Woodstock Essay, Research Paper
WOODSK 99’
From Peace, Love, and Music to
Rapes, Riots, and Raw Sewage
On the last night of the three day event, know as Woodstock, held in Rome, New York, at Giffiss Technology Park – a decompressed Air Force base – many people have said that a riot occurred. But in reality the real riot happeneds of the course of the three day event, not as a single chaotic, explosive event but as a slow-motion disintegration of the chains that might hold 225,000 people together. What happened isn’t really hard to describe. With nothing more to hold them together, the crowd indured the heat, the sewage, the trash, and the drugs until all that was left was the feeling of standing in a tired, dirty crowd of people and at the end knowing you are all alone.
In light of all the chaos the event will go down in history as one of the best rock concerts ever. Over the three day events notable bands such as Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Metallica, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers played on two stages and entertained a more than 200,000 people. Along with the raves that were held every night, with DJ’s such as FatBoySlim and the Chemical Brothers hosting them, this festival showed to biggest range of music then the other two. But it was the one having the biggest accident record. Aside from the riots on the last night the New York State police have made forty arrest for crimes commited during the festival and are investigating more than ninety other reported crimes, including eight sex offenses. So far the death count from Woodstock stands at four: Two people dead as a result of heat exhaustion and one from a heart attack, and a women was hit by a car.
Some blame the high ticket prices, which were $150 as well as the brutal heat, expensive cost for food and bottled water, nasty conditions and greedy promoters for the chaos the cause and estimated $600,000 in damage. Others have singled out aggressive artists like Limp Bizkit and Korn, which in my opinion is an idiotic excuse for any act of violence. “Any time you put 220,000 kids on a slab of asphalt and you charge those prices, something is going to go wrong,” Lars Ulrich of Metallica.