The Batlord

I'm sure he will have a well reasoned response that doesn't just show him to be human waste.

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Carpe Mortem

Really, really excellent.

Water & obvious planning issues aside... I think a big part of the failure was the pre-teen/ early teen demographic being so newly recognized as YOUNG ADULTS and marketed to in the 90s.

In the 60s & 70s you didn't have magazines etc. catering to these specific kids, let alone music genres. They were considered kids still. The culture was not ready for these young adults to attend these types of festivals, with their lack of maturity, and with potentially sleazy adults in attendance.

Maybe the documentary even mentions this, I don't remember. I have a tendency to blindly pontificate and brainstorm

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Lisnaholic

Yeah! Even I knew their music was different,SGR, although I still managed to spell "Bizkit" wrong

Your work colleague was right in many ways: I think the original Woodstock sent a message that, left to itself, the counter culture could organise and gather in a positive spirit in which women and children were both safe and welcome. The ´99 Woodstock showed the counter-culture descending into anarchy in just a couple of days, with women abused and the vulnerable suddenly more vulnerable than usual.

I don't remember hearing your comments word-for-word like that in the documentary, Carpe, but it was pretty much like that. (Welcome back, btw)

Along with their other mis-steps, the organizers failed to foresee how a huge crowd, cranked up on Korn and Limp Bizkit would behave. It was very touching to see how some other artists were also caught, trying to compete with those big name acts. A tough crowd in many senses of the word.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

SGR

I think something that the documentary doesn't explicitly mention (maybe they do, I haven't watched the last episode) is that '69 and '99 were very different times in a particular way - in '69, many young men who may have been predisposed to aggression and violence were off in Vietnam fighting a (stupid, bull****) war. In '99, men who otherwise may have been off doing a similar thing were instead stewing in their anger and testosterone listening to Korn and Limp Bizkit. Chaos ensues. It's just one aspect of it among others.

I didn't live through the sixties, but the feeling I get is that there was a fairly unified counter-culture movement back then (again, the war provided a nice focal point) - the counter-culture in '99 was instead rather fragmented. People's feelings of anger, isolation, and disillusion with their place in society and the "American Dream" was more atomized. You had hip-hop music, grunge, big beat, post-grunge, pop-punk, and nu-metal all catering to different feelings.

The '90s was an interesting time - the fact that they had a festival that included artists like the following in the same place is really damn cool, just too bad about how it all turned out.

Lisnaholic

That's a really good point, relating the festivals to the draft, the Vietnam war and the returning Vets. I don't think that factor is mentioned in the documentary; they clearly should have interviewed you on camera in order to get a more complete picture!

When I was watching the documentaries I was reminded of the storyline of Lord Of The Flies, but spread over 25 years: how order, innocence and good intentions slowly succumb to darker elements in the human psyche.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Carpe Mortem

Thanks for the welcome back and likewise re: SGR's comment about the draft, very astute observations. I'd also add that it seems the 90s were the beginning of mental illness celebration. It should have been just visibility, but it seems people were almost proud in their declarations... from my recollection. That's never a good thing.

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Guybrush

I was a teenager in 99 and feel like the quality of the average teen was pretty low, me included. So many shitheads.

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Something Completely Different

SGR

Quality of character, you mean?

Guybrush

Yes, like people bullied more, were more racist, did more vandalism, were more rapey and misogynistic, etc.

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Something Completely Different

Plankton

Finally got around to checking out The Boys.

Yup. I was instantly hooked.

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