Netflix is Working on a Docu-Series About Woodstock ’99, One of the Most Notorious Music Events Ever Assembled

When it comes to music festivals, certain images and are burned in our memories, even years after the original event — and when considering Woodstock ’99, it calls to mind two things: A billion (give or take) bands and musical artists playing a gigantic festival the burning summer sun, and trash fires. Browsing various articles (like this one or this one) chronicling the festival’s significant issues, phrases like “shit-show” pop up on more than one occasion.

The 1999 installment of Woodstock, designed to emulate the original 1969 event in upstate New York, featured a bevy of then-contemporary musical performances spread across four days and in front of around 400,000 delirious concertgoers blitzed on alcohol, dopamine and music.

Here’s an idea of what went so terribly wrong with Woodstock ’99:

This week, it was announced that Netflix is working on a new docu-series chronicling Woodstock ’99. Here are more details, per Deadline:

According to sources, the series will delve deep into the culture that created Woodstock ‘99 and tell the real story behind how “three days of peace, love and music” went down in flames. Featuring unseen archive footage and intimate testimony from people behind the scenes, on the stages and in the crowds, the series aims at telling the untold story of a landmark musical moment that shaped the cultural landscape for a generation.

Woodstock ’99 drew more than 400,000 people over four days in July 1999 in Rome, NY, an event marred by oppressive heat, violence and allegations of sexual assault. But the worst came on the fourth day during Red Hot Chili Peppers’ festival-closing set when candles from the production were used to set fires to sections of the plywood “Peace Fence” erected to keep non-ticketholders from entering and a melee erupted with festival-goers looting ATMs and destroying vendor tents. It ended with dozens of arrests and thousands injured.

As for that bit about the Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ weekend-closing performance and the subsequent fires that erupted everywhere:

Woodstock ’99 featured highlighted performances from an array of acts at the height of their popularity at the time mixed in with legendary performers, including the Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Moby, Metallica, Creed, Everclear, Alanis Morissette, Dave Matthews Band, George Clinton, James Brown and countless more.

On paper, Woodstock ’99 would have been an incredible event, a generation-spanning gathering of music enthusiasts embodying the spirit of the original version three decades earlier — but instead, it was a total mess, aired on MTV all weekend and remaining a major talking point of how NOT to do things, two decades later.

This Netflix series will come with great anticipation, so stay tuned — and in the meantime, watch Limp Bizkit’s destructive set below: