Woodshock '99

I'm still a little bit Wood-shocked. Three days of music, hordes of people, heat, bugs, and porta-potties, are enough to drive any human over the age of 15 a little mad. It began, after the first day, to feel that this manufactured city, population 270, 000, was some kind of giant biosphere, some kind of crazy experiment, and now I'm beginning to think, maybe it was. Can something that happened almost accidentally, that brought together strangers, that celebrated youth...be modernized and recreated 30 years later, and still stand for something?

If Woodstock '69 was about Peace and Love, then Woodstock '99 was about profits and photo-ops. Everything at the Woodstock of this generation, seemed a little less than genuine. Whether it was the security team that wore, "peace patrol" shirts, or the young women who, spontaneously took off their tops the instant the pay-per-view cameras were pointed their way, or the breasts they proudly displayed. And then there was the instant mud (take dirt-just add water). When the rains did not come, as they did at the previous Woodstocks, the concert goers created their own mud pits. Ingeniously using the water that flowed from the fountains near the portable bathrooms. How many of them realized it wasn't just mud they were rolling around in? How many of them cared? $150 dollars is a bargain to frolic in the excrement of 270,000 strangers and be seen on MTV, Much Music, and Pay-per-view simultaneously.

No doubt, if the evening had concluded with thousands of people holding candles looking peacefully at the Jimi Hendrix hologram in the sky as intended, I along with many others, would have walked away with a much different feeling. Perhaps we would have felt content, serene, and maybe even hopeful. Instead of peaceful images however, the last images of Woodstock we saw were burning tractor-trailers and baton wielding riot police. The night ended looking like a cross between the LA riots and Kosovo. A vision now burned into our brains, thanks to the TV news.

The newspaper reports and news stories I've seen are claiming the violent behavior was a result of high prices. The rioting participants making, "anti-establishment statements," spurred on by the bands who served as a backdrop for the event. That's not the case. Unlike at Woodstock of '69, the youth of today do not have a cause, even a cause as small as overpriced concessions at a really big rock show. The violence and outbursts were caused by boredom, by beer, by a small minority who did not feel the unity, and were determined to ruin it for those who did.

Was the experiment of Woodstock '99 successful? I think it was. I think it brilliantly demonstrated the problems being seen in the youth culture of today. And once again, the parents, the media, the public, rather than saying they don't understand, rather than looking for answers, are blaming the music. Woodstock '99 was the voice of this generation. It represented beautifully a misunderstood youth acting out, and adult population exploiting that anger for sensationalistic headlines and pointing fingers every which way but at themselves.