I find myself daydreaming - imagining an alternate timeline where the lineup of Woodstock 99 was:
James Brown, George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars, G. Love & Special Sauce, The Roots, Jamiroquai, Wyclef Jean, The Offspring, The Supersuckers, Lit, Everclear, Counting Crows, Our Lady Peace, Collective Soul, Creed, Live, Bush, Bruce Hornsby, Dave Matthews Band, Los Lobos, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Everlast, Elvis Costello, Mike Ness, John Entwistle, Robby Krieger, Moby, Beth Hart, Bijou Phillips, Jewel, Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson.
Without any of the Ozzfest, Family Values Tour or Lollapalooza crossovers that were also there.
A more chilled out, positive energy kind of music festival. Instead of what they ended up with.
All of the above listed artists were at Woodstock 99 - but no one really remembers them. They remember the other acts that were there - and the riots, the rapes, the assaults, the arson, the aggression, the violence, the anger, the destruction, the deaths.
It could have been so much more positive, rather than the traumatic shit-storm that ensued. It was a tragic missed opportunity.
And I'm not blaming those other bands - the resulting disaster of what became the infamous Woodstock 99 is the fault of the festival owners' greed. The conceptually confusing lineup of acts they chose made absolutely no sense because all they really cared about was making as much money as possible.
They were like "Hey let's combine Lollapalooza with Lilith Fair and Ozzfest and Vans Warped Tour and Family Values Tour and New Orleans Jazz Fest - because think of all the money we'll make! What could possibly go wrong?"
They were completely unprepared for the more aggressive kind of energy of a hard rock and metal festival because they didn't know anything about those bands' music or their audiences - or the kinds of security and infrastructure you need for those festivals.
The lineup made no sense - Sheryl Crow opening for Insane Clown Posse? Korn opening for Bush was like ... what? It just proved that the Woodstock organizers had no idea what they were doing when it came to choosing the acts for the festival. All they saw were dollar signs dancing in front of their eyes.
That lack of knowledge is on full display in the Netflix docutainment series "Trainwreck: Woodstock 99." Watch it, and you'll probably get really angry. I did, for so many reasons:
They didn't provide adequate security, they allowed price gouging by the vendors, they had sub-standard (or non-existent) sanitation, there was no shade, no trash pickup, not enough emergency medical staff ... the list goes on and on.
Woodstock 99 was doomed by its own creators.
- Brent Snyder
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