The Big Flop - Woodstock '99: Mosh Pit at the Apocalypse with Sam Sanders and Lindy West | 20

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Woodstock '99 was meant to commemorate the original, historic festival with “three days of peace and music” but instead became "three days of rage and chaos." Hundreds of thousands of angry young men celebrated the end of the millennium by moshing to acts like Limp Bizkit, Korn and Kid Rock. But, when food and water became scarce, and the porta potties overflowed, they ended up rioting. If you thought Fyre Fest was bad…at least it wasn’t actually on fire! Journalist Sam Sanders (Vibe Check, It's Been A Minute) and comedian and author Lindy West (Text Me Back!) join Misha to answer all of the burning questions about Woodstock '99.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's the summer of 1999, the cusp of a new millennium, a liminal space. Three decades have flown by since the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, held on a verdant dairy farm in upstate New York, remembered as the epitome of communal love, large-scale peaceful gatherings and a place for young hippies to get far away from their conservative parents and get their souls free, to quote Joni Mitchell. And now, hundreds of thousands of young folk are gathered in upstate New York again for another Woodstock.

But something is different. The crowd doesn't seem interested in peace. The heat is sweltering. Sewage is leaking underfoot. The mostly young male crowd aren't here to see Jimi Hendrix or The Grateful Dead. They're here to see their favorite new metal band, Limp Bizkit. So when frontman Fred Durst takes the stage to perform their single Break Stuff, the audience is ready to do whatever they're told.

Time to reach feet down inside. And take all that negative energy. All that negative energy. And let the s*** out of your f***ing system. If there's one thing this crowd has in abundance, it's negative energy. Woodstock 99 will mark one of the most disastrous moments in music history. And you thought the Fyre Festival was bad? At least it wasn't literally on fire.

it wasn't literally on fire. So we think that this has the potential to be, you know, one of the best things we've ever done and be an incredible weekend for everybody who joins us. You had kids within the first 24 hours rolling around in what they thought was mud, but was really human waste. He staged on fire. Hey, they started, he staged on fire.

Those fires grew through the day, maybe a half dozen or so, and then they got larger in intensity. And then you can see pieces of the peace wall, ironically enough, torn down as well. We were just afraid that we were going to get hurt. We all had pipes and stuff trying to protect ourselves because we didn't know what was going to happen. This is 1999, mother. Take your Birkenstocks and stick them up your ass.

We are only human. This is 1999, motherf***er! Take your Birkenstocks and stick them up your f***ing ass! We are on a sinking ship From Wondery and at Will Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and raging metalhead at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today, we're talking about Woodstock 99. Hey! But if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts?

Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom.

From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. On our show today, we have Lindy West, writer and co-host of the podcast, Text Me Back. You can find her newsletter, But News, on Substack. And we have Sam Sanders, journalist and co-host of the podcast, Vibe Check. Welcome to the show, guys.

Hello. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. So exciting. So before we get into Woodstock 99, what are your vibes and approach to music festivals? What are you doing when you go? I don't go. I will not go. I will not go. I will not be going. Why would I do that?

I'm at the age now where it's like, I need a seat that's just my seat. No camping. Yeah, none of that. No. No porta-potties. No porta-potties. No brick and mortar toilet only.

I want to say I don't like music enough to camp. To camp? Yes Well, and then it's like all of them sound fine live But they sound even better in my fancy noise-canceling headphones at home Correct Sorry Well, our story begins all the way back in the ancient year of 1969. Cue the royalty-free White Rabbit sound-alike. Michael Lang, one of the originators of Woodstock, is a tiny little baby, I mean, 24 years old, a middle-class hippie kid from Brooklyn. He meanders a bit after college.

He gets into the music biz as a promoter, moves up to Woodstock, New York, a bohemian outpost, and decides it would be the perfect place for a festival. Lang partners up with three other 20-somethings, including a record executive, and leases a beautiful plot of land from a dairy farmer in Bethel, New York. Marketed as Three Days of Peace and Music, Woodstock 69 features beloved psychedelic rockers like Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin, just to name a few. Lang and the team hope that 50,000 people will buy tickets. More than 400,000 show up. Well, there's your first problem.

Yeah, I have a question about that. Aren't there laws? In the 60s? In general, yeah. They caused a huge problem. In fact, traffic is so bad that many actual ticket holders and even some of the musicians didn't make it to the festival. That tracks.

So Woodstock 69, obviously a huge success, sort of. Behind the scenes, Lang owed a million dollars to his investment partners, but the festival went down in history as the iconic pinnacle of communal love and peace. I mean, why do we think that Woodstock 69 was such a cultural touchstone? I think of like Janis Joplin and Jimi I mean, why do we think that Woodstock 69 was such a cultural touchstone? I think of like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, those two specifically, to see them on a stage

in their prime, you can't compete with that. And it doesn't feel so corporate. It's like when I think of Coachella now and the big festivals now, they're so corporate. Something about Woodstock, the ethos still feels very, not startup, but very DIY. And I think that helps a lot. As someone born in 1982, growing up as a kid, I was like, why am I hearing about Woodstock all the time? I feel like there's this idealized version of it that's like, oh, back in the 60s, everything was peace and love, and everything was perfect, and we loved to be muddy, and the music was better. Obviously, everyone wants to believe that their generation was the most special and good and enlightened

and politically perfect. And the thing about boomers is there's a lot of them because there was a boom. Yeah. Well, so that was Woodstock 69. Let's flash forward 25 years. Michael Lang decides to organize an anniversary festival, another Woodstock, but updated for a 90s audience. So he pulls off Woodstock 94. The vibes are good, but things got really messy. Who headlined it?

People like Aerosmith, Melissa Etheridge, the Cranberries, and a bunch of artists from the old Woodstock. So first of all, it was a dry festival, meaning there wasn't any alcohol. Oh no. But it rained a ton. So it wasn't dry. So it wasn't dry. It rained so much that it was nicknamed Mudstock. The festival was still a money loser, costing organizers over a million dollars. So now we come to 1998, and it's going to be the 30th anniversary of the original Woodstock. And that's a big round number. So Michael Lang decides to make Woodstock 99 happen.

But he's learned a lesson. Unlike the hippie Brooklyn kid who mostly wanted a good hang, grown-up Michael understands the value of a hard-earned buck, and he's realized that his festivals are chaotic money pits. Was this inevitable? Do all hippies turn into capitalists eventually? Yeah. Most of them, for sure.

30-year mortgage, baby. That's how it goes. So Lange wants 99 to be different. I mean, he needs a profit-minded partner, someone who can do the figuring for him. Enter John Scher. Scher's known as New Jersey's most successful concert promoter. So Lang and Scher start putting plans into motion. The duo rounds up many of the most

popular artists at the time, acts like Metallica, Korn, and DMX. This is obviously no longer that folksy lineup of the original Woodstock, since Cher creates a lineup that has hardcore groups playing one after another after another. And also, of the 50 bands booked, only three acts are women. Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, and Jewel. Cher issues a promo ahead of the fest that Interview Magazine later refers to as an early warning of what's to come, this is not your parents' Woodstock. What does not your parents' Woodstock mean to you? Yeah, it seems like the appeal of your parents' Woodstock

is that it was Woodstock. The things we associate with the original Woodstock are like peace and love. I guess this is war and hate. Yeah, it's just like defiance for defiance's sake. This is not your that. This is not the this. And it's like, okay, but what is it? What do you want it to be? The thing people love about the original Woodstock, probably more than anything, is that the music was really good. So if we're going to do the opposite of that.

Limp Bizkit. We get Limp Bizkit. Mission accomplished. Yeah. Once the music is settled, John and Michael will need to cook up some financial wizardry to make this festival profitable. And that means it's time to play a game. So here are the rules.

We're going to plan Woodstock 99, and I'm going to ask a logistical question, and you're going to figure out how to turn a profit. Oh, okay. Are you ready? Yeah. Let's do it. First of all, ticket prices. At Woodstock 69, it cost $18 to attend all three days, if you bothered paying at all.

How much should we charge for Woodstock 99? 200 bucks a day. I'm going to say $495 a day. Oh. It's very Price is Right energy. Yeah. Well, Cher and Lange decided to charge $150 for all the days,

which adjusted for 30 years of inflation is twice the original ticket price. Now we have to come up with the prices for food and Bev. So let's think pizza. This is 1999. A slice of pizza usually costs somewhere between a dollar or two. How much should we charge for a slice? $8. I'd like to get a nice $10 slice

Wow Of pizza Wow Yeah They charged $12 Yeah! Are you serious? In 1999, the nerve

Oh no Not even good pizza probably Probably not Also previously, there were too many gate crashers Too much mud And people who bought tickets felt cheated or couldn't come. So what's the perfect site for a secure, dry, and peaceful festival? Probably like a beautiful meadow, like an outdoor grass, trees. That's interesting.

Interesting take. Yeah. Well, how about a former Air Force base? No irony there. None. Even better, it's a Superfund cleanup site, meaning it's designated as contaminated and hazardous to humans or the environment. So the dirt is bad. I'm assuming they probably got a discount for that. And that's how they ended up there. I hope so.

So last one. Now, we should probably hire some security. Knowing that we've booked a bunch of bands known for wild mosh pits, let's think of a good guard to concert goer ratio. One guard per how many concert goers sounds safe to you? Safe would be one to 10, but they probably did like one to 50. Zero to a thousand. Well, Sharon Lang hired roughly 1,000 guards

for what ended up being an estimated 400,000 people. So that's 400 rowdy people per guard. Wow. Not good. Every time you say Cher, I think you're talking about Cher. Which is a much more compelling story. I'll tell you what, though.

If Cher were in charge of Woodstock 99, there would have been no drama. No drama. She would never. Never. Limp Bizkit who? Not on my stage. So it's Thursday, July 22nd, 1999. Concertgoers funnel in through the narrow roads that lead to Rome, New York. Just like in 1969,

locals stare at their weird outfits with suspicion. Only this is the 90s, so many of the attendees are wearing camo and bucket hats. As they are now. As they are now. Tragic. Well, at noon on Friday, the festival kicks off with performances by James Brown, George Clinton, Vertical Horizon, and the String Cheese Incident.

Vertical Horizon. I love the James Brown, Vertical Horizon. Big drop in quality. Wow. This is 1999, so MTV News is on the ground to cover the whole thing. But something pressing starts to sink in. It's very, very hot. Most of the weekend is at least in the 90s. At one point, the temperature goes up to 100 degrees.

Oh, no. This is New York, so it's that wet, sticky, all-consuming kind of heat. Yeah. And unlike a cute dairy farm, an Air Force base doesn't have shady trees to hide behind. Yep. This is mostly black tarmac and concrete stretching as far as the eye can see. And to get from one stage to another,

attendees have to walk a grueling 1.5 miles. What? Nice. We love that.5 miles. What? Nice. We love that. Wow. Get your steps in. You got to walk 1.5 miles to see vertical harassment. So people are getting thirsty,

but water management turns out to be a huge problem at Woodstock 99 because there's only a handful of water fountains where people are waiting 25 minutes to get a drink. And as demand rises, concession stands start charging up to $12 per water bottle. I thought the pizza was $12. So we're talking $24 for a slice of pizza and a bottle of water. And vertical horizon. Oh my God. Well, the organizers claimed there were enough water stations throughout the festival, but many concert goers reported them being broken. Some tagged with the graffiti saying, no H2O, break it.

Yeah. So desperate for water, people do break into water pipes, and water sprays everywhere. Jesus. And spreads out underfoot across the festival. Well, that water mixes with leaky porta-potties. Ah! No!

So, according to grunge.com, attendees who have no idea they're stomping around in muddy feces turn the whole place into one massive septic field. People were actually coating themselves in mud to cool off, not realizing what was in it. So do either of you know what Trenchmouth is? Yeah, is it one of the headliners at Woodstock 99?

Trenchmouth is like gingivitis on steroids. I'm covering my mouth right now. I'm so disturbed already. Oh my God. It gets its name from the terrible sanitation that soldiers experienced during World War I in the trenches. So not something that we want to associate with a fun concert. Anyway, people get trench mouth.

What do you mean they get trench mouth? So it was just going in their mouths by accident because they were doing like erotic writhing? I don't like it. I don't like it. Well, things get even worse on the second day. By early Friday, several hundred people are treated for heat exhaustion. Organizers Lange and Scher, they come to the rescue. They just advise attendees to wear sunscreen and hats and drink lots of water.

Wow. Thanks, guys. The $12 hats and drink lots of water. Thanks, guys. The $12 water. The $12 water. If you were attending this event, what would your mood be? I would not be attending this event. I'm gone. We've talked about this.

Yeah, also, let me out of there. I'm not staying. No, absolutely not. Also, beat the traffic home. You know what I mean? Yeah. Always leave before the encore. Yes.

So as the hot, dehydrated fans shamble around the Air Force Base, they experience all of these new metal bands. We're thinking Korn, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit. The vibes, they're definitely getting steadily more sinister. Oh, yeah. They're not helped by the insane clown posse who throw dodgeballs into the crowd with $100 to $500 taped to them inciting melees. Oh, no. That's funny, though.

Come on. That's funny. That's wild. Yeah, they said it was because they got paid a lot of money, so we decided to give you all your money back. See? They are, in general, good dudes. Yeah. Like, ICP is good people. Yeah, that's praxis.

Yes. But they also, like, spray and throw two-liter bottles of Faygo soda into the crowd, maybe to keep folks hydrated. Oh, on the thirsty dying people? Again, that's saintly behavior. There you go. So, covered in mudly behavior. There you go.

So covered in mud, partially naked, and moshing shoulder to shoulder, the dehydrated crowd, mostly young frat boy types, are becoming more and more unruly. So big mosh pits, they're forming all across the festival. Friday night, Korn takes the stage. So let's watch the audience. So if you could just describe the sheer size and rage of the crowd,

I feel like there's a journey in this clip. I already feel like I can't breathe. Oh my God. I'm trying to count the blacks and I can't do it. Zero black people, eight women. Yeah. It's nice that they put James Brown on the first day. So we can get out of there.

Yeah. Oh no. What? of there oh no there's fireworks are those coming from the crowd I used to have a crush on the drummer from Korn oh that's bad it's like the floor is moving it's like giving me I'm honestly going to have a panic attack it's so claustrophobic

it's like a tsunami wave of people. I found myself up close to the stage at one concert I've ever been to, and I felt the wave crush come, and I was like, nope. Gotta go. I mean, it is so scary. I don't know why people do it. I don't know what's pleasurable about it. It's so scary.

Your lungs get squozed. No, thank you. Yeah, no, it's bad. I used to have to cover protests for work. And we would learn the protocol for crowd safety. The first rule being, stay on the outside. Stay on the edge. Don't get in there.

And what's so disturbing about that clip is they want more of it. Yeah. They don't want it to stop. Now, hardcore music doesn't make people violent, but it certainly doesn't help that Saturday Night is headlined by bands like Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, and our favorite, Limp Bizkit. Also, Rage Against the Machine will make your grandmother violent. They bring it.

And I say this with love. You're not sitting down when Rage is playing. Rage Against the Machine is so good. And maybe I would have stayed for that. So as Limp Bizkit enters the stage, one member flips off the entire audience. Limp Bizkit's front man, Fred Durst, whips the crowd up into a frenzy

and their song Break Stuff turns into a command. People start ripping down plywood walls, and they're turning tarps into trampolines. Durst then crowd surfs on the plywood that the audience has ripped down. I mean, things are getting out of hand. Ugh. Despite everything, organizers Michael Lang and John Scher maintain a breezy attitude. everything, organizers Michael Lang and John Scher maintain a breezy attitude. They've been planning this

for a year, so you can imagine they wouldn't want to admit that it's not going well. Well, also, if I recall correctly, they were also doing press conferences every day from the Woodstock. Every day, yes. So they're in the press pit being like, no, no, no, it's fine. It's cool. It's good. Vertical Horizon

is here. It's wonderful. In fact, it's funny that you bring that up because we actually have a clip to remind all of our listeners at home. Oh, wow. We are backstage at Woodstock 99 with the Woodstock organizers, Micah Lang and John Cher. How's it going? You look all happy. Things must be going very well. So far, so good. The music's been amazing. Right. Kids are having a good time. Biggest problem's been a little bit of too warm temperature.

But other than that, we're doing great. We're doing great. A little bit of too warm temperature. A little bit. You know, man, I fucking hate those guys so much. I hate those guys. Shut up. Oh, my God.

Can we just, for a second, pay a little honor and credit to the 190s festival that was a resounding success in large part because it was just the girls? Lilith there. That was the best one. The girls pulled it off just fine.

Not one case of Trenchmouth. No. Sarah McLachlan would never. Never. This festival continues, and there's one more day of chaos to go. The last day promises to be a lot more calm. It does? It does promise, but it does not keep that promise.

So there are plenty of chiller bands like Willie Nelson, Elvis Costello, Jewel, even Creed qualifies as chill compared to Limp Bizkit. To bring some peace to the festivities, a well-meaning anti-gun group hands out candles for a nice little peace vigil. But the vibes are dark and folks are still mad about the heat, the mud, and what they see as price gouging. There are improvised drum circles where folks are just banging and banging on anything they can find, usually trash cans, and it's driving others up the wall. Many of the guards were causing more trouble than they were preventing, behind the scenes, most of the security guards called the Peace Patrol have been fired or quit to join the party once inside the gates. There was at least one guy who sells his uniform once he realized they were worth $400 a pop to kids wanting backstage access. Oh my God. I don't want to be a big bummer alert on the comedy podcast, but you know who

bears the brunt of the security guards bailing on everything and Fred Durst riling everyone up and the things being on fire? It's the eight girls that were there. Like, it is so unsafe. And honestly, like, I'm so mournful for my generation of girls having to come of age in this moment. It is so dark. And I'm like, oh, no wonder I'm like this. No wonder everything about me is broken. Like, those boys are so scary and so nihilistic and dare I say evil. Well, the sun goes down on Sunday and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are playing the final set of the festival on the main stage.

They should know better. Come on, Anthony. Well, their bassist Flea was performing naked. He does that. With the sock or just no sock? No sock. No sock? All right. So the angst, dehydration, frustration over high prices,

and general horribleness of the weekend is coming to a head. So remember those candles given out for a peace rally? Well, now they're being used to set fires. So the Chili Peppers leave the stage, and organizer John Scher comes out to address the teensy-weensy fire. Actually, it's an absolutely huge fire. And let's listen to his attempt at crowd control. Whoa.

As you can see, if you look behind you, we have a bit of a problem. Chili Peppers are going to come back. Calm down. We got three days through. We need... Calm down. We don't want anybody to get hurt it's a delay tower on fire as you can see it's not part of the show it really is a problem wait wait wait i just don't understand If you're the organizer of a music festival and then you see a massive fire at the back of the festival,

isn't your first instinct not to grab the mic, but to call the fire department? I'd like, why was his first thing to be like, hey, y'all, look at this fire? Yeah. Why is your first priority not to put the fire out? Yeah. And to say, look back at it, but don't worry. Don't priority not to put the fire out? Yeah. And to say, look back at it, but don't worry.

Don't worry. Flea's penis is coming back any second. Yeah. Also, I don't know if it's ever calmed anyone down who's in hysterics to tell them to calm down,

but he did it a few times, which I was like... Calm down. There's a fire. Yeah. Calm down. Don't worry. The mud's flammable

because it's full of feces. Well, the fire department attempts to put out these blazes, but they're pelted with bottles and rocks. Sure. Of all law enforcement, leave the firefighters alone. They have no guns and they just want to help. Also, as a person who lives in a rural community, I assume the Rome, New York Fire Brigade is 12 farmers who volunteer on the weekends? Yes. Probably.

Like, leave them alone. They want to help. Literally. Also, don't worry. The Chili Peppers, they do come out for an encore. Thank God. So if you were in front of this crowd and you could play one song to mellow everyone out, what would you choose? In the Arms of an Angel, Sarah McLachlan.

Ooh, nice. Well, the Chili Peppers decide to play the worst cover they could possibly choose. The Jimi Hendrix song, Fire. And all hell breaks loose, and it's everyone for themselves. Just wild. So this is full-blown chaos.

Crowds of shirtless dudes probably named Chad and backwards hats overturn vehicles. One group of geniuses manages to tip over a tractor but break someone's leg in the process. People report the smell of pepper spray wafting through the air. A Mercedes-Benz nearly goes up in flames. And people set fire to one of the enormous stage sound towers. There are hundreds of people destroying trailers, vendor tents, and tearing open ATMs. The staff are hiding their lanyards to avoid being identified by the mob. Oh my god. What would you do in that situation?

I would run. I would run away. Absolutely. Absolutely run. Although I want to say simultaneously, I oppose mob justice by white men, but I do support burning down all of the stuff that the Woodstock 99 guys spent a bunch of money on. Please destroy everything. Cost them more money.

Punish them. Punish them. But I don't like all the people being imperiled. Now, Linda, you touched on this. I want to give a heads up to our audience. We're about to talk about some sexual violence, so if you'd prefer not to hear about it, skip ahead about two minutes.

So, over the course of the festival, there are multiple reports of sexual abuse and rape. Now, we are not going to cover the details in this episode, but we can't tell the story of Woodstock 99 without at least acknowledging it. If you think organizer John Scher took the matter seriously, well, let's hear what he had to say about it on the Netflix docuseries Trainwreck. Woodstock was actually like a small city, you know. All things considered, I'd say that there would probably be as many or more rapes in any size city of that. I'm not condoning it. It was wrong. It was horrible.

I wish we caught everybody. I'd put them all in jail. It was wrong. It was horrible. I wish we caught everybody. I put them all in jail. But considering there were 200,000 people there, it wasn't something that gained enough momentum so that it caused any on-site issues. Other than, of course, to the women it happened to. Oh. Yeah. I'd like to catch you and put you in jail, Cher. It is crazy to me that he agreed to be interviewed.

So much confidence. The lack of self-awareness. The rapes weren't really that bad, except for the people that got raped. Yeah. How about we aim higher, Cher? Right? I mean, he did get a lot of heat for those comments,

rightfully so. I wish he got more heat, like, getting set on fire. Going to hell. Yeah. So in addition to the assaults, there was property damage and injuries. Tractor trailers, cars, buses, audio towers, and vendor tents are destroyed. A truck overturns onto a person. Oh my god. Another attendee has severe head trauma, and by the end of the festival, three people die. Wow. So a few hours after the festival and riots end, the grounds smolder with the remains of burned up trailers. Baton-wielding cops shoo the attendees off the property. Given the size of the festival, accounts of how bad things got vary. Despite all the terror, Cher and Lang remain upbeat about the whole experience. They tell reporters the next morning that the riot was just an aberration

caused by a few bad kids and say that for three days, until the chaos erupted, it was perfectly peaceful. Wow. And here we should know that the Woodstock organizers faced multiple lawsuits from concertgoers and the mother of one of the people who died. But the outcomes of those lawsuits are unknown. Even police and some business owners back them up. So Sam, if you could read this one hotel owner's opinion. Okay. The kids were great. I think you're talking about maybe 100 kids that were really involved. The TV has a way of exaggerating things. Take any city for four days and read the newspaper. Wow. I just can't help but to think if it was a different group of people. If this was a festival with black people, they would have

shut it down day two. Sure. Imagine if a black music festival started a fire. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Different documentary for sure. Yeah. For the other side of the story, we go to Carson Daly, For sure. Yeah. For the other side of the story, we go to Carson Daly. Ah. Possibly the most famous MTV VJ of all time. He says it was that bad.

He thought he was literally going to die. Oh my God. So, Lindy, can you please read from Daly's Instagram post? I would love to. It started off great. TRL live from the side of the main stage, interviewing all the bands. And then started getting pelted with bottles, rocks, lighters, all of it. It got insane fast. I remember being in a production van, driving recklessly through cornfields to get to safety.

It was so crazy. And a blur now. I just remember feeling like I was in another country during military conflict. Oh my God. Let me tell you the one human being who is just trying to do his job. Carson Daly hosting TRL. Oh my God. Absolutely.

There's no malice in that man. There's no darkness in that man. He is doing a job. I once called him Canada the man. He's just like, leave Carson alone. Leave Carson alone. Don't make Carson Daly flee. I know. Flee through the corn.

Through the corn. He's a TRL host, not a war correspondent. Jesus Christ. Yes. Well, whatever the case, the legacy of Woodstock 99 isn't peace. It's high prices, general chaos, assaults, and of course, breaking stuff. As for a fourth Woodstock, it doesn't seem likely anytime soon. Even when it came for the 50th anniversary of 69, nobody wanted to do it.

Yeah, no. Also, the reputation of Woodstock 69 might need to be re-evaluated. Mindy, you touched on this. People point out that violence, sexual assaults, and general mess were likely around for the original Woodstock too, but they were largely tolerated as part of the culture. And then, like you said, you know, idealized post. But also there's something real about the energy of disaffected white suburban men in 1999 and deliberately stoking that and ramping it up. And, you know, you're signaling something to the crowd and what kind of crowd you want to have if you only have three women on the bill. And the organizers are responsible for the culture of the festival. And you can feel people deliberately stoking that energy. Well, let's do a little, where are they now?

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this. Michael Lang is deceased. He passed away in January of 2022. So John Cher became the villain of the Netflix documentary after saying all of those terrible things about the sexual assaults in and around Woodstock 99. He is still a promoter and now president of a consultancy that organizes plays, concerts, and festivals. So you might get to enjoy one of his events soon.

Hooray. Most importantly, the Air Force Base is also doing well. Yeah, it's now the Griffiths International Sculpture Garden. It's got a bunch of unique statues, beautiful walking paths, and apple trees. Okay. So they have shade now. Yeah. But here on The Big Flop, we do like to always try

and end on a positive note. Well, not this time. Yeah, well, not this one. But I mean, are there any silver linings that you could think of? I mean, I'll say that things are markedly

different now. And I'm like, that's actually not what music festival lineups look like. They're still bad. It's still mostly men. And it's still like toxic and we still dance in poop sometimes.

You gotta. But I do feel like the fact that people are looking back on the 90s in a critical way is very therapeutic for me. Yes. The only silver lining of Woodstock 99 was letting everyone know once and for all how trash Limp Bizkit is. Maybe that? I'd take solace in that.

So now that you both know about Woodstock 99, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop? Mega flop. It's a mega flop. It might be the flop of flops. The fact that that guy's still a concert promoter is crazy they never go away they never get fired they never go away they never have to stop doing what they're doing the injustice so this dude share gets to keep doing bullshit

music festivals meanwhile vertical horizon only had one hit. One hit. Remember, she's everything you want. She's everything you need. I sure do. I was just going to ask you to sing a little bit for us. Yeah, I'm in. Well, thank you so much to our wonderful guests,

Lindy West and Sam Sanders, for joining us here on The Big Flop. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week with a flop that also features lots of dudes in violence, the XFL. Bye. I want to come back for that one. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and Atwill Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown. Produced

by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner. Written by Anna Rubinova. Engineered by Andrew Holtzberger. Our story editor is Drew Beebe. Our managing producer is Molly Getman. Our executive producers are Kate Walsh and Will Malnati for At Will Media. Legal support by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, and Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Managing producer is

Music supervisor is Our theme song is And executive producers are Morgan Jones and Marshall Louis for Wondery. We are on a sinking ship. We are on a sinking ship.