, (And that’s key here. This isn’t fact, this is an emotional response and memory from me, so it has the very high likelihood of being exceedingly inaccurate…) was that Woodstock ’99 was bullshit from the beginning.
I was living in Arlington, TX at that time, and it wasn’t really surprising that no one I knew was going to the concert which was 1,500 miles away. In fact, I knew no one who wanted to shell out the money for the Pay-Per-View of the concerts. It was the first time that I remember that everyone my age thought of Babyboomers as sellouts who were only interested in taking as much money off Gen-X as possible. Example, the first Woodstock cost $18 to attend all three days. In 1999 dollars that would be $81. The promoters charged $180. Then there were the $4 waters, $7 sandwiches, and $12 pizza. I remember it being called Corporatestock.
Then there were the bands, which for me were pretty much all shit. At that time, I think the only people I would have wanted to see were Live, Rage Against the Machine, Willie Nelson, Red Hot Chili Peppers. All the other headliners were Metal-rap cockrock bands. It was frat boy, cargo shorts, no shirt, backwards baseball cap garbage music that played to the worst instincts of young dudes that wanted to fight and get laid. But at the same time, that was the only rock music left. All the big grunge bands were no more by 1999, except for Pearl Jam, who was at a low point. The other half of music was taken over by pop and boybands. If you just wanted a rock band, it was a wasteland then.
And when the riot, fires and craziness went down, my first impression was, yes, burn the that fake corporate thing to the ground. But I also remember the news coverage that came after; of the fighting, deaths, sexual assaults, lack of security, water and just basic sanitation. In my mind, it became a preventable bomb, or should have never happened in the first place. There were a lot of dirty hands in that mess
The 90’s ended on a sour note just like the 60’s did with Altamont. And what also died that weekend was the nostalgia that the 60’s were worth replicating.
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