Fires, lootings, deluge of drugs, sexual assaults:
Chaos of anthology: Woodstock 99
, shock documentary on Netflix, looks back on this American festival that has become a nightmare, a disaster still too little known and never depicted so far in all its dysfunctions.
The day after the event, at the end of July 1999, which was to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the original Woodstock, the television news, from Paris to Tokyo, succinctly relayed only the thick plume of black smoke rising from a site devastated, symbol of the fiasco.
The inventory of this tormented episode of the music industry only began to unfold in 2021 with a first documentary,
Woodstock 99, peace, love and rage
on HBO.
Anthology Chaos: Woodstock 99
, directed by Jamie Crawford and available on Netflix, goes deeper.
A mountain of testimonies is collected and cross-referenced over three episodes of about an hour each (organizers, festival-goers, journalists, rescue workers, security officers, public health officials, etc.).
Enough to offer a panoramic vision when only fragmentary memories of a time without social networks remained.
Make profit
“It was the fall of Hanoi”,
describes Tim Healy, TV producer at the time on the spot, speaking of the last evening.
"It's like being in
Apocalypse Now
"
, exclaims in archival footage Anthony Kiedis, leader of the Red Hot Chili Peppers when the group returns to the stage for the encore.
Fires then multiply on the site.
Thousands of festival-goers (advertising spots at the time boasted a total of 250,000 people), to whom 100,000 candles had been distributed, lit fires and threw anything that could burn into them.
Just drunk or drunk with anger after being massaged in appalling conditions at a former military airbase in New York State.
The tanks of organization trucks parked further away will explode in flames while looters will attack, among other things, the merchandising area and cash dispensers.
How did we get here?
Lee Rosenblatt, 22 at the time, assistant manager of the site, points to
the “greed”
of the managers:
“We took advantage of these kids.”
The organizers are Michael Lang, founding father of the 1969 Woodstock (who died recently) and his
"powerful partner"
for the 30th anniversary, promoter John Scher.
Both testify in
Anthology Chaos: Woodstock 99
.
The first appears overwhelmed by the monster event created while the second admits his motivations:
"It was absolutely necessary to make a profit."
A bottle of water at 65 cents in town is sold for 4 dollars in the festival, while festival-goers are forced to empty their water bottles on arrival on the asphalt tarmac of the site heated white by temperatures of more than 35 °.
“Not enough security guards”
At the same time, organizational costs were trimmed.
Samples taken by the health services will reveal that the few drinking water fountains have been soiled by excrement.
"Woodstock 99 did not have enough suitable security guards (...) they wanted to be stingy"
, denounces Colin Spear again, in the production of the time.
He does not hide that, celebrating his 29th birthday during the festival, he will take ecstasy offered by a festival-goer.
Drugs circulate too freely, security personnel have been recruited hastily and not sufficiently trained.
The National Guard will be called to the rescue at the end of the festival.
But Woodstock 99 is already rocking halfway through the rave under a shed.
DJ-star Fatboy Slim's set has been stopped: a van has been hijacked by a festival-goer and is driving slowly through the audience.
AJ Srybnik, supervisor of the rave at the time, tells Netflix that the driver-reveler behind the wheel is in a daze.
This official discovers
"disgusted"
in the back of the van
"a girl of 15 or 16 years (...) pants on the ankles, fainted"
while a young man gets dressed next.
American media would eventually bring up
“rape allegations
,” in a pre-#MeToo era when festival sexual assaults were swept under the rug.
