'As the flames climbed high into the night, to moonlight the sacrificial rite, I saw Kid Rock laughing with delight': Read Rob Sheffield's vintage report from Woodstock '99
As the flames climbed high into the night, to moonlight the sacrificial rite, I saw Kid Rock laughing with delight. Maybe it only seemed that way, but it sure makes a handy metaphor for Woodstock ’99 to go up in smoke: the Red Hot Chili Peppers covering Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire,” fiddling while Rome, New York, burns. On TV it must have looked likewith louder guitars.
At Woodstock, you can sign the anti-gun Pax Petition or sign up for a Woodstock Platinum MasterCard. There’s an Action Lounge for dirt bikes and a beer garden for throwing up. Hey, there’s a real hippie! A grizzled, bearded guy in a headband and tie-dye, handing out fliers for the revolution! Well, actually, the fliers say, Wal-Mart Su-Percenter Welcomes Woodstock ’99!
Korn are tonight’s big name, and their gig is one scary sight. It’s not about “Show us your tits” here – it’s “Show us your internal organs.” The pit erupts as the Peace Patrol security guys whisk one kid after another to the emergency tent. The medical crew keeps ripping open new packages of disposable cardboard stretchers. Korn are not healthy for children and other living things.
The bulls on parade have picked up another girl, who shakes her head. The boys boo her. “Aw, come on,” one yells. “This is your fifteen minutes, kid.” This is sexual assault, and it’s about power, not pleasure. Though the next girl willingly whips her bikini top open, she snaps it back up before everyone has had a chance to photograph her, which makes the boys very angry indeed. They push her onto the shoulders of a guy twice her size.
When the Bizkit take the stage, the pit explodes, and I push up the hill for breathing room. Dudes crowd-surf on pieces of wood. What none of us know is that the wood has been torn from the production towers, exposing deadly wires. Word starts to spread of carnage happening during the Bizkit set. For the rest of the weekend, kids trade stories about how many fans got killed; one even tells me that hundreds of kids perished. In fact, nobody got killed tonight – broken wrists, cracked ribs, but no deaths and no collapsing tower . Still, the threat of a riot feels so heavy that I’m actually happy to hear Rage Against the Machine.
I run to get a burger before the all-night rave in the hangar. Outside the Common Grounds Cafe, a hippie folk group from the Twelve Tribes sings about how much they’re looking forward to Judgment Day. “The unjust and filthy will be condemned/So there will be love and peace once again,” they warble as a small crowd nods out to the harmonies. Back at the hangar, the unjust and filthy jump to Fatboy Slim.
Willie Nelson draws a crowd a few hours later, because we need some Willie love after our long, hot hours of Sunday morning coming down. Everyone’s hung over, dehydrated, sleep-deprived and grumpy – today, at least 50,000 fans will head home. Willie soothes our scorched nerves with one of the weekend’s best shows, leading his crack band through a country groove and a gospel medley. One of the dudes down front looks familiar: It’s Everlast, whom nobody seems to recognize.
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