Woodstock 99 was a shameful disaster. Promoters brought 200,000 young rock fans to a former Air Force base in Rome, New York, but failed to provide them with nearly enough toilets or free water. It was held on a scorching hot weekend in late July with temperatures above 100 degrees, and there was little shade. Bottled water was $4. Some sort of violent eruption was practically inevitable.
This was the height of the nu metal movement, and Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Korn and Rage Against the Machine were all on the bill along with Insane Clown Posse, Creed, DMX and many others stars of the day. The only returning acts from the original 1969 festival were Who bassist John Entwistle and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. Both of them were relegated to side stages.
Rage Against the Machine performed near the end of the second night, sandwiched between Limp Bizkit and Metallica. Fred Durst was widely blamed with whipping the crowd into a violent frenzy. People are getting hurt, he said. Dont let anybody get hurt. But I dont think you should mellow out. Thats what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy.
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There werent a ton of musical highlights at Woodstock 99, but Rage delivered an amazing set on July 24th, 1999. They wrapped it up by burning an American flag while performing Killing in the Name. It wasnt the last fire of the weekend.
Rage guitarist Tom Morello defended the festival in 2000 interview with Addicted to Noise. I think that the sexual assaults that occurred were horrific and inexcusable, he said. But in general, I thought the media coverage was grossly unfair and youth-bashing and tried to vilify an entire generation because of a couple of idiots there.
Morello has a very different take on the matter these days. For me, Woodstock 99 was the low point of nu metal, he says in the heavy metal oral history Louder Than Hell. The rapes in the pit, the trashing of the sites. It just seemed like it distilled the worst elements of metal the misogynist jock buggery and the message wasnt announced as This is a horrible thing. It was more like, This is our new Woodstock generation [a] bunch of idiots.'