Fires, looting mark end of Woodstock
Peace, love abandoned as the crowd unleashes
chaos on the last night
July 27, 1999
FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES
ROME, N.Y. -- The Woodstock '99 site looked like a war zone
Monday: twisted metal from a sound tower lay on the ground,
litter blew in the wind, the charred remains of 12 storage trailers
still smoldered.
Promoters stopped short of calling it a riot, but the Sunday night
melee, at the end of the weekend music festival, left five people
injured, seven under arrest, and caused thousands of dollars in
property damage.
The chaos began late Sunday, after the Red Hot Chili Peppers
finished its set, the final act of the three-day show. As a tribute
to Jimi Hendrix played on a giant screen, dozens of people in
the crowd used "peace candles" that had been distributed to set
fire to an overturned car.
From there, Woodstock descended into chaos as bands of
young men, inspired by the car fire, used lighters to start fires to
vendors' trailers.
Tents and booths were destroyed, concert light stands and a
speaker tower were toppled and a mob tried to destroy a radio
station truck.
"This is not the real Woodstock," said a disgusted Mike Long,
31, of Detroit, as police moved in. "They messed up the whole
name of Woodstock."
New York State Police Superintendent James McMahon
estimated that 200 to 500 youths took part in the rioting, as
thousands more watched and cheered. The mostly peaceful
music festival had drawn 225,000 fans to the former Griffiss Air
Force Base.
Some concertgoers cited high prices and poor conditions as
reasons for the change in mood. Vendors were charging $4 per
bottle of water; portable toilets weren't cleaned; the tarmac was
littered with refuse; the security force did not do its job.
"The mood deteriorated because of the ...cost, the lack of food,
the lack of water and heat exhaustion," said Tom Pilette, 31, who
divides his time between Eastpointe and Los Angeles.
Fire and police units did not respond immediately as officials
seemed to be caught off guard.
"Where are the police? Where are the firemen? Where are the
people in control?" said Ruth Mahorn, 36, of Binghamton, N.Y.,
as she walked away.
John Scher, a promoter, said the 1,250-person internal security
force was not activated because they were not properly trained to
handle a riot.
There were hints throughout the weekend that the Woodstock
'99 vibe had little to do with peace and love. On Saturday, three
aggressively heavy rock bands -- Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the
Machine and Metallica -- closed out the evening with successive,
testosterone-fueled sets.
Doug and Eric Cornell of Corunna, west of Flint, made the trek
to Rome to do promotional work for the Internet music site
amp3.com, which provided Web access to concertgoers through
much of the weekend. By Sunday morning -- with still a full day
of music ahead -- the Cornells said they knew it was time to
pack up their equipment, worth several hundred thousand
dollars.
"My brother said it was the fear in the security agents' eyes,"
Doug Cornell said. "It was post-apocalyptic. There were no
rules out there."
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Copyright � 1999 The Beacon Journal Publishing Company
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