Woodstock ’99: the catastrophic music festival that turned peace and love into violent chaos

You may think that Glastonbury, in its most sodden years, looks like a hellscape. Be prepared to revise that view when you watch Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 (Netflix), a music festival so catastrophic that it makes Glasto seem like a picnic at Glyndebourne.

At what point did Woodstock ’99 become marked for disaster? Perhaps it was when the organisers decided that, instead of the bucolic dairy farm that played host to the peace’n’love Woodstock of 1969, they would hire a decommissioned military base where 250,000 drunk and drugged-up young people would get off their nuts to Limp Bizkit.

At the beginning of day one, Tibetan monks performed a serene blessing ceremony inside one of the hangars. By the end of day three, the site was on fire, the acts had fled the site in terror, and the National Guard were introducing themselves to festival-goers by means of a truncheon to the stomach. Footage of the aftermath could have been taken from a post-apocalyptic horror film.

In theory, Trainwreck is Netflix’s successor to its documentary on Fyre Festival, but they’re different beasts. Fyre Festival was comedy schadenfreude from start to finish, as “influencers” with more money than sense splashed out on a luxury event in the Bahamas with villa accommodation and supermodels on tap, only to find themselves on a disaster relief campsite with processed cheese slices to eat.

Trainwreck isn’t funny (unless you count the mullet-haired Beavis and Butt-Head-esque interviewee). It’s three episodes’ worth of jaw-dropping television, as you marvel at just how much worse things can get. You won’t be able to stop watching. Fyre Festival was competently organised when compared to this.

The narrative builds terrifically, with contributors from all sides giving their accounts of what went on. Organiser Michael Lang – co-creator of the original Woodstock – and promoter John Scher try to convince us it wasn’t their fault, while production crew describe their mounting horror. A security man recalls looking out at the mosh pit on the first night: “It was like the scene from Jaws – ‘I think we need a bigger boat.’”

Some of the artists appear on camera – Fatboy Slim, Gavin Rossdale from Bush, Peter Katsis from Korn. The ones most guilty of whipping the crowd into an uncontrollable frenzy are notable by their absence. When the insane decision to hand every festival-goer a candle ended – inevitably – in widespread arson, organisers begged Red Hot Chili Peppers to go out on stage and call for calm. They went on and played Fire by Jimi Hendrix.