1 00:00:12,470 --> 00:00:14,848 Woodstock '99 wrapping up today. 2 00:00:14,931 --> 00:00:17,559 Quarter of a million sweaty, sunburned folks, 3 00:00:17,642 --> 00:00:19,894 and they're all battling the elements. 4 00:00:21,438 --> 00:00:24,315 Uh, welcome to day three of Woodstock '99. 5 00:00:24,899 --> 00:00:28,611 We had a, uh, satisfying and eventful day yesterday. 6 00:00:28,695 --> 00:00:30,155 I know you've got a lot of questions. 7 00:00:31,531 --> 00:00:35,160 Last night, fans starting to break off pieces of a production tower. 8 00:00:35,660 --> 00:00:38,329 Woodstock officials are actually downplaying that mess, 9 00:00:38,413 --> 00:00:41,082 but I can tell you that many people were treated for injuries. 10 00:00:42,042 --> 00:00:44,711 Woodstock '99 was coming to an end, 11 00:00:44,794 --> 00:00:48,840 and the press conference on Sunday morning is where it got most testy. 12 00:00:48,923 --> 00:00:51,634 John, where were you during Limp Bizkit's set? 13 00:00:51,718 --> 00:00:54,262 What sort of setup do you have for accountability? 14 00:00:54,345 --> 00:00:56,306 How many security guards do you have onsite? 15 00:00:56,931 --> 00:01:01,436 We had about 200,000 kids on that field last night, having a great time. 16 00:01:02,020 --> 00:01:05,023 John Scher was trying to paint this rosy picture 17 00:01:05,106 --> 00:01:06,608 of what was happening on the ground. 18 00:01:06,691 --> 00:01:10,987 When he went up there, he knew that he needed to control the narrative. 19 00:01:11,571 --> 00:01:13,073 We had some amazing music. 20 00:01:13,156 --> 00:01:16,284 You know, you've got knuckleheads, maybe 50 of them, causing the trouble. 21 00:01:17,285 --> 00:01:20,663 So let's try to focus on the overwhelming positiveness… 22 00:01:21,247 --> 00:01:24,834 But the press had now seen enough to know that things were going wrong. 23 00:01:24,918 --> 00:01:27,045 I saw everything that was going on. 24 00:01:27,128 --> 00:01:28,922 I had a bird's-eye view, and it was violent, 25 00:01:29,005 --> 00:01:30,757 it was dangerous, it was hostile, 26 00:01:30,840 --> 00:01:33,510 and there was a sea of kids causing trouble. 27 00:01:33,593 --> 00:01:35,428 There were people being mistreated. 28 00:01:35,512 --> 00:01:37,055 There were people getting maimed. 29 00:01:37,138 --> 00:01:39,766 They were glossing over all of that, 30 00:01:40,850 --> 00:01:43,311 and it was only going to get worse. 31 00:01:57,158 --> 00:02:00,078 Sunday, day three. Final day. 32 00:02:00,161 --> 00:02:01,621 Oh gosh. 33 00:02:04,833 --> 00:02:09,087 Walking back onto site was like waking up 34 00:02:10,380 --> 00:02:15,343 from a drunken night in bed with a total stranger who's unattractive. 35 00:02:15,426 --> 00:02:17,387 You're like, "What the hell have I just done?" 36 00:02:34,487 --> 00:02:37,448 I wanted Willie Nelson opening Sunday morning, 37 00:02:37,532 --> 00:02:39,951 almost as a religious experience. 38 00:02:40,785 --> 00:02:41,953 I was in heaven. 39 00:02:46,207 --> 00:02:47,041 Wrong house. 40 00:02:54,841 --> 00:02:56,926 People I encountered on Sunday 41 00:02:57,010 --> 00:03:00,638 just seemed exhausted and burned out. 42 00:03:00,722 --> 00:03:02,932 Let's just share in this moment with them. 43 00:03:05,310 --> 00:03:07,187 By Sunday, it was like a refugee camp. 44 00:03:07,270 --> 00:03:09,772 I mean, it looked like what you would see on the news, 45 00:03:10,398 --> 00:03:12,817 with just tent city, garbage, 46 00:03:12,901 --> 00:03:14,903 and it was disgusting. 47 00:03:14,986 --> 00:03:18,281 It smelled so bad, and there's, like, nowhere to wash off, 48 00:03:18,364 --> 00:03:20,200 because by that point, 49 00:03:20,283 --> 00:03:23,411 the shower station line was so freaking long. 50 00:03:23,494 --> 00:03:26,164 People just got mad enough, but they smashed the pipes. 51 00:03:27,457 --> 00:03:29,459 So, it was just, like, this river. 52 00:03:30,460 --> 00:03:32,545 A mix of the showers 53 00:03:32,629 --> 00:03:35,298 and nasty runoff from the porta-potties. 54 00:03:38,009 --> 00:03:39,719 Most people didn't realize 55 00:03:40,303 --> 00:03:41,638 it was shit mud. 56 00:03:43,306 --> 00:03:45,642 You wanna come to Woodstock? Get in the mud! 57 00:03:45,725 --> 00:03:47,185 Yeah! 58 00:03:49,437 --> 00:03:52,440 We were supposed to have places to refill our water bottles, 59 00:03:53,024 --> 00:03:58,446 but either the water was gross and running brown, or they were broken. 60 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:01,574 Turn on the water! 61 00:04:02,075 --> 00:04:04,661 So, all the water out of the faucets is-- Are not-- 62 00:04:04,744 --> 00:04:07,830 It's tinted. I wouldn't say it's brown. That's an exaggeration. But it's tinted. 63 00:04:09,832 --> 00:04:11,501 My job in the health department 64 00:04:11,584 --> 00:04:14,629 was making sure that our water supplies are safe for the public. 65 00:04:15,380 --> 00:04:17,882 As the event was going on, 66 00:04:17,966 --> 00:04:21,219 we went out and took samples of drinking water from around the site, 67 00:04:21,719 --> 00:04:23,429 that we submitted to the lab. 68 00:04:24,097 --> 00:04:26,307 Sunday morning, I went up to the lab. 69 00:04:26,891 --> 00:04:29,018 We opened up the door to the incubator. 70 00:04:29,519 --> 00:04:31,646 The smell nearly knocked you over. 71 00:04:32,772 --> 00:04:36,567 They looked at the samples, and most all of them were contaminated. 72 00:04:37,610 --> 00:04:40,697 Any free drinking water that had been available 73 00:04:40,780 --> 00:04:43,241 was soiled from feces. 74 00:04:45,201 --> 00:04:47,120 The thought that people are out there, 75 00:04:47,203 --> 00:04:50,957 drinking this, exposing themselves, bathing in this stuff… 76 00:04:52,208 --> 00:04:54,335 It was like the worst nightmare. 77 00:04:54,419 --> 00:04:58,715 Yeah! This is the life! Yeah! 78 00:04:58,798 --> 00:05:00,341 So I wake up Sunday morning. 79 00:05:00,425 --> 00:05:02,510 I have a very sore throat. 80 00:05:02,593 --> 00:05:04,554 Cold sores all over my lips. 81 00:05:04,637 --> 00:05:08,224 I had ulcers all over my tongue and my gums and in my mouth. 82 00:05:08,308 --> 00:05:11,978 And I can't eat. I can't drink. I can hardly talk. 83 00:05:13,563 --> 00:05:16,399 I found out that I had something called trench mouth, 84 00:05:16,482 --> 00:05:18,901 basically from drinking unsanitary water. 85 00:05:20,194 --> 00:05:22,989 This isn't what Woodstock was supposed to be. 86 00:05:23,072 --> 00:05:25,742 We thought it was gonna be this beautiful thing. 87 00:05:28,661 --> 00:05:32,457 We packed up our shit, and I think by, like,00 in the afternoon, 88 00:05:32,540 --> 00:05:33,624 we were out of there. 89 00:05:34,625 --> 00:05:36,336 There are a lot of people leaving. 90 00:05:36,919 --> 00:05:40,256 Everybody is tired, wore out, 91 00:05:41,257 --> 00:05:43,885 totally just incapacitated. 92 00:05:43,968 --> 00:05:46,387 Hey, Carson here, right outside Woodstock '99, 93 00:05:46,471 --> 00:05:48,264 and the concert's not quite over. 94 00:05:48,348 --> 00:05:50,516 And as you can see, there's a steady stream of cars, 95 00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:53,686 and people, and tow trucks making their way out of the concert. 96 00:05:53,770 --> 00:05:55,938 Where are you guys going? The show's not over yet. 97 00:05:56,022 --> 00:05:57,565 -We're leaving. -Why? 98 00:05:57,648 --> 00:05:59,525 -It stinks in there. -Too dirty. 99 00:05:59,609 --> 00:06:03,196 We're exhausted, man. The heat totally drove us to the ground. 100 00:06:15,583 --> 00:06:18,461 So, by Sunday, people were fed up. 101 00:06:18,544 --> 00:06:20,588 I don't think anybody had any money left over, 102 00:06:20,671 --> 00:06:23,800 and then the price gouging on top of that was ridiculous. 103 00:06:25,134 --> 00:06:26,719 A lot of the vendors were out of stock, 104 00:06:26,803 --> 00:06:31,057 so the few that seemed to be left could charge whatever they wanted. 105 00:06:31,557 --> 00:06:34,352 Everything's ridiculously overpriced, but you pay it everywhere. 106 00:06:34,435 --> 00:06:36,145 That's what you gotta do. But we're in stock. 107 00:06:36,229 --> 00:06:38,648 It went from four or five for a bottle of water to, 108 00:06:38,731 --> 00:06:42,318 I want to say, 12 bucks a bottle of water by the third day. 109 00:06:54,789 --> 00:06:56,666 There was just that negative energy 110 00:06:56,749 --> 00:06:59,293 that was really starting to run through the crowd on Sunday. 111 00:07:04,549 --> 00:07:07,927 The only thing anyone had a sense of optimism about 112 00:07:08,594 --> 00:07:11,889 was that there was a rumor that had been going around for a couple of days 113 00:07:11,973 --> 00:07:16,310 that there was gonna be some special end-of-Woodstock event. 114 00:07:18,396 --> 00:07:20,148 Have you confirmed the closing act? 115 00:07:21,732 --> 00:07:24,569 The Red Hot Chili Peppers are the last official act 116 00:07:24,652 --> 00:07:27,029 that are going to close on Sunday night. 117 00:07:27,113 --> 00:07:29,740 And we're still cooking up a little something for the end. 118 00:07:29,824 --> 00:07:31,742 It's gonna stay a surprise for the time being. 119 00:07:32,743 --> 00:07:33,995 That was the chatter, 120 00:07:34,078 --> 00:07:36,539 that somebody's coming on after the Chili Peppers. 121 00:07:36,622 --> 00:07:37,832 And I remember asking around, 122 00:07:37,915 --> 00:07:40,126 and the big rumor was that Prince was going to play. 123 00:07:40,209 --> 00:07:43,171 I heard Guns N' Roses was coming out of retirement, apparently. 124 00:07:44,338 --> 00:07:49,177 Even the staff in the office had theories about who was gonna turn up. 125 00:07:49,802 --> 00:07:51,637 One rumor was Bob Dylan. 126 00:07:51,721 --> 00:07:53,514 A rumor is Bob Dylan's coming? 127 00:07:53,598 --> 00:07:54,974 You know, the Grateful Dead. 128 00:07:55,057 --> 00:07:56,350 The Rolling Stones. 129 00:07:56,434 --> 00:07:59,145 We had heard rumblings of Michael Jackson. 130 00:07:59,228 --> 00:08:03,191 It was a good reason to kind of hang on 'til the bitter end. 131 00:08:11,157 --> 00:08:13,743 Sunday afternoon, the crowds-- 132 00:08:13,826 --> 00:08:15,203 They were pretty jumped up. 133 00:08:16,162 --> 00:08:18,706 So, we tried to stay reasonably mellow, 134 00:08:18,789 --> 00:08:21,792 and Jewel fit that slot just perfectly. 135 00:08:23,753 --> 00:08:25,838 Here we are at Woodstock, everyone. 136 00:08:28,674 --> 00:08:31,093 Being backstage, I was reading the crowd, 137 00:08:31,177 --> 00:08:34,138 trying to figure out what the set list might be like. 138 00:08:34,764 --> 00:08:35,932 This is 13 songs. 139 00:08:36,516 --> 00:08:40,645 Going, all right, what combination of things on Earth possibly can begin 140 00:08:40,728 --> 00:08:42,980 to attempt to try and get people to focus? 141 00:08:44,106 --> 00:08:45,691 They tell you about the mud? 142 00:08:45,775 --> 00:08:47,360 Everybody's been getting pelted. 143 00:08:48,069 --> 00:08:49,904 Sheryl Crow got totally pelted. 144 00:08:50,655 --> 00:08:53,991 -So, anyway, don't take it personally. -She always does. 145 00:08:54,075 --> 00:08:54,909 I know. 146 00:08:54,992 --> 00:08:59,163 Please welcome Atlantic recording artist, Jewel! 147 00:09:12,426 --> 00:09:15,054 We get back to the barricade, and I think by that point, 148 00:09:15,137 --> 00:09:17,473 I was close to, like, my breaking point, 149 00:09:18,057 --> 00:09:21,477 just looking for the moment we could get back on the bus and go back home. 150 00:09:23,437 --> 00:09:26,899 By the time Jewel came on, the tone had definitely changed. 151 00:09:29,819 --> 00:09:32,822 The environment was starting to really shift, 152 00:09:32,905 --> 00:09:34,490 and it was hard to put your finger on, 153 00:09:34,574 --> 00:09:37,577 but it felt like a crowd that could turn at any time. 154 00:09:37,660 --> 00:09:41,038 There was a real unpredictable, weird energy. 155 00:09:49,046 --> 00:09:51,132 Things are going south, and we need to get out of here. 156 00:09:51,215 --> 00:09:53,134 That was Jewel! 157 00:09:54,510 --> 00:09:55,720 Jewel! 158 00:09:57,680 --> 00:10:00,891 We just went straight to the bus right behind the stage. 159 00:10:01,767 --> 00:10:04,520 Keep stepping up, guys. Keep it moving. Come on. 160 00:10:05,855 --> 00:10:07,773 You need to give her some space. 161 00:10:10,484 --> 00:10:13,446 You know, you were just like, "Whoa," you know? "That was different." 162 00:10:15,406 --> 00:10:16,240 And we left. 163 00:10:18,451 --> 00:10:21,954 There was definitely a palpable sense of anger, 164 00:10:22,538 --> 00:10:28,169 and it wasn't just the overstimulated testosterone young males at this point. 165 00:10:28,252 --> 00:10:30,504 I think everybody was pissed off. 166 00:10:31,088 --> 00:10:33,341 The kids are getting agitated. 167 00:10:33,924 --> 00:10:39,180 They had about had it with the trash, with the heat, with the expenses, 168 00:10:39,263 --> 00:10:41,015 and they're gonna do something about it. 169 00:10:41,098 --> 00:10:43,184 Entrance to the gates of hell. 170 00:10:44,143 --> 00:10:48,189 In today's world, we would be tearing this festival apart 171 00:10:48,272 --> 00:10:51,692 on TikTok and Snapchat and Instagram, 172 00:10:51,776 --> 00:10:53,944 but that didn't exist back then. 173 00:10:54,028 --> 00:10:58,741 There was nothing else the kids could do besides turn on the staff and the venue. 174 00:11:04,580 --> 00:11:06,499 They're tearing the wall down, man. 175 00:11:07,833 --> 00:11:09,960 This is un-freaking-real! 176 00:11:11,629 --> 00:11:13,172 Tear down the wall! 177 00:11:17,134 --> 00:11:18,302 Tear it down! 178 00:11:18,844 --> 00:11:21,097 Tear it down! Bring it all down! 179 00:11:22,556 --> 00:11:24,642 Whoo-hoo! 180 00:11:24,725 --> 00:11:27,186 This is fucking history, folks! 181 00:11:27,269 --> 00:11:29,063 This is history. 182 00:11:29,146 --> 00:11:30,564 Whoo-hoo! 183 00:11:32,358 --> 00:11:33,776 They had had enough. 184 00:11:35,569 --> 00:11:36,862 The kids had had enough. 185 00:11:43,202 --> 00:11:45,329 You know, there were some naysayers out there, 186 00:11:45,413 --> 00:11:48,708 and they said that we couldn't handle the traffic, and we did. 187 00:11:49,458 --> 00:11:52,378 And they said that the security wouldn't work, and it did. 188 00:11:53,295 --> 00:11:55,923 And now some of them are saying we can't clean it up. 189 00:11:56,674 --> 00:11:57,717 And we will. 190 00:11:58,509 --> 00:12:02,138 Sunday night was a great press conference. Don't know if you can get the footage. 191 00:12:02,221 --> 00:12:06,350 This was fabulous. These kids are great. It's unbelievable. Perfect. 192 00:12:07,059 --> 00:12:11,313 We're happy. All is well. We haven't had any tough incidents. 193 00:12:11,897 --> 00:12:15,151 Yes, are you aware that parts of the wall has been torn down now? 194 00:12:16,318 --> 00:12:19,572 I think the exterior wall just makes an amazing souvenir, 195 00:12:19,655 --> 00:12:21,031 and people just couldn't resist it. 196 00:12:21,115 --> 00:12:23,117 They were breaking it up into small pieces, I guess, 197 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:24,785 just to have a piece of Woodstock. 198 00:12:24,869 --> 00:12:28,873 I saw what was going on. I had spoken to enough people. 199 00:12:29,457 --> 00:12:30,833 I knew that they were full of shit. 200 00:12:31,584 --> 00:12:36,213 Uh, there are, we estimate, anyway, about 150,000 people still on site 201 00:12:36,839 --> 00:12:39,175 um, that are having a good time. 202 00:12:39,258 --> 00:12:42,553 The mayor was there. They're slapping each other on the back. 203 00:12:44,180 --> 00:12:46,474 I was feeling phenomenal at that point. 204 00:12:46,557 --> 00:12:49,226 We were declaring a premature success. 205 00:12:49,310 --> 00:12:53,606 I think it's been a memorable, exciting concert for all those involved 206 00:12:53,689 --> 00:12:56,650 and all those who have covered it, and the community as a whole, so… 207 00:12:56,734 --> 00:13:02,406 And I remember one question said, "Well, how do you feel? You got it done." 208 00:13:02,490 --> 00:13:04,241 I said, "Not yet. We got three more hours." 209 00:13:05,159 --> 00:13:07,077 I'm so confident that things will go well. 210 00:13:07,161 --> 00:13:10,289 I'd like to, at this point in time, Michael, to extend an invitation 211 00:13:10,372 --> 00:13:11,791 to come back to our area again. 212 00:13:11,874 --> 00:13:14,001 We'd be more than happy to host you, 213 00:13:14,084 --> 00:13:17,463 and rock and roll in central New York. 214 00:13:17,546 --> 00:13:21,550 And all these, you know, officials just couldn't wait to invite us back. 215 00:13:21,634 --> 00:13:23,135 It was the most amazing event. 216 00:13:24,136 --> 00:13:26,263 Thanks, you guys have been great for the most part, 217 00:13:26,347 --> 00:13:27,848 and we really appreciate it. 218 00:13:27,932 --> 00:13:31,143 I walked out of there feeling just great. 219 00:13:36,774 --> 00:13:37,608 Party. 220 00:13:37,691 --> 00:13:39,693 Get a shot of this kid smoking some pot. 221 00:13:40,444 --> 00:13:43,364 Whoo! Woodstock '99, there's a storm coming. 222 00:13:49,495 --> 00:13:51,789 Michael and John are optimists. 223 00:13:51,872 --> 00:13:56,168 So, for them, it was kind of, it's all positive, it's all positive. 224 00:13:57,253 --> 00:14:03,592 But, you know, we were all on edge, because we'd seen the face of a disaster 225 00:14:03,676 --> 00:14:04,885 in the night before. 226 00:14:06,512 --> 00:14:08,430 But the show was gonna go on. 227 00:14:08,514 --> 00:14:12,351 So, we hoped for the best and that calmer heads would prevail. 228 00:14:20,359 --> 00:14:22,361 -The Chili Peppers are doing their thing. -Awesome. 229 00:14:22,444 --> 00:14:23,737 Wild and crazy. 230 00:14:23,821 --> 00:14:26,198 We're about to get out of here. The finish line is in sight. 231 00:14:26,282 --> 00:14:28,742 We just got to get through the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 232 00:14:38,627 --> 00:14:40,880 Flea is butt-ass naked, 233 00:14:41,463 --> 00:14:43,841 and if I remember correctly, 234 00:14:43,924 --> 00:14:47,052 very many people in the audience were also butt-ass naked. 235 00:14:55,895 --> 00:14:56,729 Chili Peppers? 236 00:14:58,147 --> 00:14:59,523 It was kind of a blur. 237 00:14:59,607 --> 00:15:02,026 It almost felt like you went to war by that point. 238 00:15:02,109 --> 00:15:04,486 It was like, "Oh man, we've been through the wringer." 239 00:15:10,117 --> 00:15:12,369 So, Sunday night, I'm in the production office. 240 00:15:13,203 --> 00:15:15,247 Red Hot Chili Peppers were still performing. 241 00:15:17,082 --> 00:15:20,002 We had gotten collectively probably four hours of sleep. 242 00:15:20,085 --> 00:15:21,420 So, we were exhausted. 243 00:15:22,338 --> 00:15:24,798 They're all just passed out. 244 00:15:26,091 --> 00:15:28,719 They've worked too hard for too long. 245 00:15:30,846 --> 00:15:34,642 I'm exhausted, and I'm in my office with all the radios. 246 00:15:35,142 --> 00:15:37,269 All of a sudden, I hear the producer's channel, 247 00:15:37,353 --> 00:15:39,855 and that's the channel with Michael Lang, John Scher. 248 00:15:39,939 --> 00:15:42,107 Everybody on stage, do you copy? 249 00:15:42,191 --> 00:15:45,486 And they were going to hand out 100,000 candles. 250 00:15:46,570 --> 00:15:47,529 Oh man. 251 00:15:49,448 --> 00:15:50,282 Wow. 252 00:15:50,824 --> 00:15:53,369 My boss and I looked at each other and just like… 253 00:15:54,036 --> 00:15:56,497 Yeah, Michael's the candle guy, all right? 254 00:15:56,580 --> 00:16:00,209 You know, Michael's the candle guy. I mean, I knew very little about it. 255 00:16:01,001 --> 00:16:03,754 So, we planned for this candlelight vigil 256 00:16:03,837 --> 00:16:06,840 to occur toward the end of the Chili Peppers' set. 257 00:16:07,633 --> 00:16:09,802 Columbine had just happened a few months before. 258 00:16:10,594 --> 00:16:14,098 The issue of gun violence was really starting to come to focus 259 00:16:14,181 --> 00:16:16,266 in American society. 260 00:16:16,850 --> 00:16:22,147 And there was this thought that anti-gun violence could be our cause. 261 00:16:23,482 --> 00:16:27,027 The idea was that we would light up the night at the end, 262 00:16:27,111 --> 00:16:29,989 the culmination of the festival, with these candles, 263 00:16:30,072 --> 00:16:32,616 and that that was going to be a big visual demonstration 264 00:16:32,700 --> 00:16:37,830 of this generation speaking out about gun violence. 265 00:16:39,581 --> 00:16:42,543 I knew nothing about plans for a candlelit vigil. 266 00:16:44,962 --> 00:16:47,131 Immediately I started screaming into the radio, 267 00:16:47,715 --> 00:16:50,009 "You can't do this. It's not approved by the fire marshal." 268 00:16:50,092 --> 00:16:51,844 I don't know what's going on… 269 00:16:51,927 --> 00:16:55,180 And John Scher just tells me to shut up and get off the channel. 270 00:16:55,973 --> 00:16:59,309 Villagers are calm. Everything's okay. Don't worry about us. 271 00:17:00,519 --> 00:17:06,233 The joke was, you had taken everybody's flammable items for days, 272 00:17:06,316 --> 00:17:08,235 and now you're gonna do the total opposite 273 00:17:08,318 --> 00:17:10,404 and ask people to light candles up. 274 00:17:17,619 --> 00:17:19,621 So I'm standing on the side of the stage. 275 00:17:19,705 --> 00:17:23,083 Like, Flea's naked butt is ten feet away from me, 276 00:17:23,167 --> 00:17:25,335 like, literally ten feet away from me. 277 00:17:25,919 --> 00:17:27,963 They started playing "Under the Bridge." 278 00:17:35,095 --> 00:17:36,472 Then all of a sudden, 279 00:17:36,972 --> 00:17:41,435 there's just a vast sea of candles. 280 00:17:55,657 --> 00:17:58,243 It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. 281 00:17:58,327 --> 00:18:02,081 The light spread through the whole crowd 282 00:18:02,164 --> 00:18:04,833 of hundreds of thousands of people. 283 00:18:14,343 --> 00:18:16,220 And it was very original Woodstock, 284 00:18:16,303 --> 00:18:18,097 because it was supposed to be a peaceful, 285 00:18:18,180 --> 00:18:21,391 you know, like, happy thing, bringing everybody together. 286 00:18:28,941 --> 00:18:30,484 Peace, baby. Peace. 287 00:18:34,863 --> 00:18:37,783 But that's not how it turned out. 288 00:18:41,662 --> 00:18:44,414 To give flames to an audience 289 00:18:44,498 --> 00:18:47,584 that is three days into being treated like animals… 290 00:18:49,128 --> 00:18:50,879 It was not a very smart decision. 291 00:18:56,260 --> 00:19:00,139 I saw off in the distance 292 00:19:00,681 --> 00:19:01,932 what looked like a fire. 293 00:19:08,522 --> 00:19:11,775 We turned to each other, and it's like, "Well, this isn't good." 294 00:19:13,527 --> 00:19:15,988 This is security at the East Stage. 295 00:19:16,071 --> 00:19:17,489 You better stop the concert. 296 00:19:17,990 --> 00:19:19,950 I'm on the side of the stage. 297 00:19:20,033 --> 00:19:21,285 I was very concerned. 298 00:19:22,369 --> 00:19:24,746 First of all, I was afraid somebody was gonna get hurt. 299 00:19:25,247 --> 00:19:28,584 Secondly, I knew this was gonna be, 300 00:19:29,209 --> 00:19:31,211 you know, a newsworthy issue. 301 00:19:32,963 --> 00:19:35,299 All right, welcome back to Fifteen-Fifteen Live. 302 00:19:35,382 --> 00:19:37,426 A fire has broken out by the main stage. 303 00:19:37,509 --> 00:19:41,388 The concert was stopped moments ago. Heaven knows what's happening here. 304 00:19:41,471 --> 00:19:44,224 This has been a festival of extremes all the way from day one. 305 00:19:46,226 --> 00:19:48,228 We need a fire truck out here fast. 306 00:19:48,854 --> 00:19:51,523 It was this main fire that was my concern. 307 00:19:52,649 --> 00:19:58,572 Things like that that go uncontrolled can lead to more chaos. 308 00:19:59,072 --> 00:20:01,658 -Calm down, we don't want any… -Whoo! 309 00:20:01,742 --> 00:20:04,119 We had a fire department on site. 310 00:20:04,953 --> 00:20:08,665 Michael hopped off the stage to go to the firehouse. 311 00:20:10,125 --> 00:20:12,544 I decided to go on stage. 312 00:20:12,628 --> 00:20:16,924 As you can see, it's not part of the show. It really is a problem. 313 00:20:17,966 --> 00:20:22,638 So the fire department's gonna have to come in with a fire truck 314 00:20:22,721 --> 00:20:26,266 to put the fire out. If everybody could cooperate… 315 00:20:26,350 --> 00:20:30,812 Michael radioed me and, you know, said they won't go out. They're scared. 316 00:20:31,521 --> 00:20:33,440 Get your ass back here. 317 00:20:33,523 --> 00:20:36,944 I couldn't believe that these guys were not willing to go out. 318 00:20:37,027 --> 00:20:38,612 I mean, I told them I'd go out with them. 319 00:20:39,363 --> 00:20:41,531 Basically tell them to go fuck themselves. 320 00:20:42,157 --> 00:20:43,492 You know? This is your job. 321 00:20:43,575 --> 00:20:45,327 There's a fire there. 322 00:20:45,410 --> 00:20:47,162 Go out there and put the fire out. 323 00:20:51,959 --> 00:20:55,170 I then have a conversation backstage with Anthony Kiedis. 324 00:20:56,088 --> 00:21:00,217 I said to him, "We need you to be helpful, to quell the crowd." 325 00:21:00,717 --> 00:21:03,553 But his response was, "They're not gonna listen to me." 326 00:21:03,637 --> 00:21:05,847 "I don't have anything I can say to add to this." 327 00:21:09,268 --> 00:21:12,771 Holy shit, it's Apocalypse Now out there. 328 00:21:14,856 --> 00:21:16,608 You wanna do it? You wanna do it? 329 00:21:17,109 --> 00:21:18,485 Fuck yeah! 330 00:21:18,568 --> 00:21:24,491 The first song he played on the encore was a tribute to Jimi Hendrix. 331 00:21:24,574 --> 00:21:25,701 "Fire." 332 00:21:38,714 --> 00:21:40,966 As the Chili Peppers are playing, 333 00:21:41,633 --> 00:21:45,220 you start to see more of these fires start to pop up. 334 00:21:52,019 --> 00:21:54,187 Then another one pops up, and then another one. 335 00:22:00,819 --> 00:22:02,571 Red Hot Chili Peppers! 336 00:22:04,948 --> 00:22:07,159 The Red Hot Chili Peppers finished their set, 337 00:22:07,242 --> 00:22:10,662 and everyone was anticipating, like, some type of special artist. 338 00:22:10,746 --> 00:22:14,583 We want more! We want more! We want more! 339 00:22:14,666 --> 00:22:16,710 Oh, we were, like, super excited. 340 00:22:23,675 --> 00:22:26,803 But, boom, the show is over. 341 00:22:27,763 --> 00:22:29,222 Hope you all had a great time. 342 00:22:29,306 --> 00:22:31,475 We sure did, and it was great having you with us. 343 00:22:31,975 --> 00:22:34,061 Be safe and careful going home. 344 00:22:35,228 --> 00:22:36,480 We'll see you again soon. 345 00:22:40,150 --> 00:22:46,365 So, you now have all these pent-up people with all this energy, and disappointed. 346 00:22:48,492 --> 00:22:51,870 The only thing that they did is they showed Jimi Hendrix 347 00:22:51,953 --> 00:22:53,538 up on the big video screens. 348 00:22:56,875 --> 00:23:03,465 I think that was like the final match on the gasoline pyre 349 00:23:03,548 --> 00:23:05,175 that just set everyone off. 350 00:23:13,392 --> 00:23:19,147 The crowd certainly took it as a signal to go and just burn down the place. 351 00:23:19,981 --> 00:23:22,025 Burn, motherfucker! 352 00:23:22,109 --> 00:23:23,068 Whoo! 353 00:23:24,403 --> 00:23:25,946 Just light it on fire! 354 00:23:26,905 --> 00:23:31,159 Anything they could get their hands on, they were throwing into the fire. 355 00:23:32,285 --> 00:23:34,496 More wood! More wood! 356 00:23:34,579 --> 00:23:39,584 It was scary, because I could see people becoming infected with this, like, 357 00:23:39,668 --> 00:23:41,920 angry mob mentality 358 00:23:42,003 --> 00:23:45,590 where people that would never do this in their normal everyday life, 359 00:23:45,674 --> 00:23:50,178 they just went with it and gave their all into mass destruction. 360 00:23:50,262 --> 00:23:53,265 And it just spread like wildfire. 361 00:23:55,183 --> 00:23:56,351 The sky turned orange. 362 00:23:57,102 --> 00:24:00,021 There was fires everywhere. Everywhere you look, there was fires. 363 00:24:01,565 --> 00:24:02,607 It was mayhem after that. 364 00:24:18,832 --> 00:24:21,543 -Hendrix plays while Rome burns. -Oh my God. 365 00:24:21,626 --> 00:24:24,796 I don't know if you can see behind us, the sky is kind of orange, lots of smoke. 366 00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,048 -Right. -It's crazy out there. 367 00:24:33,388 --> 00:24:34,848 It felt like panic. 368 00:24:34,931 --> 00:24:38,643 And I remember seeing PAs coming out of the production trailer 369 00:24:38,727 --> 00:24:42,481 and just throwing the monitors and the towers into a 15-passenger van. 370 00:24:43,064 --> 00:24:45,859 It kind of felt like the fall of Hanoi or something. 371 00:24:51,198 --> 00:24:53,408 -We are going to get out of here. -Yes. 372 00:24:53,492 --> 00:24:55,035 -I think we're going to go. -Time to go. 373 00:24:55,118 --> 00:24:56,161 It's getting pretty inten-- 374 00:24:56,244 --> 00:24:58,497 They were like, we're done, we're out. 375 00:24:58,580 --> 00:25:00,582 And they loaded us onto the bus. 376 00:25:01,082 --> 00:25:03,960 Everyone, now move. Let's go. 377 00:25:04,044 --> 00:25:05,295 Move out. 378 00:25:05,378 --> 00:25:07,547 There was more to be covered, but they were like, 379 00:25:07,631 --> 00:25:11,968 "We're not gonna risk your safety or anybody else's. We are outta here." 380 00:25:12,636 --> 00:25:15,555 Woodstock '99, goodbye, and maybe good riddance. 381 00:25:18,767 --> 00:25:22,229 We were on one of the roads that leave the festival site. 382 00:25:23,063 --> 00:25:24,689 Just go a little further! 383 00:25:24,773 --> 00:25:28,276 I was looking out the window, and we start to see as we're driving… 384 00:25:28,860 --> 00:25:30,487 Holy shit! 385 00:25:30,570 --> 00:25:33,573 -Dude, this is-- Oh my God! -You getting this on video? 386 00:25:33,657 --> 00:25:37,452 I'm like, shit, something's gonna happen here, and we need to get this. 387 00:25:37,536 --> 00:25:39,579 I was out of the car like Dukes of Hazzard. 388 00:25:41,581 --> 00:25:44,376 We're moving in. We got fires everywhere. Look at this! 389 00:25:44,459 --> 00:25:45,460 We're getting closer now. 390 00:25:46,378 --> 00:25:48,129 I started running towards the action. 391 00:25:48,213 --> 00:25:50,715 Everybody else is coming out. We're trying to get back in. 392 00:25:50,799 --> 00:25:52,717 I didn't know what was gonna transpire. 393 00:25:54,135 --> 00:25:55,011 Yo, get this. 394 00:25:57,472 --> 00:25:59,516 Things are just getting out of control! 395 00:26:00,100 --> 00:26:01,434 What the hell happened? 396 00:26:06,064 --> 00:26:09,568 This is just fucking, I don't know, Lord of the Flies, man, I guess. 397 00:26:20,161 --> 00:26:21,955 People pushing the tower. 398 00:26:24,374 --> 00:26:28,545 It is very clear that they're trying to tear down this tower. 399 00:26:29,254 --> 00:26:31,339 I think the tower is about to fall. 400 00:26:33,717 --> 00:26:35,594 You can start hearing it creak. 401 00:26:38,430 --> 00:26:40,765 Be advised the tower's gonna go down. 402 00:26:41,766 --> 00:26:42,601 No! 403 00:26:43,602 --> 00:26:44,603 Oh my God! 404 00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:55,530 There were people hanging from the speaker towers. 405 00:26:55,614 --> 00:26:57,490 It was like Planet of the Apes. 406 00:27:02,746 --> 00:27:04,664 Once you become part of a herd, 407 00:27:05,498 --> 00:27:07,042 you become like animals. 408 00:27:10,337 --> 00:27:11,963 And all of these people 409 00:27:13,006 --> 00:27:16,426 were acting like animals. 410 00:27:22,474 --> 00:27:26,645 They're all about making money off us, and we're pissed. 411 00:27:26,728 --> 00:27:28,980 You can't stop fucking a riot in the '90s. 412 00:27:31,149 --> 00:27:33,234 Get the helicopter out of here. 413 00:27:33,318 --> 00:27:34,861 You're causing a riot. 414 00:27:35,779 --> 00:27:39,532 We were monitoring from the air traffic control tower. 415 00:27:41,034 --> 00:27:42,410 Pull your people out of there. 416 00:27:42,911 --> 00:27:46,831 Well, you have to secure the area before we send medical personnel in. 417 00:27:48,750 --> 00:27:50,835 At this point, it was an emergency. 418 00:27:50,919 --> 00:27:55,799 I expected deaths, people trampled, or assaulted and killed. 419 00:27:56,925 --> 00:27:58,093 Lives were at stake. 420 00:28:00,136 --> 00:28:01,846 I need some backup. 421 00:28:01,930 --> 00:28:03,848 I'm being hit with shit up here! 422 00:28:03,932 --> 00:28:05,433 Get over here! 423 00:28:08,603 --> 00:28:10,522 So we started getting calls over the radio 424 00:28:10,605 --> 00:28:13,983 from the production office saying, "Be prepared for the worst." 425 00:28:14,067 --> 00:28:16,194 Um, "Get ready to batten down the hatches." 426 00:28:18,321 --> 00:28:22,575 This unruly mob of kids got bored with dancing around the bonfires 427 00:28:22,659 --> 00:28:24,035 in front of the East Stage 428 00:28:24,577 --> 00:28:28,248 and decided to extend their carnage and rage 429 00:28:28,331 --> 00:28:30,041 to the rest of the festival grounds, 430 00:28:30,542 --> 00:28:34,337 which unfortunately put our vendor village right in their path. 431 00:28:35,130 --> 00:28:37,132 We're gonna stay here, stay for sure. 432 00:28:37,215 --> 00:28:40,844 So as we started hearing more and more frantic calls over the radios, 433 00:28:40,927 --> 00:28:45,598 my team and I went around to the two big vendor tents. 434 00:28:47,559 --> 00:28:51,020 Some of them had 60, $70,000 worth of cash on them. 435 00:28:51,896 --> 00:28:53,231 How you guys doing? 436 00:28:53,314 --> 00:28:55,150 -You all right over here? -Yeah. 437 00:28:56,276 --> 00:28:58,403 We told all the vendors to shut out their lights 438 00:28:58,486 --> 00:29:01,573 and pull down their tent flaps in front of their stalls, 439 00:29:01,656 --> 00:29:05,160 and just to lay low, that we were shutting down the vendor village. 440 00:29:09,831 --> 00:29:12,208 Of course, trying to do this as calmly as possible 441 00:29:12,292 --> 00:29:16,963 to not spread any sense of panic or fear, whereas inside, I was crapping myself. 442 00:29:23,219 --> 00:29:26,890 We started hearing sort of a chanting noise, 443 00:29:27,390 --> 00:29:31,811 and it looked like a black cloud was rolling down the tarmac towards us. 444 00:29:34,063 --> 00:29:35,815 It was a giant mob. 445 00:29:35,899 --> 00:29:37,901 They were singing Rage Against the Machine. 446 00:29:37,984 --> 00:29:39,903 "Fuck you. I won't do what you tell me." 447 00:29:39,986 --> 00:29:41,863 "Fuck you. I won't do what you tell me!" 448 00:29:48,870 --> 00:29:49,746 Holy shit! 449 00:29:53,041 --> 00:29:54,959 Free! Free! 450 00:29:55,460 --> 00:30:01,508 At this point, it's kind of like anarchy, and chaos, and mob mentality. 451 00:30:06,805 --> 00:30:09,390 People are just grabbing these boxes of CDs. 452 00:30:13,728 --> 00:30:17,065 Obviously, I'm gonna go in there. Like, everyone else is doing it. 453 00:30:21,027 --> 00:30:25,573 In the middle of our vendor tents, we had a bank of six ATM machines. 454 00:30:26,491 --> 00:30:30,703 Somebody in the crowd spotted it, and it was like a record scratch. 455 00:30:30,787 --> 00:30:35,583 Someone screamed out, "ATMs!" And immediately, the whole crowd charged. 456 00:30:39,671 --> 00:30:41,047 Money! 457 00:30:41,673 --> 00:30:44,592 Hold on. Now they're tearing the ATMs apart. 458 00:30:45,885 --> 00:30:47,512 Oh my God! 459 00:30:51,724 --> 00:30:55,103 At that point, anything that was Woodstock-related 460 00:30:55,645 --> 00:30:58,857 was on these people's destroy list. 461 00:31:00,942 --> 00:31:03,403 Okay, I got through. I'm on my way over to you. 462 00:31:05,321 --> 00:31:08,825 Pretty much anyone who had a laminate or anyone we knew was showing up, 463 00:31:08,908 --> 00:31:10,410 and wanting to hide in the office. 464 00:31:14,497 --> 00:31:18,042 My four radios were just going off like crazy. 465 00:31:22,046 --> 00:31:25,508 One of the guys that worked in our office just got to the main doors 466 00:31:25,592 --> 00:31:27,427 and just started barricading them. 467 00:31:29,304 --> 00:31:31,890 Everyone's wondering, "How the fuck is this going to end?" 468 00:31:38,229 --> 00:31:41,024 I remember hearing like an explosion. 469 00:31:43,693 --> 00:31:46,070 Several trailers are on fire down there. 470 00:31:46,821 --> 00:31:48,489 We saw there were trailers on fire. 471 00:31:48,573 --> 00:31:51,451 So we were like, "We gotta get that." So we're running over. 472 00:31:55,705 --> 00:31:58,124 There was a row of trucks, and each truck had a gas tank 473 00:31:58,207 --> 00:31:59,626 or a propane tank as part of it. 474 00:32:00,793 --> 00:32:03,296 This thing blows, it's gonna hurt a lot of people. 475 00:32:04,172 --> 00:32:06,341 We're, like, front and center. I'm like, this is it. 476 00:32:07,592 --> 00:32:08,593 And then all of a sudden… 477 00:32:11,179 --> 00:32:12,639 …holy shit. 478 00:32:14,098 --> 00:32:15,308 Boom, went like, whoa! 479 00:32:17,143 --> 00:32:18,019 Boom! 480 00:32:19,270 --> 00:32:22,857 It was like a bomb going off in the middle of the festival grounds, 481 00:32:23,441 --> 00:32:24,984 and another bomb goes off. 482 00:32:29,822 --> 00:32:32,992 Fuck. This is not good. 483 00:32:33,076 --> 00:32:36,454 We definitely made a lot of noise, motherfuckers! 484 00:32:36,537 --> 00:32:39,123 Let's get a head count and get the hell out of here. 485 00:32:39,207 --> 00:32:40,333 This ain't worth this shit. 486 00:32:41,084 --> 00:32:43,836 It was like the walls of Jericho had fallen, right? 487 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,798 That was the moment where we said, "Okay, we need to get out." 488 00:32:49,968 --> 00:32:51,511 I just hear an explosion. 489 00:32:56,975 --> 00:33:00,395 And people just running. Running, like, for real this time. 490 00:33:01,187 --> 00:33:05,483 Next thing I know, boom, get billy-clubbed right in the stomach, 491 00:33:05,984 --> 00:33:08,653 and I look up, and it's a dude with a mask on. 492 00:33:09,529 --> 00:33:10,446 Move it! 493 00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:13,700 Go back. Here we go. We're here. 494 00:33:14,367 --> 00:33:16,327 Guys, the state troopers have come. 495 00:33:16,411 --> 00:33:18,871 Pull out. Let the state troopers handle it. 496 00:33:19,497 --> 00:33:21,624 I mean, they were like storm troopers in a row 497 00:33:21,708 --> 00:33:23,751 with the big giant batons and the shields. 498 00:33:23,835 --> 00:33:25,044 I'm like, "Oh shit." 499 00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,386 The state troopers are wrapping stuff up. 500 00:33:33,469 --> 00:33:35,972 Let's regroup and get the hell out of here. 501 00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:40,768 Michael was… 502 00:33:42,353 --> 00:33:44,522 never going to show his alarm. 503 00:33:45,064 --> 00:33:47,859 Um, I'm sure he was very alarmed at what was going on. 504 00:33:49,527 --> 00:33:53,156 I just followed him out, and I imagine he was going to check 505 00:33:53,239 --> 00:33:55,450 on what was going on with the National Guard. 506 00:33:56,743 --> 00:33:59,620 I went out into the middle of it, to get a feel for it. 507 00:34:00,496 --> 00:34:04,959 I thought it was a terrible ending for a decent weekend. 508 00:34:05,543 --> 00:34:06,836 And I thought… 509 00:34:08,921 --> 00:34:10,548 this is gonna be a huge cleanup. 510 00:34:13,259 --> 00:34:15,428 So, he walked into our vendor village, 511 00:34:15,511 --> 00:34:18,931 and I hadn't seen him at all in the weeks that we'd been up there. 512 00:34:19,474 --> 00:34:22,185 And I'm thinking, "Oh my God. You're Michael Lang. I'm Colin Speir, 513 00:34:22,268 --> 00:34:25,063 and this is-- You know, I've always wanted to meet you." 514 00:34:26,898 --> 00:34:30,109 But he just walked around the remains, and that was it. 515 00:34:30,193 --> 00:34:34,947 He didn't address us, you know, much at all about, like, "You guys okay?" 516 00:34:35,990 --> 00:34:38,493 It didn't really seem like he gave that much of a shit. 517 00:34:39,994 --> 00:34:41,996 It was disappointing that it ended that way. 518 00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:43,831 Um, very. 519 00:34:44,415 --> 00:34:46,459 But that's what it was, you go on. 520 00:34:48,336 --> 00:34:53,925 It was just… It was kind of sad. It really felt like this is it. 521 00:34:54,008 --> 00:34:57,929 Like, there is never gonna be another Woodstock after this. 522 00:34:58,638 --> 00:35:00,098 Michael. Michael. 523 00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:03,726 Pilar, go away. 524 00:35:06,062 --> 00:35:08,773 It's the most peaceful way to deal with it. 525 00:35:09,398 --> 00:35:10,233 It's great. 526 00:35:10,858 --> 00:35:12,485 I think that was kind of like… 527 00:35:13,027 --> 00:35:13,861 Yeah, that was… 528 00:35:14,695 --> 00:35:15,780 that was the end. 529 00:35:27,458 --> 00:35:28,918 30 in the morning. 530 00:35:29,418 --> 00:35:34,173 Pilar goes, "Mom, Mom, you gotta see this." 531 00:35:34,257 --> 00:35:37,301 And we get in her car, and we drive around. 532 00:35:37,927 --> 00:35:39,345 Oh my Lord. 533 00:35:45,101 --> 00:35:46,727 It looked like a war zone. 534 00:35:46,811 --> 00:35:49,897 Trash and smoking fires everywhere. 535 00:35:56,487 --> 00:36:00,950 And we come upon the 12 semi tractor-trailers, 536 00:36:01,033 --> 00:36:06,789 and I said, "Pilar that was Woodstock '99 537 00:36:06,873 --> 00:36:09,208 burnt to the ground." 538 00:36:18,301 --> 00:36:22,430 Here we have Duke Devlin, who's been with the festival since '69. 539 00:36:23,097 --> 00:36:24,390 How are you doing this morning? 540 00:36:25,933 --> 00:36:28,394 There was ugliness involved in a lot of stuff here. 541 00:36:29,937 --> 00:36:33,232 And when this is all over and done with, I think Woodstock is done. 542 00:36:34,984 --> 00:36:38,696 It's just sad, that's all. I can't say too much. 543 00:36:40,907 --> 00:36:44,410 Monday morning, shit was blown up everywhere. 544 00:36:44,994 --> 00:36:47,079 So, there was news camera crews. 545 00:36:47,872 --> 00:36:50,124 And because there were no cell phones, 546 00:36:50,208 --> 00:36:53,920 we knew our parents would be bugging out because they had seen shit went down. 547 00:36:54,003 --> 00:36:56,255 There was riots, and it was nuts. 548 00:36:56,839 --> 00:37:00,760 We saw a lot of people blowing stuff up, and bonfires. 549 00:37:00,843 --> 00:37:04,347 People jumping over bonfires and throwing stuff. 550 00:37:04,430 --> 00:37:06,557 And it was wild. It was… 551 00:37:06,641 --> 00:37:07,975 A lot of crazy people. 552 00:37:08,476 --> 00:37:11,020 If there's another Woodstock, would you come again? 553 00:37:11,103 --> 00:37:13,397 Oh yeah, definitely. For sure. 554 00:37:14,482 --> 00:37:15,942 No questions asked. 555 00:37:16,025 --> 00:37:20,613 It sounds ridiculous, but although I had kind of a scary experience, 556 00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:22,615 it was a blast. 557 00:37:23,699 --> 00:37:28,079 I saw the bands that, I mean, I loved. 558 00:37:28,162 --> 00:37:31,958 It was an experience of a lifetime. 559 00:37:33,459 --> 00:37:39,548 It was the best time I've ever had, and 22 years later, 560 00:37:39,632 --> 00:37:42,426 it's still probably the best time I've ever had. 561 00:37:43,761 --> 00:37:45,805 There were no rules. 562 00:37:45,888 --> 00:37:48,766 I could just kind of do whatever I want. 563 00:37:48,849 --> 00:37:52,144 You know, complete anarchy, it felt like. 564 00:37:52,228 --> 00:37:55,648 I had the time of my life, you know, at that moment is like, wow, that's like, 565 00:37:56,482 --> 00:37:59,735 I'm glad I got to experience that. What a story, what a ride. 566 00:38:02,196 --> 00:38:06,325 It was complete freedom with no responsibility, 567 00:38:07,243 --> 00:38:09,745 and that felt like a dangerous combination. 568 00:38:10,621 --> 00:38:13,374 I think we were all pretty much expecting just to wrap our stuff up, 569 00:38:13,457 --> 00:38:16,544 feed whoever we had to feed, write the stories we had to write, 570 00:38:17,044 --> 00:38:19,797 and, uh, then this happened. 571 00:38:23,592 --> 00:38:29,265 The entire planet now knew that it became a total and complete shit show. 572 00:38:29,765 --> 00:38:31,851 The images were everywhere. 573 00:38:31,934 --> 00:38:35,479 Woodstock '99, a weekend of rock and roll in Upstate New York… 574 00:38:35,563 --> 00:38:39,317 …turned sour last night. Fans attacked tents, concert equipment, 575 00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:40,484 and food trailers… 576 00:38:40,568 --> 00:38:43,821 Woodstock '99, hidden in a cloud of smoke… 577 00:38:43,904 --> 00:38:47,074 Vending stalls were looted and light towers toppled. 578 00:38:47,158 --> 00:38:50,703 …as the celebration of rock and roll turned into a riot. 579 00:38:55,708 --> 00:38:57,501 We went into the office the next day 580 00:38:57,585 --> 00:39:00,004 and, yeah, we had all these non-disclosure agreements 581 00:39:00,087 --> 00:39:02,882 that we had to sign, nobody was allowed to speak to the media after that. 582 00:39:04,925 --> 00:39:08,512 "Okay, what started out as peace, love, and music festival ended in a riot 583 00:39:08,596 --> 00:39:09,764 at Woodstock '99." 584 00:39:10,931 --> 00:39:14,477 What is anybody going to tell you that's worse than what people saw? 585 00:39:16,062 --> 00:39:20,316 Everybody had their own theories as to what happened and why. 586 00:39:20,816 --> 00:39:23,444 Rumors were circulating like wildfire. 587 00:39:26,489 --> 00:39:28,908 I often wonder, did the producers 588 00:39:29,825 --> 00:39:34,663 get all the way until Sunday and say, 589 00:39:35,373 --> 00:39:38,667 "All we've really had here is a big, 590 00:39:40,044 --> 00:39:42,630 fairly well-controlled rock festival." 591 00:39:42,713 --> 00:39:44,423 "We didn't have a Woodstock." 592 00:39:45,049 --> 00:39:48,427 And then all of a sudden, these things happen Sunday night 593 00:39:48,511 --> 00:39:51,514 to make it a Woodstock pandemonium, 594 00:39:52,181 --> 00:39:56,018 possibly to enhance sales of the merchandising 595 00:39:56,102 --> 00:39:57,853 that goes on after the event. 596 00:40:00,231 --> 00:40:03,984 That's absurd. It's absurd, I mean, uh… 597 00:40:05,236 --> 00:40:07,405 It's just not true, you know? 598 00:40:10,908 --> 00:40:14,078 In the interest of keeping this press conference in this millennium… 599 00:40:14,161 --> 00:40:17,123 On Monday morning, they called the final press conference. 600 00:40:17,206 --> 00:40:18,874 …our promoter Michael Lang. 601 00:40:20,751 --> 00:40:21,585 Hi. 602 00:40:22,253 --> 00:40:24,922 There was not supposed to be a press conference Monday morning. 603 00:40:25,005 --> 00:40:25,840 Obviously. 604 00:40:26,966 --> 00:40:29,176 The stakes couldn't have been higher. 605 00:40:30,761 --> 00:40:34,932 The Woodstock brand was in serious trouble. 606 00:40:35,766 --> 00:40:38,602 I was out in it 'til30 this morning. 607 00:40:39,770 --> 00:40:41,981 I saw a very small group of people. 608 00:40:42,523 --> 00:40:46,068 They went from place to place, setting fires, inciting people. 609 00:40:46,152 --> 00:40:50,406 But I certainly would not condemn this crowd for the fuck-up 610 00:40:50,489 --> 00:40:53,075 of, excuse the language, of a few assholes. 611 00:40:55,578 --> 00:40:58,914 Essentially, they took zero responsibility. 612 00:40:59,415 --> 00:41:02,376 Their take was that this was just a few bad apples. 613 00:41:05,337 --> 00:41:11,385 Anybody with eyes, who saw the footage, knows that there were thousands of kids 614 00:41:11,469 --> 00:41:16,307 looting, rioting, doing property damage, setting fires. 615 00:41:16,891 --> 00:41:18,350 Rome burned. 616 00:41:21,604 --> 00:41:24,148 But the real issue wasn't who was rioting, right? 617 00:41:24,648 --> 00:41:27,193 The question was, why were they rioting? 618 00:41:29,737 --> 00:41:32,323 I think it's just a cultural thing. There are some anarchists 619 00:41:32,406 --> 00:41:35,075 among us always, and some are a little bit more strident than others, 620 00:41:35,159 --> 00:41:38,913 and we just have to get some of the more strident ones. 621 00:41:39,997 --> 00:41:44,251 I don't think it was about issues. I think it was just about energy. 622 00:41:44,877 --> 00:41:48,797 They were so amped up from the weekend that they just weren't ready to stop. 623 00:41:50,341 --> 00:41:52,885 You know, they wanted more of anything, 624 00:41:52,968 --> 00:41:54,845 more of the experience. 625 00:41:54,929 --> 00:41:58,349 And I think it was that, they weren't ready to put it to bed. 626 00:42:00,392 --> 00:42:01,769 They're the lunatic fringe. 627 00:42:02,269 --> 00:42:06,565 That segment of the population was both entitled 628 00:42:07,858 --> 00:42:11,320 and, uh, fearful of growing up, 629 00:42:12,029 --> 00:42:13,280 of having to have a real job 630 00:42:13,364 --> 00:42:16,617 and, you know, have a family and stuff like that. 631 00:42:17,451 --> 00:42:20,246 And they had lots of angst. Lots and lots of angst. 632 00:42:20,913 --> 00:42:22,831 Get out! 633 00:42:23,791 --> 00:42:26,669 What do you sum up went wrong with this festival? 634 00:42:27,336 --> 00:42:28,963 I can say it in one word: greed. 635 00:42:31,549 --> 00:42:34,969 The user experience 636 00:42:35,803 --> 00:42:37,680 was totally thrown out the window. 637 00:42:37,763 --> 00:42:41,141 I mean, these kids were taken advantage of. 638 00:42:42,810 --> 00:42:46,188 They treated people like dogs once they got their money. Dogs. 639 00:42:47,648 --> 00:42:52,611 The riots were the culmination of everybody being angry over the prices, 640 00:42:52,695 --> 00:42:57,616 and it was hot, and we smelled, and we were tired and hungover. 641 00:42:58,951 --> 00:43:01,412 And I think that people had had enough, 642 00:43:02,246 --> 00:43:06,917 and they gave in to, you know, their worse nature. 643 00:43:10,838 --> 00:43:14,133 That press conference just left a bad taste in my mouth 644 00:43:14,216 --> 00:43:15,926 and everybody else who was there too. 645 00:43:17,177 --> 00:43:19,972 Saying goodbye to Woodstock '99. 646 00:43:20,931 --> 00:43:22,850 Good riddance, you piece of shit. 647 00:43:25,185 --> 00:43:27,646 But then things got even worse. 648 00:43:33,652 --> 00:43:37,406 So, after the festival, um, 649 00:43:37,906 --> 00:43:41,243 when I got back into the office, I started getting phone calls. 650 00:43:41,327 --> 00:43:43,329 It was a hysterical mother 651 00:43:45,247 --> 00:43:47,625 talking about how her daughter had been raped. 652 00:43:54,131 --> 00:43:56,925 New York State Police are reportedly investigating allegations 653 00:43:57,009 --> 00:43:58,552 that four women were raped 654 00:43:58,636 --> 00:44:00,929 at last weekend's Woodstock Music Festival. 655 00:44:01,013 --> 00:44:03,015 The Washington Post reports today that detectives 656 00:44:03,098 --> 00:44:05,059 are looking into the rape reports, 657 00:44:05,142 --> 00:44:06,810 and that crisis intervention workers 658 00:44:06,894 --> 00:44:09,271 say they witnessed many more sexual assaults, 659 00:44:09,355 --> 00:44:11,106 some right in front of the stage. 660 00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:17,780 In the aftermath, all the stories that I've heard 661 00:44:17,863 --> 00:44:20,741 of women being molested, even raped. 662 00:44:21,867 --> 00:44:25,537 Given the climate of the guys there, I'm not surprised by it. 663 00:44:27,498 --> 00:44:30,167 You know, it's like this pervasive entitlement. 664 00:44:30,250 --> 00:44:32,795 We see that with race, we see that with sexism, 665 00:44:32,878 --> 00:44:34,088 we see that with classism. 666 00:44:34,171 --> 00:44:36,006 It's that idea that I'm better than you, 667 00:44:36,090 --> 00:44:38,676 so I can subject you to anything, and you gotta take it. 668 00:44:41,095 --> 00:44:44,098 Back then, you were supposed to just deal with what you had to deal with 669 00:44:44,181 --> 00:44:45,099 and suck it up. 670 00:44:48,435 --> 00:44:52,231 So, I didn't hear about any of the allegations for rape, um… 671 00:44:53,273 --> 00:44:57,194 or attacks on women until after the festival was over. 672 00:44:57,277 --> 00:45:00,989 And the way women were treated was really horrible. 673 00:45:01,073 --> 00:45:06,078 I thought, um, we were responsible for everybody on site. 674 00:45:06,787 --> 00:45:11,166 And so, we bear responsibility for, you know, what happened to the women. 675 00:45:11,250 --> 00:45:12,793 But, you know, 676 00:45:12,876 --> 00:45:13,961 it happened in secret. 677 00:45:14,044 --> 00:45:16,547 It happened in tents and… 678 00:45:16,630 --> 00:45:19,258 Somebody said it happened in the mosh pit. I can't even imagine that. 679 00:45:21,385 --> 00:45:25,556 Woodstock was actually like a small city, you know? 680 00:45:26,432 --> 00:45:31,270 All things considered, I'd say that there would probably be 681 00:45:31,353 --> 00:45:35,649 as many or more rapes in any sized city of that. 682 00:45:35,733 --> 00:45:38,318 I'm not condoning it. It was wrong. It was horrible. 683 00:45:38,402 --> 00:45:41,697 I wish we caught everybody. I'd put 'em all in jail. 684 00:45:41,780 --> 00:45:42,614 Um… 685 00:45:42,698 --> 00:45:47,077 But considering there were 200,000 people there, um… 686 00:45:49,872 --> 00:45:53,417 …it wasn't something that gained enough momentum 687 00:45:53,500 --> 00:45:58,422 so that it caused any on-site issues, 688 00:45:58,964 --> 00:46:01,467 other than, of course, to the women it happened to. 689 00:46:03,635 --> 00:46:04,845 That's bullshit. 690 00:46:05,971 --> 00:46:11,393 Woodstock '99 did not have enough proper security. 691 00:46:12,311 --> 00:46:13,854 They tried to cheap out on it. 692 00:46:16,398 --> 00:46:19,651 As a promoter, if you're going to put on an event, 693 00:46:19,735 --> 00:46:22,696 your first responsibility is the safety of the crowd. 694 00:46:22,780 --> 00:46:25,157 But they were completely unprepared. 695 00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,077 It was like, let's just get a quarter-million people together, 696 00:46:29,161 --> 00:46:30,579 and let's see what happens. 697 00:46:33,332 --> 00:46:36,752 For anyone to get hurt, there's no excuse for that. 698 00:46:38,170 --> 00:46:42,257 Girls should be able to fucking have fun, just like a guy. 699 00:46:47,179 --> 00:46:52,184 Movements like "Me Too" really evolved as a direct response 700 00:46:52,267 --> 00:46:56,814 to the kind of horrible behaviors we saw at Woodstock '99. 701 00:46:58,774 --> 00:47:01,693 You know, a lot of people complain about woke culture, 702 00:47:01,777 --> 00:47:03,529 but looking back, 703 00:47:03,612 --> 00:47:07,366 I'm glad that we don't accept what happened anymore. 704 00:47:09,076 --> 00:47:11,328 In '99, we were the kids. 705 00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,623 But we're the adults now. We're the parents now. 706 00:47:15,707 --> 00:47:19,211 I'm glad that my daughters will never have to walk around 707 00:47:19,294 --> 00:47:20,128 and see that 708 00:47:20,212 --> 00:47:22,506 and think that it's just the way it is. 709 00:47:24,132 --> 00:47:26,426 It's like we learned who we don't want to be. 710 00:47:27,010 --> 00:47:33,225 And we've put in place boundaries and things that will prevent us 711 00:47:33,308 --> 00:47:36,186 from devolving back into that madness. 712 00:47:45,404 --> 00:47:48,323 The way Woodstock '99 sort of sits in my memory 713 00:47:49,324 --> 00:47:50,826 is a lost opportunity. 714 00:47:51,952 --> 00:47:53,328 I think in the '90s, 715 00:47:54,079 --> 00:47:57,499 kids were in a different headspace. 716 00:47:58,959 --> 00:48:00,335 They were there for the music. 717 00:48:01,128 --> 00:48:05,132 I don't think they were able to embrace the social issues of the day. 718 00:48:06,049 --> 00:48:08,886 And there was an element that just was, you know. 719 00:48:10,721 --> 00:48:12,431 There were assholes in the crowd. 720 00:48:13,098 --> 00:48:15,350 You can't vet the people that buy your tickets. 721 00:48:16,101 --> 00:48:17,019 You just can't. 722 00:48:21,523 --> 00:48:23,066 Woodstock will never go away. 723 00:48:23,942 --> 00:48:28,906 Woodstock '69 was its own thing and its own kind of magic. Um… 724 00:48:30,282 --> 00:48:32,075 Did '99 damage that? 725 00:48:32,576 --> 00:48:33,410 Maybe a bit. 726 00:48:43,879 --> 00:48:44,755 Okay. 727 00:48:45,547 --> 00:48:46,423 Thank you.