[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Like Matt I thought they should have shown Rage Against the Machine as well, apparently they burned the American Flag on stage at the end of their set so it sounds like they riled the crowd up as much as Limp Bizkit. But yeah it was absolutely shocking, that poor 15 year old who was raped in the back of that van they drove into the Rave hanger as well, poor kid. And I suppose no justice was ever gotten for those girls, not really much hope of finding those men again unless the victims knew them.

I did read an article and Tom Morello from RATM said this about it in 2000 -

“I think the sexual assaults that occurred were horrific and inexcusable,” he said. “But in general, I thought the media coverage was grossly unfair and youth-bashing and tried to vilify an entire generation because of a couple of idiots there.”

He seemed to have changed his mind a lot more recently -

“For me, Woodstock ’99 was the low point of nu metal. The rapes in the pit, the trashing of the sites. It just seemed like it distilled the worst elements of metal — the misogynist jock buggery — and the message wasn’t announced as ‘this is a horrible thing.’ It was more like, ‘this is our new Woodstock generation — a bunch of idiots.’”


But in general I don't actually blame the bands at all, they were doing what those bands do. The organisers treated the crowd like animals and they ended up acting accordingly

Yeah the paradox as to how the bands were treated compared to the audience was quite stark

They basically just want to fleece them as for the drinking water...omg they were lucky more didn’t die or have serious illness