The way it is put together does a wonderful job of touching on several important topics while bouncing about in time, giving the impression of a dreadful infrastructure that was far different from the mindset of the original 1969 festival. This tale clearly deals with unbridled greed and people losing their sense of reality, but it also has historical musical performances. It was a roller coaster event, as many first-hand witnesses claim about this tale, and “Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99” had such tremendous soothing downs and frantic ups.
The Jewel, Gavin Rossdale of Bush, Jonathan Davis of Korn, and Fatboy Slim are some of the talking heads who discuss the value of energy and how a crowd of 200,000 exploited, starving, and thirsty fans may change at any time. Unlike Woodstock ’99, which was in some ways about survival, the first Woodstock was advertised as being about peace, love, and music. Similar to that, this film aims to humanise individuals who were treated like animals and then labelled as such when they began to revolt and wrecked the venue by the time it closed on Sunday night.
This documentary seeks accountability at this late stage when everyone’s NDAs from that fatal Monday morning appear to have expired. It doesn’t capture that, but it has plenty of instances where the in charge of Woodstock figures like promoter John Scher and Woodstock owner Michael Lang demonstrate their lack of knowledge of what occurred or even the people they invited. They attracted a number of well-known performers who are paid to be furious (Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock), and they then provided thousands of concertgoers with a variety of causes for anger. After that, they gave them candles.
The series’ behind-the-scenes video, which begins with a VHS tape of planning sessions that transitioned from nostalgic hope to total neglect, makes it exceptionally interesting. You can see how Woodstock ’99 could have been planned with good intentions, but you can also see how fast those goals vanished when they opted to hold the event on hot tarmac and cut expenditures on food, water, and supplies.
With one episode every day, “Trainwreck” moves rapidly. Its various themes, pop culture allusions, name-drops, and general schadenfreude constantly pop, yet the same acuteness can lead it to pass over some of the more relevant or interesting aspects of the overall picture. There could be more about the opulent, sponsor-heavy accommodations provided to the celebrities backstage or the pay-per-view component that broadcast the revelry with the same lax standards as everything else.
Although it doesn’t necessarily need to be, this documentary isn’t exactly eye-opening. It utilises this event with rap-rock gods as a textbook illustration of what kills a culture without saying it out loud. Going to this narrative is meant to leave you in awe of how clear these advancements are. People will retaliate if you treat them like animals and take advantage of them with $4 water bottles. The crowd will riot. They will still have all of their hatred once the entertainment, which was the only thing that could calm them, ceases. It must go someplace. It resulted in mayhem and devastation in this instance, which is characterised here as a contagious drive among concertgoers. This documentary demonstrates how the breakdown of the plot might have been foreseen and stopped with each gripping paragraph.
Now streaming on Netflix.