Woodstock 1999
Preformed July, 22 to July 25 1999, it was the second large-scale music festival since Woodstock 1994 in attempt to emulate the original Woodstock festival in 1969. However this Woodstock was preformed in upstate New York and approximately 200,000 people attended the festival. Woodstock '99 was marred by violence, rape, and fires bring the festival to an abrupt end.Violent action sprang up after the band "Limp Bizkit" preformed causing the crowd to tear plywood off of fences and multiple reports of sexual assault were documented. Violence escalated the next night during the final hours of the concert as Red Hot Chili Peppers performed. A group of peace promoters led by the anti-gun violence organization Pax (later renamed the Center to Prevent Youth Violence) had distributed candles to those stopping at their booth during the day, intending them for a candlelight vigil to be held during the Chili Peppers' performance of the song "Under the Bridge". During the band's set, the crowd began to light the candles, some also using candles and lighters to start bonfires. The hundreds of empty plastic water bottles that littered the lawn area were used as fuel for the fire. After the Chili Peppers were finished with their main set, the audience was informed about "a bit of a problem." An audio tower caught fire, and the fire department was called in to extinguish it.
Back onstage for an encore, the Chili Peppers' lead singer Anthoy Kiedis remarked how amazing the fires looked from the stage, comparing them to the 1979 film Apocalypse Now. The band proceeded to play "Sir Psycho Sexy", followed by their rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". Kiedis later stated in his autobiography, Scar Tissue, that Hendrix's sister had asked the Chili Peppers to play "Fire" in honor of Jimi and his performance at the original Woodstock festival, and that they were not playing it to encourage the crowd. Many large bonfires were burning high before the band left the stage for the last time. Participants danced in circles around the fires. Looking for more fuel, some tore off panels of plywood from the supposedly inviolable security perimeter fence. ATMs were tipped over and broken into, trailers full of merchandise and equipment were forced open and burgled, and abandoned vendor booths were turned over, and set afire.
MTV, which had been providing live coverage, removed its entire crew. MTV host Kurt Loder described the scene in the July 27, 1999 issue of USA Today, saying 'It was dangerous to be around. The whole scene was scary. There were just waves of hatred bouncing around the place. It was clear we had to get out of there. It was like a concentration camp. To get in, you get frisked to make sure you're not bringing in any water or food that would prevent you from buying from their outrageously priced booths. You wallow around in garbage and human waste. There was a palpable mood of anger." After some time, a large force of New York State Troopers, local police, and various other law enforcement arrived. Most had crowd control gear and proceeded to form a riot-line that flushed the crowd to the northwest, away from the stage located at the eastern end of the airfield. Few of the crowd offered strong resistance and they dispersed quickly back toward the campground and out the main entrance.
There was an extraordinary aftermath to the Woodstock '99 festival. Police investigated four alleged instances of rape that occurred during the concert. Eyewitnesses reported a crowd-surfing woman being pulled down into the crowd and gang-raped in the moshpit during Limp Bizkit's set. A volunteer also reported seeing a gang-rape during the Korn performance. Seven arrests were made on the final night of the concert and, afterward, police reviewed video footage, hoping to identify and hold accountable rapists and looters who, amid the chaos, had not been arrested. Approximately 12 trailers, a small bus and a number of booths and portable toilets were burned in the fray.
Despite six people being injured there were no recorded deaths at the concert site. One individual, David DeRosia had collapsed in the mosh pit during the Metallica performance. Concert medical staff initially tried to treat his symptoms which were seizures and what doctors had suspected to be a drug overdose. Mr. DeRosia was transferred to the main medical center at the Air Force base then airlifted to University Hospital in Syracuse New York. A little more than an hour after he had collapsed, Mr. DeRosia's body temperature was 107 degrees. The following afternoon, Mr. DeRosia was in a coma and a doctor had diagnosed him with "hyperthermia, probably secondary to heat stroke". After being in a coma for another day, Mr. DeRosia passed away at 12:09pm on Monday July 26th, 1999.
The autopsy report ruled the death as accidental and listed the cause of death to be hyperthermia along with an enlarged heart and obesity. In 2001, the mother of David DeRosia filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court against the promoters of Woodstock 1999 and six doctors who worked at the event. The lawsuit stated that Mr. DeRosia died because concert promoters were negligent by not providing enough fresh water and inadequate medical care for 200,000 attendees.
All in all, the concert had a good start which soon led to a disaster due to the overpriced merchandise being sold there and the anxiousness of the crowd. The total amount of bands who preformed at Woodstock '99 was 101 bands who some still exist today.
