* Woodstock '99 Burns Its Own Mythology Let me stand next to your fire.
* Woodstock Officials Assess Flea plays a hotter than average set.
* Some vital stats on Woodstock '99 Three days, lotsa stats.
* Woodstock's Interview Did you set Woodstock on fire?
Chili Peppers come under fire from Rome's mayor.
As Woodstock '99's organizers continue to assess the monetary damage done during the festival's riotous closing night, city officials in the small New York town that played host to the three-day event are attempting to assess less tangible damage, such as the impact on the city's morale and reputation. This morning, Rome mayor Joe Griffo, who had been one of the primary advocates for bringing Woodstock to his city, expressed his doubts about Rome's willingness to host another large rock festival, let alone another Woodstock.
"I don't want the community to bury its head in the sand and not be willing to put on big events in the future," Griffo said. "But if this is what's becoming of Woodstock as we approach the new millenium, then obviously I don't think a lot of communities are going to be opening their arms to host an event such as this or any type of concert that does this.
BY: JENNY ELISCU (7-29-99), special thanks to Rolling Stone Magazine ____________________________________________________________________
Let me stand next to your fire.
It might seem strange for a festival whose slogan was "three more days of peace, love and rock & roll" to have ended with fires, looting and riot squads, but if you were one of the more than 250,000 attendees at Woodstock '99, that ending probably didn't come as a big surprise. After all, this wasn't your parents' Woodstock -- everything about it was faster, bolder, louder, more expensive and, ultimately, more explosive.
It would be virtually impossible for any musical event, no matter how glorious, to compete with the original love-in. Over the past thirty years, looking back through rose-colored glasses has turned that festival into one of the most highly romanticized events of the twentieth century. Trying to replicate something so soaked in nostalgia would be a tall order, almost doomed to negative comparison from the start. In truth, Woodstock '99 will no doubt prove to have been as much of a defining moment for its estimated quarter-million attendees as the first festival was for the half-million hippies that descended upon Yasgur's Farm in the summer of 1969.
BY: JENNY ELISCU (7-26-99), special thanks to Rolling Stone Magazine ____________________________________________________________________
Flea plays a hotter than average set.
Call it Murphy's Law. Just a few hours after Woodstock '99 organizers convened at a press conference to pat themselves on the back about having defied critics' predictions that the three-day festival would be a logistical nightmare, the whole thing went up in smoke. Literally.
BY: JOE ROSENTHAL (7-26-99), special thanks to Rolling Stone Magazine ____________________________________________________________________
Three days, lotsa stats.
(Sources: Press conferances, interviews with Woodstock '99 co-promoter Michael Lang and press materials.)(7-26-99), special thanks to Rolling Stone Magazine ____________________________________________________________________
Q: Did you set Woodstock on fire?
AK: There was a minute there when CNN was trying to blame it on somebody, but we were not the instigators. We were not the inciters of that scene.
Q: Do you think it was Jewel's fault?
AK: No, I think it was just a culmination of three days of ill conditions for those kids, being charged four bucks for a bottle of water, stuff like that, and the natural phenomenon of bonfire-ism that happens at big festival shows.
Q: What the heck is that?
AK: When we played Lollapalooza a few years ago, there was a mighty bonfire at the back of the stadium every night. It was just par for the course. I didn't think these were larger or more potentially dangerous fires, but it turns out that at Lollapalooza there were about 20,000 people, and at Woodstock there were 200,000 people.
Q: Do you remember what happened?
AK: Not really, because right after our set, we jumped into a car and went to some runway in the middle of nowhere and got on a plane. By the time the people started looting, I was checking into my hotel in Manhattan. It was only later that I found out about all this crazy destruction that happened.
Q: You are all spiritual, right? So do you feel sensitive about the new millennium?
AK: In terms of having high hopes that the level of consciousness will get higher and higher, yeah.
Q: Um, what?
AK: It seems like the chaos of this world is accelerating, but so is the beauty in the consciousness of more and more people. It's kind of like this mad race to see which evolves faster quicker.
Q: I noticed as you get older you look more like Iggy Pop. Is he your father?
AK: Yeah. I think all people who are born in Detroit end up looking like Iggy Pop. I ran into him at a hotel in Barcelona on our last tour. He was looking good.
Q: Do you remember how in your early videos you used to wear neon paint on your body?
AK: Hell, yeah. I've changed so much, but I kind of miss the blustery naivete of young Anthony. I love that guy. Sometimes life's so much cooler when you just don't know any better and all the painful lessons have not hammered your head open yet. He's definitely still there. Those early videos crack me up.
Q: They weren't all wussy like Duran Duran videos.
AK: We were definitely on the contrarian tip. The funny thing is, at the time, I was so sworn to the punk rock, I couldn't even hear Duran Duran. It was something that my ears refused to hear. Now I listen back to their songs, and I go, "God, those are pretty good."
Q: Some people think ``Californication'' is your best record. Do you think they're probably nuts?
AK: Well, being in the band, although you don't realize it at first, has a lot of ebbs and flows and tides and waves that don't necessarily move with what the band is creating in terms of music and energy and imagery and just places that people are able to take your mind.
Q: Um, what?
AK: Sometimes the fickle nature of the public decides, "Oh, they're good. Oh, they're bad." Regardless of what you're up to. In this particular place, the fact that people are so down with this record is not a result of us being flavor of the moment or youth culture trend of the early '90s. It's strictly based on the fact that they like these songs and the colors that we're perpetrating on this record.
Q: How is John Frusciante working out for you?
AK: I would consider him definitely one of my very best friends and I know he feels the same about me. We have a lot of love and respect. We're able to breathe in each other's space at this point, and it was never really like that before, even when we were hyper best friends.
Q: Um, what?
AK: There really was a magical vibe happening between everybody when John came back. It was so easy for us to write and record it, just because we were all so happy to have John back and it was flowing. He's the cosmic wizard of the band.
Q: Do you ever feel superstitious about your success?
AK: I don't really feel superstitious. That's just the nature of life, the whole ``battles lost and won'' concept. I think we're very lucky because we love music so much and we love each other so much. We found our perfect chemistry in this universe. As long as we're alive and together, good things are going to happen. ____________________________________________________________________
Woodstock's Fiery End Burns Rome Mayor
Mayor Joe Griffo discusses the violence that marred Woodstock '99 and the possibility for the festival's return to his city
"It's kind of like being in a heavyweight prize fight," he said. "You go the twelve rounds and it's hard to say whether or not you want a rematch, if you're still standing at the end."
But the city of Rome has more immediate concerns than the next Woodstock festival. On Monday, the seven people who were accused of criminal activity in connection with Sunday's melee were arraigned on charges including criminal mischief, riot, petit larceny and disorderly conduct. According to Eleanor T. Coniglio, chief clerk for the Rome City Court, two of the accused pled guilty to disorderly conduct, and each was sentenced to five days in Oneida County jail and required to pay a $45 fine. The remaining five have not yet entered their pleas and are set to return to court over dates spanning from tomorrow morning until October 8.
"I think they're thugs," Griffo said of the seven accused. "And I hope they get punished appropriately because those people are the ones that wrecked it for almost a quarter of a million people. And I wish I had an opportunity to see these young people eye-to-eye. If I would have known they were [in the court], I would have made my way down just to eyeball these kids and to ask what went through their heads to be so violent in the end."
Griffo was careful to point out that those involved with orchestrating Woodstock '99 aren't pointing fingers at each other, but he did cast blame toward one of the musical acts. He said: "I thought the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers acted somewhat irresponsibly at the end of their set on that night. They could have done [something] to quell [the situation] and Anthony [Kiedis] went out and just kind of said, 'Hey, it looks like Apocalypse Now out there.' And that was so unnecessary and really endangering in my opinion and shows a total disregard for their fans."
While he deferred to Woodstock co-promoters Michael Lang and John Scher on the issue of actual monetary losses, Griffo did say that "the state police put an estimate of about a million dollars as to the total damages." And, echoing Scher's statement earlier this morning, he explained that there had been no damages to any "permanent structures."
"I think right now the effort needs to be made for people to work together to bring this whole thing to closure."
Like the '69 event, Woodstock '99 was as much about capturing a moment in rock & roll history as it was about making rock & roll history. The forty-eight bands that played on either of the festival's two main stages comprise a snapshot of modern rock music. From Korn's funk-metal and the Chemical Brothers' big beat to DMX's stripped-down hip-hop and Jewel's sexy folk music, these were the acts that most emblematize what gets our mojo working on the eve of Y2K.
Admittedly, the composite cultural picture drawn by this Woodstock would frighten the folks who came out for the first one. It's a picture of a generation that might answer the question, "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" with a punch in the nose. At this festival, the best measure of how well a band's set was received was the number of injuries sustained during the course of their performance.
Taking rock & roll's visceral aspects to their most extreme, bands like Kid Rock, Korn and their star pupil, Limp Bizkit, generated nearly as much aggression in the crowd as their music displayed on stage. On Friday night, as Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis flailed around the stage in a kilt, stretchers were being passed over the heads of audience members so that kids who had gotten hurt could be strapped down and rushed off to one of the site's nine medical units. During Rage Against the Machine's blistering set, a steady procession of ambulances raced out of the unit closest to the stage, bound for the nearby St. Elizabeth's Hospital.
It was about two-thirds of the way through the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set when the three days' worth of rebellion came to its most destructive end. Despite the on-stage pleas of concert co-promoter John Scher, who noted that "the fire near the main tower is not part of the show," screaming kids began lighting the mass amounts of trash strewn about the site on fire. As the rioting concert goers danced and jumped across the growing flames, others scaled the forty-foot speaker towers and balanced precariously above the melee and echoing explosions. Semi trailers burst into flames, vendors were reportedly looted and, ultimately, riot troops and fire engines poured onto the base to squelch the widening conflagration.
The fires were the logical extension of what had been a motivating force during the entire weekend -- sheer pleasure, at any cost. For some, that meant risking an ankle injury to dance around in the mud. For others, it was ingesting potentially lethal combinations of narcotics. And, as those who tuned into the Pay-Per-View special already know, many Woodstockers just wanted to get naked; some who did suffered sexual assault.
In the end, though, it would be a shame if Woodstock '99 was remembered only for the way it ended, because that's certainly not how people who were there will recall it. Rather, with a set of their very own rose-hued glasses, those who spent the past three days in Rome, NY, will recall Woodstock '99 as the best rock & roll experience of their lives - a musical event so perfectly of-its-moment that replicating it would be just as impossible as replicating either of the other two.
Late into the Red Hot Chili Peppers' closing set on the East Stage at Griffiss Air Force Base, bonfires began to break out at various locations throughout the crowd. As the air became thick with smoke and the flames reached higher and higher, concert goers began chucking massive amounts of trash, sleeping mats, umbrellas -- whatever was nearby -- onto the pyres. As the chaos escalated, audience members began scaling the speaker towers while others pushed over outhouses, one goofily exclaiming, "Hope nobody was in there."
At that point, fire trucks had begun to work their way through the crowd and state troopers were streaming into the area as the festival dissolved into the destructive melee that led to the night's seven arrests, five injuries and the accusation that Woodstock '99 had turned into a riot, complete with batton-wielding policemen and looting.
Today, the authorities were appreciably downcast as they tried to explain away the previous night's disastrous events.
"Riot would be an overstatement in my opinion right now," said Rome's mayor Joe Griffo. "I believe that the reason the word 'riot' was used was because that's the section of the penal code that the individuals have been charged [with violating]. I believe that you people are using the word 'riot.'"
Griffo, like the other authorities present, also stressed that there aren't enough facts to make any final judgments just yet, and he attempted to allay fears about police and security mishandling. He did point out, however, that the bulk of the damage is thought to have been caused by "a small percentage of the individuals," or "a few assholes" as Woodstock co-promoter Michael Lang has called them.
"I don't think it was an anti-Woodstock statement," said Lang. "I think it was an anti-establishment, anti-everything, anti-anti statement. They were really tearing down their own facility."
As for the facility, Lang said he was uncertain where the next Woodstock would be held. Griffo, meanwhile, who had expressed his willingness to have the next Woodstock festival in Rome less than twenty-four hours earlier, today said he'd have to "reassess," taking into consideration the community's welfare.
Tickets Sold: 225,000 Dogs Stolen and/or Lost: 1 Death: 1 Arrests: 38 Watts of Power Available: 17 million Trailers Destroyed in Fire: 5 Medical Staff: 1,000 Ambulances: 22 Injuries Treated: 3,000 Band-Aids Handy: 15,000 Security Guards: 1,250 Porta-Potties: 2,500 Cost of a Balloon of Nitrous Oxide: $10 Cost of a Hit of Ecstasy: $20-$30 Cost of a Small Bottle of Water: $4 Cost of a Pizza: $12 Cost to Stage the Festival: $38 million Rainstorms: 2 Weddings: 3 Exposed Breasts: Lots
