DISGRACELAND - Woodstock Pt. 2: A Disaster Movie

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

The original Woodstock was a literal disaster, declared so on its first day by the state of New York. There were fights, onstage, armed black-shirted hippie gestapo on patrol, and most notably, two dead kids on record. The festival was born of violence, sparked into existence out of organizer Michael Lang’s standoff with hillbilly armed guards and cops from down in Florida. The lasting image of Woodstock as a time of idyllic harmony is a nostalgic gimmick, as is the 1970 documentary about the events that took place up in Bethel, New York that fateful weekend. If any director were to make a truly realistic movie about Woodstock, their film would be an unhinged disaster movie. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram YouTube X (formerly Twitter)  Facebook Fan Group TikTokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.

He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark.

When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? You'd rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things,

Tena Mongeau, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The story about Woodstock, the real story, the death, the destruction, the downright disaster movie

that the three-day supposed festival of peace, love, and communalism really was, is so complex that we needed two episodes to properly tell it. If you're just getting hip to this now, I suggest you hit pause and go back to the last episode of Disgraceland, part one of the Woodstock story, where we discussed the violent rock and roll festival foundations of Woodstock, the hypocritical hippie extortion that allowed the show to go on, the cunning and confidence of producer Michael Lang,

the surge of hundreds of thousands of fans, the near immediate declaration of disaster by the state of New York, and the ominous signs of death and destruction on the horizon. In this episode, we get into the deaths of two concert goers, bad acid, near chaos, and near death on an unimaginable scale. Woodstock's legacy and great music, The Who, Joe Cocker, and Jimmy Hendrix, name a few. Again, great music.

Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron, called Swatchout, MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights in the year 2525 by Zager and Evans. And why would I play you that specific slice of Futuro cheese could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on the morning of August 18, 1969. And that was the day Jimmy Hendricks took the stage at Woodstock, turning in an electrifying performance that would seal Woodstock as the culture-defining moment that it was. On this episode, brown acid, bad vibes, death, destruction,

and the disaster movie that was Woodstock. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace land. August 15th, 1969, Woodstock Aquarian Exposition, Bethel, New York, Yazger's Farm. Peace and love were not going to save them. Smith and Wesson were.

Maxie Asker, owner of the thriving and pastoral dairy farm Michael Lang and Woodstock Ventures were hosting their three-day music festival on. It was hiding in his farmstand's office. He, his son, and one of the workers on his dairy farm were fully armed. Shotguns with enough shells to keep a small army held at bay until hopefully this god-forsaken festival mess he'd gotten him and his family into blew over. They were coming to take his land, take his home. Using the chaos of the festival as covered a pillage and God help him,

raped the land and the life he'd spent 33 years' buildings since taking over the farm from his father. They were modern-day Vikings set to maraud and kill his family, steal the valuables and cash he had on site, and make off into the night like the low-down bandits they were. Max Yasker wasn't going down without a fight. As soon as the call came that a carpet-bagging set of MC outlaws were making their way with their bikes through the best,

backed up festival traffic to Max's home to conduct a violent raid, Max went to work. He barricaded himself in with all the firepower he could find in his office with his son and a local employee to beat back the violent bikers. It made for a sleepless, if on-eventful night. The Motorcycle Club Raiders never raided. It must have been a prank call, a false warning. One of the many forms of local harassment Max and his family had to endure

since agreeing to host the festival. And back at the festival site, things weren't any less tense. Bad LSD was making the rounds. Kids were suffering drug-induced psychotic episodes. So far, it was under control, but if word didn't spread fast to not take the brown acid, then mass psychosis for hundreds of thousands of teenagers and ensuing riots lay on the horizon. In probably, Hugh Romney and his hippie hog farmers were enlisted to help solve this very dangerous problem. A mud-stained hippie kid stumbled into the hog farm's special medical tent,

the tent known as Big Pink. On cots all around were fellow acid heads, psychonauts, bad trippers, way in outer space, some limp and catatonic, some crazed and mumbling in tongues. Hog farmers treated them as only they knew how, as they were expected to do, as was their job, part of the reason Michael Lang had hired them. And they applied cold water to the heads of the kids on bad acid. For others, for the ones freaking the fuck out, for the ones caught in some terrible time loop or psychic pattern they couldn't break, for the ones screaming and thrashing around, the hog farmers provided extra attention. They held them gently and talked them down.

And the mud-stained kid was in a bad way. He kept mumbling. Miami Beach, 1994, Joyce. Miami Beach, 1994, Joyce. Miami Beach, 1994, Joyce. He was caught in one of those bad loops, trapped inside. of himself, a carnival horror show of fears and regret, visions of the future and not good ones. Hugh Romney, head hog farmer, could see it in the kid's eyes. Miami Beach, 1994, Joyce. Romney grabbed

the boy gently with both hands by his cheeks. Tune into your third eye, man, Romney advised him. Romney asked his name, where he came from, and brought the muddy tripper down to earth, led him to a cot, told him to sit a while, and then when he was well, Romney pointed to the third. He said, the next lost soul wandering through the door. See him? He pointed at the new patient who just wandered in, himself blitzed on acid in a bad way. Romney then looked at the mud-stained boy he'd successfully talked down from the bad trip and applied the finishing touch. He gave the bad trip or purpose, gave him a distraction, gave him a reason to believe in himself, and to take control of his situation. Romney told the boy he was now okay. He nodded again to the new patient who just

wandered into the medical tent and told the mud-stained boy, quote, Now you're the doctor. Take over. That was how things worked in the Big Pink. The medical tent was a peace and love psychedelics mash unit, but it wasn't all bad. To assist, bass player Rick Danko of the band, a dude who knew all about another Big Pink,

came through and posted up with an acoustic guitar. He strummed and sang softly to help chill out the kids who were having a tough time on their trips. It was a moment of genuine goodwill, like many others from that weekend, that were necessary to help offset the destruction taking place. Word spread of various disasters. Most were untrue. Abby Hoffman spiked the water supply with brown acid. Richard Nixon called in the National Guard.

The Hells Angels have taken Yasker's wife hostage. But some were true. Like the story about the young concert goer who went to bed on that first night of the festival in a sleeping bag, and awoke to the sound of a tractor, inches from his body, that then proceeded to roll right over him, crushing him. And they airlifted him by helicopter to the local hospital. He died of his wounds before the chopper even landed. He was 17 years old.

His name was Ray Mizick. He was from Trenton, New Jersey. Then there was the constant buzz about overdoses, not just bad trips from acid, from LSD, but also from heroin, opium, cocaine, mandrix, all manner of late 60s narcotics, that contributed to more than 3,000 drug-related incidents and overdoses. Three most seriously resulted in near-death and whisked off by helicopter to area hospitals

where they were revived. So steady was the air traffic from the concert to the area hospitals and clinics at SOS messages concerning the drug wounded or eventually coordinated through the United States Aerospace Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs via the Pentagon, which eventually authorized U.S. Army Air Force Task Force pilots to run rescue missions in and out of Woodstock with Huey helicopters, the same exact kind of helicopters used to airlift the wounded out of Vietnam. The drugged out and otherwise wounded Woodstock concert goers were flown to an emergency medical facility set up by the U.S. government in nearby

Monachello, New York, for treatment and then dispatch to local facilities for further care, if necessary. But one Woodstock attendee was not so lucky. In 18-year-old Marine, home on leave, taking in the peace and love and a jack of illicit heroin that killed him. His name was Richard Beller. He was from Holbrook Long Island. Death, drugs, destruction, and great music. Sly and the Family Stone went on way late, 3.30 a.m. and turned in what to that point was the best performance of the concert thus far,

laying waste to nearly all the performers who preceded them. Sly Stone was a sole assassin in the land of stoned hippies. He and his band worked the call. crowd into a delirious state with their high-energy, dirty funk, everyday people, danced to the music, and want to take you higher. All infectious bangers seemingly composed to move, shake, and enthrall half a million people in one sitting as they just had. Steam was coming off of Sly's Afro. The mammoth crowd demanded two encores. And when the band left the stage at 4.20 a.m., Sly Stone had one message for Pete Townsend about to go on next with who. And the message was

this. Follow that, motherfucker. Pete Townsend was too annoyed to care. It was late. This festival was a fucking disaster. And they sure as hell weren't getting paid enough for this bullshit. And let's be real, what this was was bullshit. This wasn't a movement. This wasn't about peace and love.

This wasn't about a new way. This was about music for money and poorly planned at that. This was a new mob trying to usurp the old mob. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This was tie-dye in place of starch suits. This was a new pig and a new silk tie. Paisley instead of pinstripes. Either way, it was a lie.

Might as well just call it what it was. Capitalism, but worse, capitalism without efficiency. Going on at 5 a.m., what the fuck was that about? The Who's stormed through their set with maximum power, maximum rock and roll, maximum rhythm, maximum blues, maximum R&B, everything was maxed. The Who's volume, the whose energy, the whose attitude, and the Thinley Vale contempt Pete Townsend had for this whole Fugasey affair.

The English guitarist was the tightly wound ball of baseball. barely containable violence, doing his best to blow up the stage right there in front of half a million confused and frightened hippies. This was not passive. This was not placid. This was nothing like the previous woodstock performers. This wasn't Arloke Guthrie or Joan Baez or Country Joe and the fucking fish. Country Joe.

Pete Townsend heard he'd named his son Joseph after Joseph Stalin, Americans. The fuck was wrong with these people. But Pete wanted to get the gig over with and get the hell out of there. Pete stewed while he tuned his Gibson S.G. Let's get this bullshit over with, he thought. In the wings, at the side of the stage, Sly Stone wired out of his mind from either the set he'd just performed or from the white lightning acid being passed around the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Or both, the Sly was there with Gray Slick from Jefferson Airplane, who was set to take the stage even later than the who. And of course, there was that dude who wouldn't shut the fuck up. The big guy with the big hair and the bigger mouth. Talking White Panther jive, nonstop, Sinclair this, yippy that, steal this concert, smoke this revolution, brothers, sisters, pigs, police, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Abby Hoffman. He reminded Pete of a less talented, less attractive, less interesting Lenny Bruce. He thought about how this guy's schstick would play back in London.

Not even Princess Margaret would fuck this guy. Why did the Americans pay him any mind? Whatever. It didn't matter. The Who was ready. The set was about to start. Finally, Roger looked at Pete. He nodded. Shot a look at John. Then peered over to Keith behind the kit. And then, Abby Hoffman rushed the stage. He grabbed Pete's mic.

Four thousand of our brothers and sisters are being persecuted for no more than we're doing on this hill. It's only fair that we help out. We are the Woodstock Nation. We are one. What the fuck was this? Someone cut the mic, thankfully. Hoffman, pissed, kicked the mic standover. That did it. Fuck this guy. Pete grabbed the neck of his guitar, swung it back like a tennis racket,

and swatted it flat into Hoffman's hairy grill. Hoffman, dazed, stumbled for a step or two toward the front of the stage before falling over into the crowd. He was absorbed by the audience, who a day and a half into the festival, were too sleep deprived and blitzed on acid to comprehend the violence that had just taken place at this Fugazi Festival of Peace. Pete wasted no time. He looked again to Keith behind the kit,

who quickly counted the band off and into the raucous set. The Who's set, violent and unnatural as it was, was nothing compared to the potential threat brewing for more natural causes. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends.

I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me

and they want to be an actor or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be. Because... Pointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary.

I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me. Like, making karate noises. And his entire, the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going... And the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellow-O.

I love this podcast. Whether it's therapy. or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that.

Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, monjeu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You from the Exactly Right Network.

Can I say something about the Criterion Clause? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film, Grape I Got Two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra P and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was.

Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over. From hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. English singer Joe Cocker and his backup group, The Grease Band, took the stage around 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon to open the day's festivities with his brand of blue-eyed epileptic soul and enthralled the audience who'd never seen anything like him before. The Grease band had been touring the U.S. since spring, but it was as impressive in America. American debut as he could have hoped for, and little did the singer know at the time would go on to become an iconic performance. But when his performance was done, Joe Cocker felt it

in the air, the coming rain. The clouds moved in out of nowhere, and the temperature took a slight sudden drop. The audience began to stir uncomfortably. Joe Cocker grabbed a bottle of something hard and split in search of a roof and four walls. Black clouds draped over the half a million concert govers and gobbled up the pink afternoon sky in an instant. The crowd gassed on mass. No one had planned for this, for rain. If festival producer Michael Lang was nervous, he didn't show it. He suppressed a slight grin. Perhaps he was amused that it was learned the unexpected rain being thrown their way was courtesy of a store moving up the coast called Hurricane Michael. But this was no time to be amused. A smart stage hand screamed at everybody and nobody in particular.

Hit the power! A small battalion of backstage roadies took to the stage with the quickness and began covering everything with slip covers, power cables in particular, and they all shared the same look on their faces. Fear. Another voice rang out from backstage. Kill the fucking power, man! Kill the power!

Nobody was volunteering for the job. And the wind picked up and billowed into Yasker's natural amphitheater, lifting as much random trash as it could along the way and sending it airborne. and the strength of the wind was sudden and intense. The clouds grew even more black. The vibe was beyond ominous, straight fear. Hanging above festival organizers' heads, the massive 100-foot sound towers,

huge metal and plywood constructions holding the speakers that were used to blast sound from the stage. They slowly creaked as they swayed, and the wind pressed. The towers lurched. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The clouds got even darker. Kids on the ground,

brace themselves for a torrent from the heavens. Then the towers bent a little more. Most festival organizers feared the worst and tried to play a cool. The one did not kill the fucking power! Power was needed at the moment because there, up in one of the towers, some kids sat high above the crowd taking in the show, oblivious to the twin hazards of lightning and wind. And breaking with the hippie edict of Live and Let Live,

one smart woodstock organizer jumped on the mic and got into it with the crowd. Would you please get away from the towers, please? Clear away before someone gets hurt. The wind picked up again. And the towers, all of them, swayed a little more. The more kids were situated on them than before. How would this happen? The wind picked up again, and when it did, the towers nearly gave way.

They bent even further. If they fell all the way, it would be certain mass destruction. Hey, get off those towers. Get off those towers! The kids in the towers ignored the voice. The idiocy. On the mic, the organizer pressed for calm. Let's keep it nice and cool.

Just sit down and be cool. Thunder then interrupted his plea with a loud crack. He continued afterward. Looks like we're going to get a little bit of rain, so you better cover up. If it does, if you should have a slight power problem, just cool it out. We'll sit here with you. You'll be okay. Just then, Thunder exploded in the sky as if to mock the comments coming from the stage.

And that's when the organizer felt it. The stage, the slip. The whole stage had shifted under his feet. The massive stage's foundation was slipping. Forget the towers, the stage was about to go. Down in front, a massive kids were oblivious to what was about to happen. The stage shifting, sliding, potentially crashing down on top of them. The stage jolted forward in a quick burst and then stopped.

The sky cracked open again with a massive thunder clap and then the rain poured down. Kids in the crowd immediately started to rejoice, dancing in the rain, sliding in the mud, feeding off of the chaotic energy in the most peaceful way possible. It was borderline miraculous. But how long could it last? How long before the kids got tired, got cold and bolted for the exit? Backstage, a volunteer sprinted for her boss looking for direction. How were they going to quell the crowd?

How were they going to keep them still in the rain and not stampeding each other in an effort to head somewhere for dry land? She made it past the backstage wall of dead instrument cases. Her boss was nowhere. She ran through the small makeshift artist's VIP area. No boss. Around toward where the crew served themselves mushy food and warm drinks and still no boss. Back toward the Festival Command Center's trailer. There, in there, he must be in there, in the trailer.

She ran toward it in and around, darting staff. She reached the trailer, put her foot on the first metal step and was blasted up and back and away from the trailer and onto her ass from the electric surge. Her boss opened the door at the moment, took in the scene barely noticing his failed volunteer. shouted to him, don't step on the stairs, he'll get shocked. And he leaped over the three stairs and down to the ground. And the ground was softened. Trampled grass, long since reduced to dirt, was now transforming into mud.

And the mud was splashing away and under it, the festival's main power feed cable was emerging. As more and more people trounced over it, the more the main power cable's insulation were away. And the more the insulation wore away from the cable, the more its electrical surge escaped. and the more water that flooded the area around the cable, the more likely the chance for the electricity to travel. At that moment, it became very clear that 500,000 people were connected by more than peace, love, and music.

They were now connected by the heavens, by rain, and by water, the perfect conduit for mass electrocution. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends...

Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me

and they want to be an actor or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else? that you can do rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me.

Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been a sleepwalk. David O'Yellow-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Durbin. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead.

Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Moron. Carrie Kenny Silver and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits and you'll end up doing things you never thought you do.

You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This was it, the last straw. No one planned for the rain. And Michael Lang couldn't really flash a quickstone smile to stop the rain. Nor could he stop the stage from slipping, and he couldn't stop those towers from swaying and toppling over. And he especially couldn't stop electricity from escaping the main power feed cable

and transferring itself through the wet festival grounds and effect barbers. the half a million kids he'd assembled on old man Yasker's farm. It was all beyond his control. Planning and producing this festival had been his life over the past several months. His entire identity was now tied to it. It was a glorious thing if you looked at it through the right lens. Half a million kids getting along on their own. A new generation doing it their own way.

The biggest cultural gathering in American history most likely and so far, despite the many close calls in constant stress, there was little incident. Sure, two kids had already died, but it would quickly be forgotten with the right message. The rain would stop, the kids would settle into their own groove. Michael knew it, and this ride he'd been on with Woodstock from a dream to a reality then, to having the location ripped up from under him at the last minute, to finding Yasger's farm, to setting the show up in under 30 days, to the extortion from Hoffman, from the cops, from the Grateful Dead refusing to go on

unless they were paid in advance, in cash, to Jimmy Hendricks, who at this moment was still threatening to not perform, to the massive financial debacle that this entire event had turned out to be all of it, all the problems would find a way of working themselves out, and the glory on the other end of this thing was immeasurable. Michael would be the guy. Michael Lang would be the one who did something no one else had done, and that would be worth every ounce of energy he'd put into this thing. His business partners, John Roberts and Joel Rosamond, did not have the the same utopian view of their shared venture with Michael Lang. Forget about the hassles and the massive financial loss, they were concerned with something

much darker. If someone didn't get the situation with the electricity sorted out, they'd be seen as far worse than financially failed festival producers. 6 p.m. Sunday night. Security, along with the festival organizers, were huddled around the main feeder cable backstage. Their worst fears, it seemed, were becoming real. The cable's insulation had been nearly completely worn away.

It was only a matter of time, some argued, before the electricity surged beyond the cable and was carried by the water over the festival grounds to blast the crowd. The kids in the crowd were jammed together, soaking wet. Mass electrocution was most certainly an option if the cable failed. The potential destruction and loss of human life was incalculable. The options were this. Cut the power and the festival prematurely with at least eight of the

Weekends promised performers yet to play, including top-drawing acts like Crosby Stills Nash and Young and Jimmy Hendricks and risk total mayhem, a full-blown riot by the upset crowd of 500,000, or waded out, do nothing and hope that the main feeder cable would not fray any further and remain intact enough to contain the electricity. The fear from Michael Lang's partners John Roberts and Joel Rosamon was so intense that Roberts actually began to whimper and Rosamond dared not speak. The two, along with the festival's master electrician, sat in silence contemplating the fate of a half a million souls, and Michael Lang was nowhere to be found. This decision was too heavy for him anyway. But not for Joel Rosamond. He broke the silence

by grabbing the phone in the command center trailer backstage and ordering the sound man to keep the power on. He then ordered the master electrician to lay out all the options for him. Was there a way to fix this without interrupting the live performances and risking a riot. In the meantime, they'd riot it out. Do what everyone around them had done since the beginning with this God-forsaken festival. Hold their breath and pray that it all worked out. Their lives are on the line, and they'd put the lives of others on the line as well. If things went horribly wrong, if hundreds of thousands of kids ended up dead on their decision,

they'd do the honorable thing. John Roberts convinced himself in the moment if Woodstock ended in mass destruction, He would kill himself. But that wasn't going to happen. John Roberts and Joel Rosamond's decision proved to be the right one. Rosamond hadn't made the decision on a wing and a prayer, and the master electrician had informed him that there was a way. They could reroute the power away from the master feed cable

without disrupting the power to the main stage. And at long last, it seemed like the adults were in charge. Turns out that you can't simply be cool and groove on each other and rely on peace and love to carry the day. At a certain point, we need to step up and take responsibility. Joel Rossiman was the one who made the decision to keep the show going, not Michael Lang. And as it had been happening since the show began two days earlier, various responsibilities were assumed and executed by those who would be considered squares

as establishment, as, God forbid, grown-ups by some of the more idealistic festival organizers and attendees. But they were also the people whose actions and the tangible, results of set actions kept the festival from turning into a full-blown disaster. There was old man Yasger himself, rock-ribbed Republican, offering up his farm at the last minute, the ground on which the whole festival was raised to a bunch of war protesting long hares. And there were the local radio DJs who sent out the alarm when the festival food began to run out, alerting the local farmers who responded by donating on mass canned goods and produce.

Then there were the wives of the farmers who took it a step further and set about boiling hundreds of thousands of eggs to keep the crowd fed with hard-boiled eggs they'd donate. And there were military personnel from the U.S. government, who painstakingly coordinated the food drops and medical evacuations behind the scenes and the scores of area doctors and nurses who volunteered their time to help out with the endless stream of wounded. There was even a local small-town banker, a banker who opened up his bank in the middle of the night on a weekend to process a loan for Woodstock organizer John Roberts so that Roberts could pay some of the headlining acts who, devoid, as it were of any generosity of spirit themselves,

were refusing to go on without getting paid in advance, in cash. A bank, feds, doctors, nurses, farmers, locals, all of them, quote-unquote, squares, who generously committed themselves to helping the mass of stoned kids on the farm. These weren't people down with the cause. These weren't hippies. These weren't even kids. There were good, solid working adults who saw a bunch of kids who were in trouble in a bunch of young adult concert organizers who are in over their heads and decided to help out out of the goodness of their hearts for no other reason. None of these people had any invested interest in Woodstock's success other than simply caring about the well-being of their fellow Americans, their fellow young Americans.

These people weren't counterculture anti-establishment types who came to the rescue. They were the establishment. But without these people, without these squares, without the establishment, Woodstock, a three-day festival of peace and music and unofficial rally against the establishment never would have survived itself or its organizers, which isn't to say Woodstock wasn't supported by intensely hardworking staff and volunteers, young people and working touring music industry adults and professionals who believe deeply in their mission to create a one-of-a-kind music festival

that showcased the best their generation had to offer because it was. But hard work and good intentions aside, Every organization is a product of its leadership. When lives are on the line, haphazard hippie confidence men ramblings about peace, love, and a new utopian way only goes so far. It was a miracle Woodstock didn't end in total disaster. Mercifully, the show approached its end by Monday morning,

but not without some final fireworks. At 9 a.m., as concert goers slowly began to dwindle out of the festival grounds to make their way home, Jimmy Hendricks, finally took the stage. Jimmy Hendrix is said at Woodstock ended the festival. In the 1970 documentary on Woodstock, directed by Michael Wadley, the festival ends with Hendrix's version of the Star-Spangled Banner. It's an iconic moment.

Jimmy Hendrix's on stage in the early morning hours, garbed in the hippie fashion of the day. His soul power afro barely contained by his headband, and he's playing the country's rallying cry. But it's clearly not your father's national anthem. This is something new, something exciting, something decidedly subversive. Hendricks' excellent, feedback-driven, bombastic take on the song under the New Morning Sun at Woodstock. Can't help but give the impression that Woodstock was about a new day, a new way. The imagery on screen hammers home the significance of the festival.

Except it didn't really happen that way. Jimmy Hendricks played the Star-Spangled Banner, and then he continued to muddle through the rest of his set with his less than stellar band at the time, Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, the experience or band of gypsies they were not, and finished his set and the Festival of Peace and Love unceremoniously with Hey Joe,

a song about murder. July 24th, 1999, Rome, New York, 140 miles from Bethel and 30 years from women, A new Woodstock. Griffiths Air Force Base. 220,000 kids. Hot. Red hot chili peppers, ice cube, corn,

rage against the machine and limp biscuit topped the bill of the new Woodstock venture by Michael Lang. Woodstock 99. Musically, it has little to do with the original festival from 1969. The passive folk stylings of Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, and Richie Havens would be booed offstage instantly at the festival. Yet the ethos of peace and love.

Love still exists, at least in the marketing of the festival if nowhere else. But on stage, bare-chested macho aggression leads the day, and you can feel it in the crowd. At an MTV crew stand-up, Carson Daly is getting heckled. I could fuck Jennifer Love Hewitt better than you could. Someone throws water in the VJ's face, and he sheepishly pleads, just tell me that wasn't your piss, man. And near the East Stage, hundreds of people roll in the mud behind a row of portable toilets to cool off, even if it means writhing in human filth. And by this point, a hundred guards, the Peace Patrol had quit,

leaving little internal security. Gangs of so-called mud people have formed, dripping in the stuff. They roam the grounds and supposedly guard the scattered public water fountains, which barely work. Unlike the original Woodstock, Woodstock 99 is blatantly commercial with $4 bottles of water and $12 pizzas on top of a whopping $150 ticket price that seems normalish today in 2021, but in 1999, all of it was seen as exorbitant by fans. In the pit, bodies thrash, mud flies, a dozen or so college dudes sit above on a production trailer

more concerned with the thrashing crowd than the band on stage, which seems as though it's a mile away, and they're chanting, show us your tits, show us your tits. Dudes in the crowd get all horned up and begin manhandling the girls in the crowd, lifting them up as human trophies to signal their obedience to their chanting brethren on the trailers. The women are understandably horrified. Some oblige and lift their shirts and bras. The dudes erupt in approval. The girls are dropped and scurry away.

It limp biscuit plays. The crowd goes fucking bananas for the nookie, and especially, literally for the song, Break Stuff. In the pit, ribs are cracked, wrists are snapped. More women are harassed or clothes torn off by force. A crowd surfer is raped all over glass. bottles fly through the air and shatter against skulls. The crowd-turned mob tears the siding off the media towers and camera platforms, but MTV has already abandoned the show to cover the medical tent. It's overflowing with serious injuries, broken arms and legs, the fractured spine.

Rage Against the Machine takes the stage and figuratively proclaims to Michael Lang's Woodstock generation that subtlety is dead. With pummeling beats and heavy riffs, they work the crowd into an orgy of aggression. They lyrically rail against capitalism while playing for a hefty paycheck. amounts to little over an hour's worth of work, only in America. And before they leave the stage, they burn the American flag. Perfect. Woodstock 99 is more of a destructive mess than its original predecessor. One person died after overheating and collapsing during Metallica's set.

Police launched four rape investigations, officially, and many sexual assaults were also reported. And beyond the police record, concert goers reported witnessing multiple gang rapes. Fires destroyed or damaged a dozen trailers and a bust, not to mention many of the overpriced booths and filthy porta-potties. The booths and ATMs that weren't destroyed were broken into. How could this happen? Not at Woodstock. The entire media gasped as it collectively clutched its pearls. The stories from the mainstream non-rock and roll press were typically simple-minded and played off the contrast between the peace and love success of the original Woodstock

with the destructive failure of Woodstock 99. But in reality, the two festivals were very similar. Woodstock, the original Woodstock, was a literal disaster, declared so on its first day by the state of New York. Yet the lasting image of Woodstock is one of idyllic harmony. Woodstock was born of violence, sparked into existence out of Michael Lang's Mexican standoff with hillbilly armed guards and cops from down in Florida. And there were fights on stage, armed, black-shirted hippie Gestop.

on patrol, and most notably two dead kids on record. Yet the word on Woodstock was it was born out of and demonstrative of an ethos of peace. Woodstock's organizers, even Michael Lang, were from the beginning driven by profit. Yet the word on Woodstock was it was an anti-commercial venture conceived out of communalism. But hell, even the 1960s counterculture radicals, the most anti-commercial among the hippie movement, avowed Marxists led by Abby Hoffman, extorted Woodstock organizers for tens of thousands of dollars in cash. Woodstock has hailed as an improbable organizational achievement that showed the power of young people coming together en masse in service of a higher ideal, a common good. Yet festival organizers nearly mass electrocuted hundreds of thousands of kids

due to their poor planning. So strong was their fear of this possible deadly outcome that one organizer broke down on the scene and pledged to kill himself. So how then? Did we end up with this accepted narrative that Woodstock 69 was vastly different than Woodstock 99. How then did we wind up believing all these years in the hippie dream in 60s idealism? It's permeated our cultural power centers ever since. Sixties idealism since Woodstock has transcended politics, sports, art, academia, film, television, media, and of course, music. But why?

If Woodstock was such a disaster, why is its legacy so strong? Something else, something good, something ideal. Simple. Because unlike Woodstock 99, the original Woodstock had a better movie. Concert films don't sell, but Woodstock, the movie, sold, grossing $50 million in its original box office run and earning universal critical acclaim. Why? Because Woodstock the movie isn't a concert film.

It's a love story. Actually, it's a love letter to the 60s generation. At every turn, the film hired. highlights the good from the festival and ignores the bad, or should I say, the reality? Creatively, there is no shame in that. The director Michael Wadley had a point of view and he expressed it in the editing room, going so far as to say so himself, saying in 1994, quote, I saw this as a sort of back to the land, back to the garden, beautiful event. If you look at the film that I edited, the whole film then created this kind of mythology.

What was the real woodstock and what was the mythological, unquote? The film is an idealized version of the events that took place that weekend in Bethel, New York, in August of 1969. It is not what really happened. If the director were to make a realistic movie about Woodstock, the film would have been a disaster movie. Because the entire weekend, on balance, was fraught with tension, violence, near death, actual death, chaos, and destruction.

Peppered in, there was, of course, some great music, and I'm sure some good times. But this notion that Woodstock was a generation-defining moments so significant that it marked actual real change for generations to come is complete and total bullshit. Nothing changed. Soldiers remained in Vietnam for another six years. In the next presidential election, Republican Richard Nixon's scourge of the hippie generation was elected in the biggest presidential landslide in modern times, winning 49 of 50 states

declaring with authority what the majority of Americans actually felt about peace, love in the vaunted ideals of the 60s. Nixon later resigned in disgrace, and his Republican replacement, Gerald Ford, was defeated in 1976 by Democrat Jimmy Carter and what was no doubt a rebuke of Nixon's party, but 12 years of Republican rule followed after Carter, the first quote-unquote rock and roll president. Numbers don't lie, but films do, which is why the legacy of Woodstock, the baby boomers, the 60s, is so strong. It's why after two disastrous festivals, Woodstock 69 and 99, not to even mention the rainy blip on the cultural radar that was Woodstock 94,

which was essentially a Lollapalooza knockoff, Michael Lang was once again given the opportunity to produce yet another Woodstock in 2019. But alas, that effort completely failed. Good old hippie planning finally caught up to Woodstock, which is a shame. It would have been great to go on up to the country, pay $250 for a ticket, $6 bucks for a bottle of water, and a 20 spot for some shitty pizza,

to see Imagine Dragons and the Lumineers pump out some uninspired nowhere rock jams on a stage a million miles away under the blistering sun. I'm joking, of course. Festivals don't interest me. I'm a bigger fan of the movies. Not love stories.

Disaster movies. More violent, destructive, and disgraceful, the better. You know, kind of like Woodstock. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it.

And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelamPod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Disgracelam Pod. Rockerola.

When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few. few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off.

And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in.

Do that. David O'Yelloo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gait and Moderato from Stranger Things. Tena Mongeau. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the...

the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.