The Greg Martin Woodstock 99 Experience – Pt 1 by Gregory Martin
CHAPTER 1 – WE’VE ARRIVED
It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years since that life changing weekend in July of 1999. It all happened in the small town of Rome, New York. I’m of course talking about the infamous Woodstock 1999 music festival.
There have been many articles written and many documentaries filmed regarding the events of this historically epic weekend but none of them begin to describe or capture both the highs and the lows of what happened over those three dangerously hot and extremely long days and nights of music and mayhem. And so begins my four-part first hand account detailing Woodstock 1999 through my eyes.
Rumors and whispers of another Woodstock had been going around in the early months of 1999 to celebrate it’s 30 years since the legendary first one that occurred on Max Yasgur’s farm in 1969 and finally those rumors had now become actual fact that there would indeed be another Woodstock that summer.
The festival was to take place from July 22nd to July 25th at Griffis Air Force Base in the small town of Rome NY. The town of 32,000 would be hosting 400,000 concert goers for this iconic festival with names like Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, and The Offspring to name just a few of the hundreds of bands booked to play.
My best friend from Montreal reached out to me on the phone as soon as it was announced and said “we must go there, we need to be there!“ and, without any hesitation on my part, I agreed a gathering that size with those bands was calling our names.
Ticket prices were set at $150.00 for the three days which, 25 years ago, was considered highway robbery, but we knew we would absolutely regret it later on in life if we didn’t go because of the tickets prices, so we bit the bullet and bought our tickets the first day they went on sale and let the countdown begin.
As is the tradition with my friend and I when we go on a road trip, we checked the Pollstar website to see what concerts might be happening when we were in town and it turned out that while on route from Toronto to Rome NY, we’d be going through Buffalo where the annual Vans Warped Tour was happening. We figured hey, why not make this a four day music trip, and made the pit stop in Buffalo along the way.
The big draw for us at Vans was hardcore legends Suicidal Tendencies but the rest of the lineup had a lot of interest for us as well. There was Ice-T, and a very young Blink 182 and an emerging hip hop artist from the Detroit area known as Eminem, The Black Eyed Peas before Fergie joined and, of course, as always, Warped mainstays Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, and NOFX.
After spending all day at the Warped Tour, it was time to carry on driving to the main event that was still two hours down the road.
As we drove, traffic began to get heavier and heavier, almost to a crawl, so we decided to take a break and pull into a mega packed McDonald’s for a washroom break. We knew we were on the right path as Insane Clown Posse’s semi truck was pulled into the parking lot as well.
Before we got to the festival site we had to stop at the Ramada Hotel ballroom in town to pick up our wristbands and parking passes along with 400,000 other people who had to do the same thing. It was a lengthy process, but patience was going to be needed all weekend, so this was good practice and, on the plus side, we were able to get a copy of the schedule for the next three days of bands.
NIGHT ONE was headlined by Korn, Offspring and Bush. NIGHT TWO Limp Bizkit, Rage Against The Machine, and the mighty Metallica. Closing NIGHT THREE Creed and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
As we drove from the hotel to the festival site late into the night it was a slow crawl. Locals in town let us know they weren’t happy we were there with signs on their lawns and in windows saying “you’re not welcome here!“ and “go home!“ greeting us but my friend and I just laughed it off.
When we finally arrived on site, we were able to see, firsthand, the monstrosity of this event.
Thousand upon thousands of people roamed the grounds and my friend looked on in horror as he counted only 50 or so Porta Johns for the thousands of people milling about!
“There’s nowhere near enough Porta Johns for everyone here!”, he said, and sadly we would find out later that weekend just how right his prophecy was.
We saw an area with Canadian flags waving and figured this would be an ideal spot for us to set up our tent for the next three days.
After we finished setting up we relaxed and met a number of great people who were located near our tent as funk master George Clinton and the P Funk All Stars played Atomic Dog and We Want The Funk on the second stage nearby welcoming all arriving for the weekend.
After some fun chitchat and laughs, sharing concert experiences with our new-found festival friends, it was time to try and get some much needed sleep as it was now almost 4 AM and the hardest working man in show business, the one and only Mr. James Brown, would be kicking off Day 1 tomorrow at 10:00 AM in the morning…
CHAPTER 2… coming SOON! Stay tuned
Oh man am I looking forward for parts 2, 3 and 4.
Just your description of the drive there is bringing it all back.
What a weekend!
Good luck trying to get everything that went down to just a four part article…
Thanks so very much for putting us in touch with Greg The Concert Guy, he’s fabulous!
Great story! Excited for next parts!
Thanks for reading!