How a lack of understanding of the present music scene led to the chaos portrayed in Trainwreck: Woodstock '99

Jamie Crawford's Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 premiered on July 3, 2022, with all three parts dropping at once on streaming giant Netflix.

The documentary unravels the tale of the infamous Woodstock '99 music festival while also attempting a deep dive into the primary reasons behind the chaotic ordeal that ended with at least two people dead and several assaulted and harassed.

There were numerous reasons behind the ensuing chaos at the festival, but most of it was due to the cost-cutting efforts of the management, especially John Scher and Michael Lang, as explored by the filmmaker in various ways, across numerous interviews and archival footage.

What the docu-series captures in the very first episode is how one of the biggest issues that caused the rapid degradation of the event was the organizers' failure to gauge the latest musical trends of the 90s, as well as the impact it had on the audience.

As a result, the event - which began as an attempt to replicate the success of the original 1969 Woodstock festival - ended with it being widely regarded as the worst music festival of all time.

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Rebellious music was the root cause behind the mob getting riled up at Woodstock '99

The 30th anniversary edition of the famous music festival failed miserably to recreate any of the things that made the original 1969 festival so special.

For instance, the venue itself was nothing like the original venue. The '99 event was held at a former Air Force base in Rome, upstate New York, which was worsened by very inconvenient weather. The first episode of Crawford's docu-series lingers on these details for quite some time, before getting into the impact of the music.

The biggest problem at Woodstock '99 was probably a lack of understanding of the dominating music trends of the '90s. This was evident from the constantly growing angst in the crowd during the performances of rock bands like Limp Bizkit and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The documentary successfully captured this constant wave of anger, which spread like wildfire when Fred Durst took to the stage.

Unlike the original festival that relied on calming music and the fabled 'flower power,' the modern era embraced a more aggressive and rebellious brand of sounds that riled up the audience instead of calming them.

When the concert started, the music aggravated the already present angst among the members of the crowd. Moreover, the 250,000 attendees had a fair share of miscreants among them, who took this as an opportunity to further cause a commotion.

However, ample blame lay with the management, who did not provide the required security and expected that despite the changing social scenario and shift in how people perceive music, things would go off as smoothly as they did in 1969.

Towards the end, the documentary showed how the organizers kept singling out Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit and accused him of choosing the words that got the crowd riled up and led to the ensuing chaos.

In response, Fred Durst retaliated by saying:

"Limp Bizkit is an easy target so bring it on...It’s easy to point the finger and blame [us], but they hired us for what we do — and all we did is what we do. I would turn the finger and point it back to the people that hired us."

Though numerous other reasons were cited for the terrible outcome of Woodstock '99, the shift in music and its perception, coupled with the organizers' ignorance about it, played a big part in the massacre that happened at the end of the festival.

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Netflix's three-part Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 offers a holistic view of what happened at the event and points out the exact problems that ultimately resulted in the riot.

All three parts of the docu-series are now streaming on Netflix.