Woodstock '99 - Ten Years Later

This last weekend was the 10th anniversary of the Woodstock 99 festivities in Rome, NY. For a weekend the population of our town increased tenfold as thousands flocked to the abandoned Griffiss runway for a weekend of rock and roll. It was like nothing Rome had ever seen before, and for one single weekend we were able to see what life could have been like if Rome wasn't at the economically depressed crossroads of New York.

The ex-Air Force base proved to be the prime location, with ample land for parking, camping and two separate stages so that at any time, you could pick your choice of two major artists playing at the same time. A large metal fence was erected around the perimeter to ensure only ticket holders gained access through one of the main gates. Upon arriving at Woodstock '99 one would find an orderly, well-oiled machine managing parking, camping and everything else in between.

But somewhere along the line things went terribly wrong. The bright-eyed city of Rome officials who oversaw that first day must have been patting themselves on the back for executing such a brilliant plan. Those same officials would be watching their TV screens with horror days later as CNN reporters showed scenes of looting, riot police clashing with protesters and huge bonfires burning everything and anything that wasn't tied down. Rome was burning.

With the recent anniversary there have been talks again about if another Woodstock could ever take place here again. The park has obviously expanded, and the runway is in use daily, but city officials are wary to ever again allow another concert of that magnitude because of the events that happened late Sunday night. They may not understand that there were reasons everything went haywire at the end, and ways this could have been avoided. I was there on the ground. I saw things through my teenaged eyes that I will never forget - both good and bad. So join me as I reflect on the slow deterioration that was Woodstock '99.

Thursday July 22nd

The atmosphere on Chestnut St. was an absolute circus. Romans lined the streets cheering and waving at cars as they streamed past in an endless parade of VW buses and convertibles. It must have felt odd to some of these outsiders driving into the city that we were treating them like celebrities, but such is the nature of our little city. When nothing had happened here for so many years, and we had been in a constant decline since Griffiss was shuttered, this was a huge morale booster for us.

Bands were already playing on the two separate stages, however they were mostly smaller local bands as the crowd continued to grow for the start of the main event on Friday. Traffic was congested while the police worked tirelessly to keep things flowing. Entrances were opened to the base that had not been used by the public in years, and all vehicles flowed into what slowly grew to become a massive sea of cars, trucks and buses.

Friday, July 23rd

We arrived around noon time to find crowds still streaming into the festival grounds. The exterior wall appeared as a massive, impenetrable metal fortress surrounding the entire grounds. The line moved quickly inside as the volunteer staff were orderly, pulling some people aside to search their coolers while allowing the rest to go through a ticket check.

I saw things I will never forget upon walking in. A drunken man stumbling around with his pants around his ankles, ass hanging in the breeze. Two college-aged girls wearing nothing but body paint. A man sitting with a brick of weed in front of him for all to see. I realized while I was still physically in Rome, this was not Rome!

There was staff located everywhere - it was impossible not to spot a staff member within eye site. They wore distinctive STAFF shirts. These were mostly volunteers that gained a free ticket to the concert in exchange for their services. They were extremely helpful in giving directions and pointing us to the nearest shower/bathroom/watering hole. Go-karts travelled around emptying garbage cans. Everything was extremely neat and well organized.

We spent the greater part of the day enjoying the music and left for our campsite which was off-grounds, an advantage of being a Roman. While we walked the long runway back into Rome we gazed at the iron fortress and remarked that nobody would ever be able to scale the wall. The words had barely left our mouths when a group of guys swarmed the wall from out of nowhere, tearing back what was obviously a cheaply designed wall and creating a huge gaping hole. Some of them ran inside as fast as their legs would carry them, while others continued to tear the wall apart as if it were paper. We left assuming this was just an isolated incident, and that the wall would be patched by morning.

Saturday, July 24th

Upon arriving at the site the next morning we found the hole had not been patched. Instead several more holes had popped up along the fence every hundred feet or so. Some of the holes had security guards posted, others did not. There were spots along the fence where we could have easily slipped inside but we continued down and went through the main gate anyways. Staff had been considerably reduced.

We arrived at the midway to find the ground strewn with trash. Pizza boxes, water bottles and everything else which was sold at the concert had made its way onto the ground. It was hard to find a clean spot of grass to sit on. The garbage pails were overflowing and nobody was coming along to clean it up. Where were the garbage volunteers? Had they underestimated the problem garbage would cause? Or had they just said "Screw it" and swapped their STAFF shirts for tie dyed ones?

The garbage people were not the only people missing: the toilets were backing up/going uncleaned. I saw people attempting to go into an outhouse who just could not for sanitary reasons. Many of the showers had ceased to work as well. Impromptu outdoor showers were set up and had people jumping in and out to cool off from the 90-degree heat.

While waiting in line for some food we began to notice the line in front of us was agitated. As we got close to the counter we learned why: "Twenty dollars for this little pizza?" one man remarked. "Five dollars for this bottled water??" another shouted. Prices were being gouged across the midway and people were paying 2-5x the normal price just to eat and drink. Many had little to no money and were forced to go to First Aid tents for free waters.

All of these logistical problems didn't kill the spirit of the musical festival. The shows went on....Korn, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine, Metalllica. After the music we took a walk into the endless sea of parked cars. It was a block party for as far as you could see. Swimming pools filled with beers on ice. The crowds grew stranger and stranger as we walked deeper into the parking lot. We stopped at one man's camper who was advertising free nitrous oxide balloons for any girls who would dance with him naked. As entertaining as it was, the parking lot grew continually darker and spookier. And always in the distance you could hear music as if a rave were just over the next hill, but we could never get there. Finally we left for the day and made our way back into Rome and sanity.

Sunday, July 25th

On the last day we made an arrangement with some relatives to camp with them on the Woodstock grounds, so that we could say we'd had the full experience of Woodstock, warts and all. We arrived to find the once strong fence now riddled with gaping holes. This time we didn't even bother to go in the main gate as there were no security posted at any of the holes. Once inside we found no staff in sight. The garbage situation had improved somewhat from the previous day, but water continued to be a problem. There were some really smelly people in the crowd. You could also tell the morale of the crowd had sunk somewhat. Faces were hanging low and many people wandered around not quite sure which way to go. I witnessed two happily stoned guys dragging a tent behind them with a pair of legs sticking out of it.

The situation had grown extremely unsanitary. People were failing to use the proper bathroom facilities. The mud pits happened to be right outside of the outhouses, and some people commented that it wasn't all mud that the mud people were rolling around in. It made it all that more gross when the mud people started slinging it at everyone and everything.

The price gouging continued on the midway. You could tell people were unhappy but the music seemed to soothe everyone's worries. Despite the overall poor conditions the crowds were still orderly as of 8 PM on Sunday night. This is when everything started to go wrong.

We were watching Megadeath playing on Stage 2, the final act for the night. The crowd was mostly calm laying on the grass, with the exception of one elderly man in a wife beater who managed to rock out for the entirety of the concert (we thought his head would come off his shoulders at any moment). The Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing on Stage 1 and we decided to head over there to catch the end of their show. Walking from one stage to the other you cross the midway, and it was here that I saw people running about frantically. It didn't register in my mind what was going on until I went up to the counter and asked the man for a water.

"Sure!" he said, as he scooped up four waters, flopped them onto the counter in front of me and with a single hop came over the counter and ran off, arms full of merchandise. Looking to my left and right I saw the same - massive looting of anything that they could get their hands on. There was no security in site, no police.

I took the water.

We continued walking over to the stage 1 and then saw the fires in the distance. They were small at first, littered amongst the crowd, but as we got nearer the fires continued to grow. It wasn't until we got close that we realized people were throwing anything they could get their hands on into the fires. And with the large amount of garbage already on the ground, this made for easy fuel.

These fires posed a threat but they weren't doing any damage. However there were trailers parked in the middle of the crowd with no security guarding it. One disgruntled concertgoer decided it would be a good idea to light the trailers filled with merchandise on fire. And this is where things really started to go down hill.

Security and fire services arrived shortly thereafter to attempt to put out the fire. It was at this time that concert organizers decided things were getting out of hand and pulled the Red Hot Chili Peppers from stage early. This made an angry crowd even angrier. Much of the crowd started heading back for the campgrounds however they were met on the midway by riot police in full riot gear. They were jogging in groups of ten, batons out, in random patters across the midway. We witnessed one happily stoned guy walking along minding his own business and getting cracked in the back of the head with a baton, collapsing in a heap on the ground.

Just as instantly as the riot police appeared were the CNN news crews chasing after them. This caught the interest of many people and a crowd began to form near the midway. Soon this became a full blown standoff with riot police on ATVs on one side and hundreds of concertgoers on the other. There were a few people at the front of the line shouting at the police and waving their arms, but for the most part the crowd was peaceful and just kind of standing around watching to see what would happen. I found myself standing too until I realized that the crowd had formed around me, and I was at the front line staring across into the eyes of police in riot gear.

It should be noted that this show of authority on Sunday night was a shock and stark contrast to what the rest of the day Sunday was like. We saw little if any staff on Sunday - it was as if the complete staff structure had crumbled or just disappeared overnight. Police/security were not present as the midway was being looted silly, and it wasn't until the situation had gone out of control that the police made their presence known, and in an overly harsh manner. You can't have a situation where there is no authority presence whatsoever suddenly turn into a full blown category 1 riot situation. Many felt the police were acting overly harsh, and this only added to the days of boiling anger.

While standing in the crowd I noticed the police line forming all around us and slowly closing in. It was then that we decided we had seen enough and it was time to get out of there and back to the campgrounds. The situation there was much calmer, as all of the trouble was back near the midway. We decided to call it a night and hope things were better in the morning. We only slept two hours.

At 1:00 AM we were awoken by the sound of rioters in the campgrounds. The riot police had pushed the few hundred angry protesters back into the campgrounds, where they were proceeding to burn everything they could get their hands on. A huge bonfire loomed in the distance as people danced around it. Humans were crawling onto the first aid tents and jumping up and down on it until it came tumbling down, and was then thrown onto the fire. The situation was completely out of control and we were fearing for our safety.

We packed up our tents as quickly as possible and fashioned whatever weapons we could: a tent pole, an umbrella, a stick. We made our way for the wall which was now just a pile of rubble. As we left the last site I remember seeing is a fourteen year old kid working feverishly to tear what little of the wall was left down.

Driving home the smoke created a smog over the road that made it near zero visibility. It took us five minutes to get out of the smog and able to see the road in front of us. Arriving home we turned on the TV to find all the major news stations covering the disaster in Rome. There we were, little Rome, NY, on national television. Us bright-eyed Romans had a bitter taste in our mouths though. This is not how we wanted to make our entrance onto the world stage.

The aftermath

Now it's ten years later. The park has expanded drastically, adding a new high school, Empire Air, and numerous small technology upstarts focused around Rome Labs. The once abandoned runway is now our county airport. Romans for the most part have sworn to never again allow another concert of that magnitude here. I can't say I blame them: they almost burned the town down! But I won't blame the concertgoers, either. The struggles that the concertgoers faced, from garbage strewn everywhere, to lack of a bathroom/shower, to an inability to get basic food and water at a reasonable price. Granted there are always going to be some troublemakers, if you put people through those kinds of conditions for three days the end result should not surprise you.

Could we learn from these mistakes and put on a better concert? I think so. Is it technically feasible given Griffiss park's expansion? We have improved two-lane highways coming into the city now, and the county airport is not all that busy. It's really up to Empire Air and if they could survive two months having the runway shut down for both setup and cleanup of the concert.

But I think the most important question is: will Romans allow a concert like this ever to happen here? I can only speak to my own experiences as saying I had the time of my life, and memories I won't ever forget. As a city we survived, and came out much better financially, although with our reputation dinged on a national scale. I think we could do it again, and much better this time. What do you think?