TOUR ARCHIVE

Date: 1999-07-24
Location: Rome, NY - United States [1 shows here]
Venue: Griffis Park [1 shows here]
Info: Woodstock
Fan reviews: 1 - Add yours!
Author: Doug
Setlist: Yes
Pictures: Yes

This is the story of Woodstock99 as told through the eyes of Doug Erbeck, a native of Bridgewater, Massachusetts who had the awesome opportunity to work for Family of Woodstock at the festival...

My Woodstock journey started early in the morning of July 21st. Myself and another bridgewater native and friend, who was also selected to work at the show, had a 7:00am bus to catch. The bus brought us to Albany, NY where we picked up a connection for the Utica bus station. We arrived in Utica approximately 1:30pm and there was a Family of Woodstock person there waiting for us with a little sign with out names on it. We loaded our luggage into his van and he drove us right into the site. We were let off at the "Family Check-in" house. There were signed in that we were here and they gave us our credentials (PICTURE1) and housing assignments. After moving into our house and claiming which room we wanted we went back outside and took the special employee shuttle to the concert grounds. It was great, 2 days before it was scheduled to start and we could walk around the entire place unbothered. (PICTURE2). At 5:00pm we were scheduled to have our Training Session. There , they gave us a packet of maps and useful information, and they gave us our shift times. I got 8:30am-3:30pm everyday! Whoo Hoo....that ment i wouldnt be missing too many of the bands! After the 2+ hour training session we were all bussed over to the "Family" catering tent located behind the Emerging Artist Stage. This was where we'd be eating all our meals. Cant beat that, Free meals, no lines. We breifly checked out the site after dinner and then returned to our house to get a shower (a very quick shower i might add as there was no hot water at all) and some rest, we had a long day ahead of us on Thursday, thats when our shift started and when they started letting people in to the campgrounds.

Thursday morning rolled around and we were out of the house at 6:30am. We had to eat breakfast in the tent and have a breifing before our shift started at 8:30am. In the briefing they basically told us what to do in certain situations and how to handle different questions. They also assigned walkie-talkies and divided us up into different teams headed by a team leader. Rob and I ended up on different teams but under the same team leader. I actually ended up on a team of 3 with the other 2 kids living in our house, that worked out pretty well. The gates were absolutely packed by the time we got up there. It was insane, people were everywhere with thier camping gear and all thier belongings and the security was pretty tight the first day, just about everything was searched through(PICTURE3). I was stationed in the north parking lot the first day. Not five minutes into the shift there were already 2 medical emergencies called in over the walkie-talkies. I guess thats what drinking beers in the parking lot and the hot sun will do to you. We fielded every question imaginable from "Do you think i hid my drugs well enough?" to "Can we leave the venue after we enter?" All in all it was a pretty good shift, not far into the day i spotted the Godsmack van (PICTURE4). After shift was over we had a quick debriefing (covering what worked and what didnt today and how to make things better), then Rob and myself went back home to shower and grab some ZZZZ's. We were out from like 4:30pm-8:00pm. After that was dinner in the catering tent and then we were free to roam the site. It was another early night because we knew this would be the last of them as the music was scheduled to start tomorrow.

Friday morning, again out of the house by 6:30am. More of the same today, we patroled the parking lot and gate areas. Most frequent problem today was people who had lost thier friends and or tent and haddent seem them all night. It was a rather sad occurrance but it happened ALOT. You would not believe the size of the list of names registered at "People Find". Other than being offered $200 for my pass it was a pretty uneventful shift. After shift we were driven back to the restricted area of the venue in special vans, it was rather cool. We grabbed a quick shower and headed back for the music. We got back just in time for the DMX show. Cant say im really that big of a fan, i dont own any of his records or anything, but none the less it was a really good show. Day one also marked the return of the MUD people (PICTURE5) After that we ran back to the tent for dinner and made it back to the East Stage half way through the Offspring set. As we got there they were just bringing out the inflatable backstreet boys and beating the hell out of them. It was quite a scene. After that show was over, we pushed forward a little and got a slightly better view for the Korn show. The crowd loved it, especially when Jonathan Davis came out with the Bagpipes! There have been alot of reports in the papers of bad things happening in the crowd during thier show. I can confirm only one, half way through the show a team of Medics came rushing through saying "Get out of the way theres a girl not breathing down there." They came back up about 10 minutes later with the girl on a stretcher. Apparently they revived her. After Korn there was a mass exodus and we ended up really close to the stage for the Bush show. I never realized how many of thier songs i knew. They also put on a pretty good show. We hit the hay about 2am, yay 4 hours of sleep tonight!

Finally it arrived, SATURDAY, aka METALLICA DAY! We were both extremely physched, even though we had no idea what was to come. It was now our 3rd day of work and people had started defecting from thier jobs, so Rob ended up on my team. All the roomates were now united! Today was a day filled with answering questions of when is so and so playing and is it true that so and so cancelled. There were also a few medical emergencies that we were first on the scene for, I even had to run out in the parking lot and flag down and ambulence myself because no one could get a response on the walkie-talkie. All in all a decent day, oh yeah, we saw drum circles too (PICTURE6). After showering we made it back just in time to catch the Dave Matthews Band performance. The way the speakers were set up really hurt his sound, there was a big delay from stage speakers to sound towers. Anyhow, it was still Dave and people still loved him. We decided to eat dinner during the Alanis Morrissette show so that we could be back in time for Limp Bizkit. Boy were we in for a suprise, on the way back instead of heading into the crowd we decided to see just how far our passes would take us. To our amazement, we got backstage! We even got to watch half the Bizkit set from onstage! There were many stars back there, check out these pictures! (PICTURE7-9) The first one is Aaron (one of our roomates with Puff Daddy, the others you should recognize as Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit going on stage and Fred on stage during the show. The Bizkit set was so intense, the crowd went absolutely ape shit. At one point they had to cut his PA because of the destructiveness of the crowd. It was one of the best performances of the entire festival. Rob and myself came down off the stage during the Bizkit set. Rob wanted to go into the crowd and I was bent on staying in the backstage access roads waiting for you know who. Aaron stayed on stage and got an awesome photo of Rage Against the Machine and Korn front man Jonathan Davis (PICTURES10-11).While waiting around I got to meet Everclear and they posed for a picture (PICTURE12). Then i spotted NICKLAS!!! The metontour dude! (PICTURE13). He was really nice and we chatted for a bit. I asked if there was anything i could do for the club like hand out flyers but he said since it wasnt metallica's own gig Metclub wasnt setting up a booth and all he had was European flyers because thats where they came from. About another five minutes passed and as i turned around to check what was going on, a very familiar face was walking up the road with a girl on his arm. JASON! Instinct just kicked in and i soon found myself walking and talking with the 2 of them. He was extremely nice, even had his girlfriend snap a picture of us for me (PICTURE14). Next to come by was James, he didnt stop to talk to anyone, but i managed to snap a photo. (PICTURE15). A few minutes later Kirk and Lani came strolling up, i took a picture but i quess the lighting wasnt very good because it came out horrible. Anyways, he said hi nodding at my metclub shirt and they continued on. So all that was left was Larz, unfortunately he had already came by way ahead of everyone else. But i did get to meet his wife, she's a really nice gal. (PICTURE16). Finally Rob returned to the backstage area, and to his dismay found out that he missed meeting metallica. I smiled and said "you need some patience kid." We waited around a few minutes longer as Kid Rock came out (PICTURE17). Needless to say Kid was a little preoccupied with the women, but he managed to speak a few words to me, he didnt mind me taking a picture of him, but i dont think he bodyguard liked it :) Back to the show, we made our way up fairly close for the Rage show. It was a really good show. The crowd was into it and it wasnt too too hot. All i could think about though was the metallica show coming up. After the Rage show we were able to move up closer and ended up infront of the camera tower on the right hand side of the stage, awesome view, really close. Only thing was the set change took forever. People were getting really impatient. Then the announcers came on saying we were in for a huge storm so stay away from the towers and all metal structures, ect. They came back out about 3 times and reminded us of that. After the last reminder James comes running out and screams "SO FUCKING WHAT" and the show started! Absolutely phenominal is the only way to describe it. It was honestly probably the best Tallica show ive been too. No shortened setlist here! They played for a good 2 hours. With a good 4 encores. All my pictures of the show came out bad though :( . Oh well, notable moments in the show, during the last part of Seek and Destroy , James broke a string. Before Turn the Page James dedicated it to Amanda, and during one of the encores Kid Rock came on stage with metallica and Lars was wearing his hat after the show! All in All and extremely cool night! The only bad part was the 3 hours of sleep we'd be going on tomorrow.

Ahh yes, Sunday, must have been a let down for many because lots and lots of people packed up and left. It was no peice of cake today on duty, it was only me and Rob on the team today. Not 2 minutes into the shift, a kid passed out in a tent we were walking by, we had to get the medics and their cart in there safely through the crowd. Then right after that a girl had cut up her feet from walking barefoot and could no longer walk. We had to carry her over a mile back to her tent and help her pack up her stuff. Then we carried her stuff over 2 miles back to her car. Said said "Thank You so much" and it was obvious she really ment it. Other than our aching arms that felt really good, we had finally really helped someone who really needed it, that was what it was all about. After carrying a few more people's bags shift was over. Same drill we grabbed a shower and went back for the music. We slipped backstage again and saw Jewel come out (PICTURE18). We also saw Creed arrive.

We caught the first few songs of Creed's show then made our way back for a quick dinner so that we could catch the end of Godsmack. They were really good. They have become one of my favorite bands. After Godsmack was done it seemed like everyone cleared out of there to head over to the Chili Peppers show. Rob and I ended up 3rd row center for Megadeath! (PICTURE19) It was a pretty good show. They arent much in the way of live performances everyone just kinda stands around and plays, but the music was good and thats all that counts i guess. Megadeath closed out thier set and we started walking back to the tent, until we noticed the camground fires (PICTURE20). What a scene, people tossing shit in left and right. It was amazing to witness, as was the trailers exploding. I do have to say the media made this look worse than it was, I personally was never in any danger from being there, it was a lot calmer than it looked. The police presence was astounding though. They were everywhere. It got boring after a while so we went home at about 1am.

Monday, "the aftermath", everything had pretty much disbanded so we didnt have to work. We wondered around the site for a while seeing what was left of the campgrounds. We actually only came across one thing out there, the phone truck (PICTURE21). It had been burned out and looted as you can see. There were a lot of people still there packing up and some just waking up. The campgrounds were a mess though (PICTURE22). After about an hour we headed back to Staff Headquarters and secured a ride back to the Albany Bus Station. We were on our way home! We left with a lot of memories..................and a piece of the wall! We got a lot of strange looks at the bus station with those in hand :) But hey, we saw worse, there was a group of Amish people there eating McDonalds!!!!!! Isnt that against some rule?? Oh well. Thats my account of woodstock99. Im sure there are somethings i left out, that i'll remember when its too late, but i did my best. If you have any questions about things there or just want to chat about it please feel free to email me at Doug@ipom.com

PEACE!