Watch the trailer for Clusterf**k: Woodstock ’99, a new documentary on the '90s's most infamous music festival

Netflix is to air a new three part documentary on the infamous Woodstock '99 festival from August 3.

Clusterf**k: Woodstock ’99 combines eyewitness interviews with TV coverage of the event and unseen home movie footage to tell the story of a festival which promised to celebrate the feel-good legacy of the legendary 1969 event but instead served up scenes of chaos, arson, and destruction.

Held in Rome, upstate New York over the weekend of July 22-25, 1999, the bill featured Metallica. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against The Machine, Korn, Limp Bizkit and Megadeth among the main attractions, and drew some 400,000 music fans to the site.

A trailer for the docuseries reads: 'Woodstock ‘99 was supposed to be a millennium-defining celebration of peace, love and great music. Instead, the festival degenerated into an epic clusterf*ck of fires, riots and destruction... this docuseries goes behind the scenes to reveal the egos, greed and music that fueled three days of utter chaos.

“What caused the festival to explode into violence?," asks executive producer Tom Pearson in a statement. "Was it a product of late 90s societal dysfunction, fueled by entitled frat boys? Incitement by the aggressive music of headlining rap metal bands – Korn, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine? Or the inevitable result of ruthless commercial exploitation by the festival organizers?”

In the clip, Korn's Jonathan Davis says,"When you see it with your own eyes, it's ten times more shocking."

Watch the trailer below:

The best TV and film streaming services: The best bang for your buck

Limp Bizkit’s set at the festival became infamous, with reports of a gang rape in the mosh-pit, and Fred Durst’s band being accused of inciting riotous behaviour.

“We turned up and expected people to know what we’re about,” Durst told Metal Hammer in 2016. “We’re about having fun and when I say, ‘Break your fucking face tonight’, I don’t mean it literally. It was a song for people to stand up for themselves against bullies and bad people. If I had known to make that clear, I’d have done that from the very beginning, but I didn’t.

“The whole thing exploded after we did what we normally do at every one of our concerts – bring fun… We get offstage and they removed us from the premises and we were just going, ‘Why?’. They tell me the plywood I was surfing on had been ripped off buildings and I’d incited a riot. We couldn’t fucking believe it.”

“I just wanted to go back out there and I wanted to say something to tell them to calm down and they wouldn’t let me. They gave people peace candles the next day, and they used them to burn the place down and they blamed that on us too. Kurt Loder [MTV presenter] was on TV talking shit about us and we couldn’t believe it.”

Artists

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.