I wouldn't say the Summer of 1999 was a lazy summer for a teenager like me at the time, but for one unforgettable weekend I was glued to a TV seeing what at the time were some of the best bands that music had to offer.MTV broadcasted the entire concert (without any VJs talking over it I might add which made it even more awesome) for those 3 days. It was the 1st time I had ever seen a concert in that way on TV in my life, and I was hooked.lots of great Rock,Electronic and HipHop Bands filled out the schedule,but the following moments are the ones that were most memorable to me.
I remember tuning in a bit late on the Friday,and being a little pissed I only saw the last 10 minutes of the OFFSPRING, but honestly I was only interested in seeing the headliners 'KORN'. The band appealed to me like crazy,I thought Munky was da shit, and their album ' Freak On A Leash' was probably the most played album by me and my friends that summer.
Safe to say lead singer Jonathan went all out that night. There were a few moments after each of his songs where he went completely nuts and I thought the guy would have a heart attack.
I also was starting to notice how huge and bad ass the crowd was.More on that later....
I still regard The Offsprings album 'SMASH' as one of the best albums I've ever heard. By 1999 the band had gone a bit commercial but still somewhat likeable to me still. They still played a lot of their earlier songs like 'Bad Habit' in the video above, the ultimate don't fuck with me while I'm driving song. At the end of the video is one particular memorable moment as well, involving the Backstreet Boys, Cardboard cutouts,lots of trash,a baseball bat, and a lot of people that weren't exactly fans of the boy band.A defining moment for the anti boy band lovers and MTV showing it was pretty funny.
The night ended with BUSH headlining.Overall a pretty good performance but I was already pretty spent from headbanging to KORN.
SATURDAY JULY 24th 1999, the main day for WOODSTOCK 99, this was the day everyone was looking forward too. The powerful 3 in the Main Stage, up and comers Limp Bizkit, The awesomeness of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE,and the great Metallica (my fave band of all time.)
I was also starting to notice the crowd a bit more.MTV would show little clips of how the people were living there in tents and even have little raves and do other fun things at night. The drugs were everywhere too, but it all seemed good natured....for now.
The crowds were suffering from not enough water, the prices for bottled water were through the roof. At the stages, the crowd started needed to have to be water hosed on and there was hundreds of people needing medical help because of the lack of water.
One part of this Woodstock that also resembled the one in 1969, the nakedness. Constant crowd shots of hot girls with their bare boobs brought out the Beavis and Butthead in me, it was cool heheheheh. But of course there was some disturbing nude people as well, but thankfully the camera never showed much of that.
As Limp Bizkit came on that night, the crowd was getting a bit restless with the atmosphere.Limps music would make them crazier, and as you can see in the video above, the crowd was starting to destroy one of the sound towers. The scene of people surfing with multiple broken off big pieces of wood was excellent,and Limps lead singer decided to join in on the fun and do it himself as he sung his bands version of George Michaels 'Faith'. The rest was history. (camera randomly showing Verne Troyer was so awesome).
Enjoyed the hell out of Rage Against The Machines performance.Metallica,my number 1 band was next.I was so psyched.
Buttt hold on one second, MTV switched over to the other stage, and one of the bands that got me into Electronic Music was on. It was the first time I had ever seen them LIVE, this was gonna be awesome..and it was.This was MY music of the moment (along with trance)and the sight right before the Chem Brothers came on, of a video projector showing weird images and the trance song GOURYELLA - GOURYELLA playing in the background to everybody was the point where I really realized this music had arrived to the mainstream.
They showed the Chemical Brothers for about 20 minutes (boobs galore everywhere too) while Metallica was setting up on the Main Stage. As much I loved Metallica, I felt kinda bad when they cut away from the Chemical Brothers.
Now it was time for the legends.
Metallica BROUGHT IT. To a point where I think they had about 3 encores of about 3 songs each time.They looked tired as hell but the crowed wanted MORE MORE MORE.The epic intro as shown in this video was only the begining of a epic and LONG performance.
Saturday was too crazy. I was spent from seeing all that great stuff. As Sunday came upon me, the bands seemed very lightweight to me,some notable random acts included GODSMACK,Jewel,Sevendust, Collective Soul,Creed,MEGADEATH,and The MUSE. I was only extremely looking forward to the Chili Peppers at the end.
As the concert was ending with the Chili Peppers playing on main stage (and unfortunetly a completely naked Flea with his dong out all performance)there was a good number of crazy people who were starting to set the big pieces of wood from the soundtower on fire.The scene of bonfires all over Woodstock was now seen and many scared concert goers were starting to leave a bit early cause of it.
In a way it was only fitting that the craziness of that concert weekend would end in that way.The MTV news VJs finally appeared during the Broadcast reporting on the happenings,sometimes even cutting into the Chili Peppers performance.I remember seeing the sight of a scared for his life Carson Daly and thought it was pretty funny in particular.In the vid below are the random news clips about the fires and aftermath of WoodStock 99.
In the end while all the attention went to everything but the music,I was and will always remember it for more than just that,but for also it being one of the best concerts musically I had ever seen.I didn't even attend it, but 17 year old me wishes he would have.But thanks MTV for showing it on PPV that weekend.Its one of the few things you've done right.
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