The Sun
WOODSTOCK 99 was meant to honour the spirit of the iconic Sixties hippy festival of peace and love – but now it is best remembered for the weekend’s descent into catastrophic carnage.
Two people died, there was sexual violence including a mosh pit gang rape, rioters torched parts of the festival site – and oblivious fans ended up caked with human poo in baking 38C temperatures.
The infamous and disastrous weekend is chronicled in new documentary ‘Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage’ – which is being premiered today on HBO.
It tells the story of how a festival that began with such high expectations managed to go so spectacularly wrong – arguably even worse than the equally infamous Fyre Festival in 2017.
And it comes as UK festival goers return to the first events in two years as Latitude kick off this weekend with 40,000 fans.
Director Garret Price said he wanted to encapsulate the full horror of Woodstock ’99.
“In telling the story of Woodstock ’99, it would have been really easy to structure this as a comedy, poking fun at all things late 1990s — the way people dressed, the music they listened to,” he said.
“But in reality, as that weekend unfolded, it played out much more like a horror film.”
Incredible photos from the event show the utter carnage as riot cops moved in as fires burned into the night, looters ransacked trucks and festival goers stood caked in mud.
Within the first 24 hours, you had kids rolling around in what they thought was mud, but was really human waste
Witness
The event was held on a disused air force base – so music lovers were left standing on baking concrete as they attempted to enjoy bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica.
And one of the most horrific incidents of the weekend was a report that a woman was gang raped in a mosh pit during a performance by Limp Bizkit.
RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis compared the scenes to 1979 war film Apocalypse Now, and MTV host Kurt Loder – who reported on the event live – described it as like a “concentration camp”.
Water and food were described as expensive on site, the festival was isolated from nearby amenities, the East and West stages were 2.3 miles apart, and campers ended up pitching their tents on concrete.
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