It’s a story already known, but which is the subject of a new documentary mini-series currently available on Netflix: “Woodstock 99: Anthology Chaos”, or the story of a festival, held in 1999, 30 years after the original, which was intended to bring peace and brotherhood, and which ended in violence and destruction.
Article written by
Posted
Reading time : 1 min.
It was to be a big party in the middle of summer, on a former military base in New York State, a dream poster worn by the stars of the time, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Limp Bizkit, passing by Sheryl Crow , 30 years after the first Woodstock, the only one, the real one.
But everything was quickly derailed: the facilities not sized for 200,000 festival-goers a day, the disastrous hygiene conditions, the hallucinating prices to buy even a bottle of water… Only the name of Woodstock was there, absolutely no mind.
In the documentary, the actors of the time, including the promoter Michael Lang, totally disconnected, naive as possible, cynical to the point of disgust. Festival-goers, journalists, artists, all describe a heavy atmosphere, an omnipresent toxic masculinity. And as expected, everything ends in chaos: Limp Bizkit discharges mad energy and the destruction begins in the crowd.
Then there will be looting, violence, sexual assault… On the third day, the police intervene to evacuate the site, in ashes. The promoters filled their pockets with it, but the images go around the world. The story of a memorable party that will above all have shown the excesses of a shameless music industry, in which the festival-goer, it is still true today, is often only a lemon to be squeezed until it dries up. total.
Woodstock 99: Anthology Chaosa three-episode mini-series to watch on Netflix.