Woodstock on Pay Per View

Breasts, Drugs, and Flea's Sex Organ have replaced Peace, Love, and Music. This year's Woodstock wasn't defined by it's music, just as 94's was defined by it's mud and unorganization.

Yes, the festival ended with a riot. (Which I agree with. I mean, $10 for a burrito? Come on!) Sadly, $5,000 of Moby merchandise was stolen.

I can't talk about the riot. It was barely shown on ppv. I can try to point out the few musical highlights, along with the mentioning of the gratuitous nudity.

Offspring played a high-energy show, including their hits, "Gone Away", "Self Esteem", and "Pretty Fly..". Their soft-punk/hard-pop style songs pleased the audience on the first day. Another standout performance, Everclear, blew through their short set and even invited about 30 people onstage to dance.

Metallica closed the second night with a quite impresive performance, combining old and new material such as the 1987? song, "One" and the hit from last year, "That Bob Seger Cover".

Other standouts: Los Lobos, moe., Bruce Hornsby, Elvis Costello (The song, "allison" was amazing.), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Willie Nelson, Jewel, and Rusted Root.

If there's going to be another Woodstock, the man behind the festival is going to make a few changes. More water. Better food prices coupled with better sanitation would definately have eased the anger at the end of this year's fest.

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Nick Carpenter
8.6.1999