Worst Band To Play Woodstock 99

Aphex Twin's performance was cut short when promoters "disconnected" him mid-show for signing a fake name on a contract, which would forfeit PolyGram's rights to his performance

I left out most of the decent bands to thwart challopers

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, August 13, 2009 11:58 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

James Brown, George Clinton, Elvis Costello, The Roots, etc. to answer Moka's question

this could be a hilarious poll thread in and of itself:

Emerging Artists Stage

Big Sugar[6]
Cyclefly[25]
Indigenous[25]
John Entwistle[6]
John Oszajca[25]
Moe Loughran[31]
Muse[37]
Pound[25]
Pushmonkey[25]

Beyond the cheapskate charges, the people behind Woodstock 99 were accused of negligence when it came to addressing instances of sexual assault. Among the festival’s most shameful statistics—which included 44 arrests and a staggering 10,000 people receiving medical treatment—were reports that eight women had been raped, often by multiple people in the middle of mosh pits that raged as bands performed.

Two weeks after Woodstock 99, the National Organization For Women staged a protest outside of Scher’s New York office, asserting that he and fellow promoter Michael Lang intended to “deny the rapes occurred, to dismiss their importance, and to blame the victims.” Spin reported that a Woodstock employee had told NOW that “security, production staff, and promoters knew about the rapes” as they occurred during the festival and “refused to alert law enforcement because of the ubiquity of drugs on site.”

Scher denied the claims, insisting instead that the ugliness of Woodstock 99 reflected a larger moral chasm in the souls of the attendees. “I think, in some respects, the generation was irresponsible and they gave me and themselves the finger,” Scher told Spin. He wasn’t the only one who felt that Woodstock 99 amounted to a big “fuck you!” from legions of incorrigible kids. More than one writer likened Woodstock 99 to The Day Of The Locust, the 1939 Nathanael West novel about wanton sin and alienation in Los Angeles that ends with mob violence.

Others rushed to blame the bands for pushing the audience to commit random acts of depravity. “What caused this powder-keg to blow, unlike its sister festival 30 years ago?” asked the San Francisco Examiner’s Jane Ganahl, nudging heavily in the direction of “the worst perpetrator,” Limp Bizkit, who was widely pilloried in the press for playing songs like “Break Stuff” as fans were dismantling the 12-foot security fence circling the grounds and crowd-surfing on the plywood pieces. “Irresponsible: There’s no other word for Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst” Salon.com’s Jeff Stark wrote. “He’s goading the crowd, pumping them up, higher and higher. It’s beyond working them into enjoying the show. He’s encouraging the pit, working them into a frenzy.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ywuYC0n5cNg#t=207s

i thought that kind of thing would be considered 'a lively day with the soccer hooligans' to you

Why is Algerian Goalkeeper posting Onion A/V Club articles all over

it's funny how Woodstock '99 has almost completely made people forget that the Woodstock '94 lineup was pretty terrible too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_'94

― some dude, Thursday, March 1, 2012 11:58 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Woodstock 94 lineup was awesome!

Peter Gabriel, Nine Inch Nails, Salt-N-Pepa, Primus, Green Day, Gil-Scott Heron, WOMAD stage, Arrested Development, pre-One Hot Minute Chili Peps, Cypress Hill, Rollins Band, Metallica, APHEX TWIN IN MY VAGINA, Violent Femmes, you are tripping

he was reading a pamphlet about how to interact with other humans and it said that sharing links from satirical newspaper 'the onion' was a good way to establish a humorous rapport with people (xpost)

holy shit

soccer

lol yank

i didnt read the onion piece but i scrolled down to see the last two lines and LOL'd

i didn't scroll down the onion piece but i saw the Hold Steady lyric somberly quoted at the top and LOL'd

~what is past is prologue~

They got Wavy Gravy to introduce some of the bands, apparently, as a link to the original WS. Poor old geezer thought the crowd were yelling for Chuck Berry. Buck Cherry? They probably named themselves that just to confuse him.

kinda bogglin at john entwistle on the "emerging artists" stage

algerian goalkeeper's really making his way through that steve hyden series

oh i see you guys made that joke too

Watched the Woodstock '99 Documentary on Hulu last night. Funny to see the promoters backstage patting themselves on the back for another successful weekend full of peace, love and music just hours before it went completely off the rails. And to see them still to this day, trying to place the blame on Kurt Loader, Fred Durst, Anthony Keidis, or whoever for the rioting and sexual assaults when by all counts, the volunteer "peace patrol" that they hired for security just vanished into the crowd once the festival started and the horrible location, lack of amenities and testosterone fueled lineup had doomed it from the start.

That’s the same one that’s on HBO Max? “Music Box” or whatever?

Oh yeah HBO Max, sorry. I have too many streaming services and always get them confused.

And to see them still to this day, trying to place the blame on Kurt Loader, Fred Durst, Anthony Keidis, or whoever for the rioting and sexual assaults

That fucking piece of shit John Scher put the blame for the rapes and sexual assaults on the victims, with that "they dressed provocatively" bullshit.

We watched it too; was really something to see all the footage. Didn't think the doc itself was that great – it leaned into heavy-handed "context setting" and psychoanalyzing the '90s that felt like a stretch or was flat-out contradictory (a few of the talking heads were particularly bad in this regard). You had to kind of read btw. the lines to get at the reasons why the fest was such a disaster (tho Sheryl Crow seemed to sum most of it up in a single-sentence postmortem interview clip).

Was kinda "funny" for the doc to end with holding up Coachella as a glorious enlightened counterexample, considering the sexual assaults there too.

I wonder if he would say "yes, absolutely" there was a 1:1 relationship between those two things ("provocative" dress/sexual assault) when pressed, because how can you be on the defensive for this many years and not at any point along the way realize that's a disgusting oversimplification? "I'm going to go say this on camera for this documentary and everyone watching will nod their heads in agreement just like my golfing buddies do when I bring this up in conversation, and they say 'alright, John, sure but you don't have to yell' and 'why don't you sit down for a minute?' and 'take it easy ok? We were just trying to figure out where to get lunch later' because they all agree with me, see."

xp

morrisp otm

Unfortunately the doc never passes up an opportunity to show footage of women exposing themselves, so viewers already inclined to agree with Scher will probably fail to read between the lines despite the other footage of women being groped while crowdsurfing etc being v disturbing

will never watch this bc steve hyden sucks so much, assuming he’s one of the talking heads morrisp is talking about

The Chapo episode where they did backboard-breaking dunks on this with Street Fight Bryan for 90 minutes was great

idk, I've been catching a lot of feelings lately because I feel that history has ultimately proven me correct with opinions I had 20 years ago like "the Strokes are not interesting or important" and "nu metal had some jams" and the only real $$$ in music journalism right now is parroting 20 year old received wisdom about these things in HBO docs and oral histories. Like the narrative changed but the narrators didn't...

I watched this today and have until now, luckily, never heard Limp Bizkit's music *too* closely.

Now I'm completely fascinated at how Fred's voice was/is so squeaky and feeble when he's rapping, I thought I was hearing things at first.

If Woodstock had happened in ‘67, would we have gotten Woodstock ‘97 with the Cherry Poppin Daddies and Less Than Jake?

Barbara Kopple made a doc called "My Generation" about the similarities between the '69, '94 and '99 Woodstocks. (Iirc Woodstock organizer/corporate overlord Michael Lang was directly involved, as co-producer or something.) I saw its premiere, and I guess what turned out to be a rare screening, due to the cost of music rights, at the Toronto International Film Fest in 2000, and I remember being really put off by how much it glossed over the uglier side of '99 (maybe because it focused more on consumerism?). There was stuff about the rioting and fires and whatnot, but I actually asked Kopple at a Q&A why there was not even a mention of the numerous reported sexual assaults, and at least as I remember it she bristled and gave a pretty boilerplate, toothless answer.

xpost Reel Big Fish, with signature song "Sell Out", which would have been a little 'on the nose'

There was a a Woodstock '97, and it happened in Fort Worth TX

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRXMcYpSMy1ngPAlBBDw42Fl_fNLwqpE7jDRQ&usqp=CAU

hueg

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/rewind-rock-of-ages-1997-rockfest-concert-fort-worth-tms-texas-motor-speedway/287-e5530aa2-235e-46fe-a593-9a618fb7fbe6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsb6UEj6wxk

Ha, I was at Rockfest (alongside half of my 10th grade class). It was hell.

imho a much more defensible lineup despite their lack of street cred

Now I'm completely fascinated at how Fred's voice was/is so squeaky and feeble when he's rapping, I thought I was hearing things at first.

it also gets incrementally squeakier over the course of the first three records

XPS It's pretty wild that before HUGE festivals became a thing in the US, Blockbuster-then at their VHS height-decides to throw a show with 15 or so of the least-offensive major touring Alt-Rock bands of the day*, then giving away all the tickets as point of purchase bonuses at their stores nationwide, and then drawing almost four times the projected attendees to a racetrack in Texas in the Summer.

*No Doubt, Bush, Collective Soul, Wallflowers etc. all then capable of selling out summer sheds on their own.

Rockfest '97 Archived Line-Up:

Counting Crows
the nixons
Jewel
No Doubt
Soak (US)
Sugar Ray
Third Eye Blind
Bush
Collective Soul
Souls
Matchbox Twenty
Paula Cole
The Wallflowers

Some of these bands also appeared at the '90s Woodstocks.

don't make me list the merge 10th anniversary artists

only the third worst time I've had at that racetrack

Strictly speaking, Rockfest wouldn't be Woodstock '97 it would be the Texas International Pop Festival '97 right

Except no act really 'broke' because they were there ala Hendrix/Joplin/Otis.

BTW, was trying to figure out who Soak were, found this article on them, a real interesting look at the Alt-Rock business circa '96-7.

Really if you want imagine what a '97 Woodstock would have looked like, kitbash from Rockfest and whatever was going on that year package tour-wise (Lolla, Warped, H.O.R.D.E. etc.) and add some boomers.

I wanted to watch the Woodstock '99 doc with my friend while we were hanging out last weekend but didn't realize it was on HBO Max, so we ended up on YouTube watching the performances instead. ICP's music is even more annoying than I remembered – like a xerox of a xerox of a xerox of Cypress Hill, only synth sirens and vinyl scratching remain – but they put on a good show!

I don't remember them showing a second of that performance (could be wrong tho), but they do show some juggalos in the audience

Unfortunately (and in contrast to the ample hi-res footage of the weekend's other acts) I could only find this VHS-looking version of the ICP set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKkyR3TRiPM

idk, I've been catching a lot of feelings lately because I feel that history has ultimately proven me correct with opinions I had 20 years ago like "the Strokes are not interesting or important" and "nu metal had some jams" and the only real $$$ in music journalism right now is parroting 20 year old received wisdom about these things in HBO docs and oral histories. Like the narrative changed but the narrators didn't...

― my Least Favorite Writer (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 23 August 2021 16:43 (yesterday) link

I had these opinions at the time too but no platform. In fact for many years I've had this imaginary all-numetal dj party set forming in my head (I don't dj) which prominently features the LB cover of Faith, and also involves a very long segment of looping and playing with the breakdown from Down

TBF though critisphere making a huge deal out of some artist or band that no one cares about anymore in five years was more the rule than the exception in the late 90s/early 00s.