Woodstock Pt. 2: A Disaster Movie (Rewind)

Summary

DISGRACELAND – Woodstock Pt. 2: A Disaster Movie (Rewind)
Host: Jake Brennan (Double Elvis, Exactly Right, iHeartPodcasts)
Original Air Date: August 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this gripping, no-holds-barred episode, host Jake Brennan delivers the chaotic, harrowing, and myth-busting conclusion to the story of Woodstock 1969. Setting aside the rose-colored narratives of peace and love, Brennan pulls listeners into the festival’s brutal realities—bad acid, death, logistical collapse, near mass-electrocution—and traces Woodstock’s tangled legacy through to the infamous disaster of Woodstock 1999. The result is a riotous, unromantic retelling that redefines why the original Woodstock’s legend endures, and interrogates the giant gap between the myth and the mess.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Recap & Scope: The Other Side of the Woodstock Myth [02:39]

• Brennan sets the tone by laying out the “disaster movie” angle:
  “The real story. The death, the destruction, the downright disaster movie that the three Day supposed festival of peace, love and communalism really was is so complex that we needed two episodes to properly tell it.” [02:41]

• He encourages new listeners to catch Part 1 for context, including the festival’s shaky foundation, near-disaster declaration by New York, and the tension already mounting before the music started.

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2. The Bad Acid Crisis & The Hog Farm’s Role [04:22]

• As the festival unfolds, a wave of bad LSD leads to spiraling psychosis among concertgoers:

  • “Kids were suffering drug induced psychotic episodes... But if word didn’t spread fast to not take the brown acid, then mass psychosis for hundreds of thousands of teenagers and ensuing riots lay on the horizon.”

• Hugh Romney (Wavy Gravy) and his Hog Farm collective are described as unexpected crisis responders, running the Big Pink medical tent and talking down tripping kids with a combination of grounded empathy and improvisational therapy.

  • Memorable anecdote: Romney calms a mud-caked kid stuck in a paranoid time-loop, handing him a mission—“‘Now you’re the doctor. Take over.’” [06:31]

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3. Death at Woodstock: The Fatal Realities [07:15]

• The episode refuses to shy from tragedy:

  • “Some were true, like the story about the young concertgoer who went to bed on that first night... and awoke to the sound of a tractor inches from his body that then proceeded to roll right over him… He was 17 years old. His name was Ray Mizik.” [07:55]
  • “An 18 year old Marine home on leave, taking in the peace and love and a jack of illicit heroin that killed him. His name was Richard Beller…” [10:08]

• Over 3,000 drug-related incidents and mass medevacs bring in military-level airlifts, with Huey helicopters shuttling overdose victims to emergency facilities.

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4. Musical Highs: Sly Stone & The Who [11:02]

• Sly & the Family Stone’s 3:30am set is described as “laying waste” to the other acts:

  • “Sly Stone was a sole assassin in a land of stoned hippies. He and his band worked the crowd into a delirious state with their high energy dirty funk.” [11:36]

• The Who follow in the early hours with a “violent” set and defining onstage moment—Abbie Hoffman rushes the stage to make a political speech but is infamously swatted away with Pete Townshend’s guitar:

  • “Pete grabbed the neck of his guitar, swung it back like a tennis racket, and swatted it flat into Hoffman’s hairy grill.” [15:10]

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5. Chaos Unfolds: The Storm and the Electrocution Risk [18:02]

• Joe Cocker’s set prefaces a sudden, ominous storm:

  • “Black clouds draped over the half a million concert goers and gobbled up the pink afternoon sky in an instant… No one had planned for this, for rain.” [18:28]

• As winds threaten to topple the 100-foot sound towers, organizers fail to clear risk-taking fans. The storm puts everyone in peril, especially as the main power cable’s insulation wears away in the mud, raising the specter of “mass electrocution.” [22:30]

  • “It became very clear that 500,000 people were connected by more than peace, love and music. They were... connected by the heavens, by rain and by water, the perfect conduit for mass electrocution.” [24:21]

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6. The “Squares” Who Saved the Day [27:18]

• When the thin wiring between order and disaster finally snaps, it’s not the counterculture but the “establishment” that averts catastrophe:

  • “Turns out that you can’t simply be cool and groove on each other and rely on peace and love to carry the day. At a certain point you need to step up and take responsibility.” [28:55]

• Credit goes to farmers, doctors, local bankers, military pilots, and government authorities—the very establishment Woodstock campaigned against—for emergency food drops, medical evacuations, and the loan that allowed headliners to play.

  • “These weren’t people down with the cause. These weren’t hippies. These weren’t even kids. They were good, solid working adults who saw a bunch of kids who were in trouble…” [30:48]

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7. Hendrix Closes the Festival [33:09]

• Hendrix’s legendary “Star Spangled Banner” performance at dawn epitomizes the festival myth, but Brennan calls out the deeper truth:
  • “Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner and then he continued to muddle through the rest of his set with his less than stellar band… and finished his set and the Festival of Peace and Love unceremoniously with ‘Hey Joe,’ a song about murder.” [33:42]

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8. Woodstock 99: Recurring Disaster & Contrasts [35:18]

• Brennan draws a vivid, unsparing comparison with Woodstock 99, which was even more overtly commercial, violent, and chaotic:

  • “Unlike the original Woodstock, Woodstock 99 is blatantly commercial... In the pit, bodies thrash, mud flies... women are harassed, their clothes torn off by force... glass bottles fly through the air and shatter against skulls.”

• He notes that despite media nostalgia, the seed of disaster was always there:

  • "The stories from the mainstream... played off the contrast between the ‘peace and love’ success of the original Woodstock with the destructive failure of Woodstock 99. But in reality, the two festivals were very similar.” [40:41]

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9. Woodstock’s Enduring Myth vs. Its Messy Reality [41:44]

• The episode closes with a withering critique of Woodstock’s legacy:

  • “But why, if Woodstock was such a disaster, why is its legacy so strong?... Simple. Because unlike Woodstock 99, the original Woodstock had a better movie.” [42:41]
  • Brennan highlights the creative shaping of Michael Wadleigh's documentary, shaping Woodstock into an “idealized version of the events”, effectively rewriting history.
  • “If the director were to make a realistic movie about Woodstock, the film would have been a disaster movie.” [43:32]

• He notes the lack of real cultural revolution, pointing to wars, politics, and the enduring grip of the status quo.

• Closing lines:

  • “This notion that Woodstock was a generation defining moment so significant that it marked actual real change for generations to come is complete and total bullshit. Nothing changed.” [44:02]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jake Brennan, on the mythmaking power of film:

  • “Because unlike Woodstock 99, the original Woodstock had a better movie. Concert films don’t sell. But Woodstock the Movie sold, grossing $50 million in its original box office run and earning universal critical acclaim. Why? Because Woodstock the Movie isn’t a concert film. It’s a love story. Actually, it’s a love letter to the 60s generation.” [42:51]

• On crowd danger after the storm:

  • “At that moment, it became very clear that 500,000 people were connected by more than peace, love and music. They were now connected by the heavens, by rain and by water, the perfect conduit for mass electrocution.” [24:21]

• On Abbie Hoffman’s onstage interruption:

  • “He grabbed Pete’s mic… What the fuck was this? Someone cut the mic… Pete grabbed the neck of his guitar, swung it back like a tennis racket, and swatted it flat into Hoffman’s hairy grill…” [15:10]

• On the ‘squares’ who rescued the festival:

  • “These weren’t people down with the cause. These weren’t hippies. These weren’t even kids. They were good, solid working adults who saw a bunch of kids who were in trouble… None of these people had any invested interest in Woodstock’s success other than simply caring about the well being of their fellow Americans.” [30:48]

• Final assessment:

  • “I’m joking, of course. Festivals don’t interest me. I’m a bigger fan of the movies. Not love stories, disaster movies. The bigger, more violent, destructive and disgraceful, the better. You know, kind of like Woodstock.” [46:00]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:39] Opening, recap of Part 1, setup for Woodstock’s disaster angle
• [04:22] Bad acid crisis & Hog Farm to the rescue
• [07:15] The tractor death, drug disasters, first airlifts
• [10:08] Second fatality: Richard Beller’s overdose
• [11:02] Sly & The Family Stone’s showstopper
• [13:05] The Who, Abbie Hoffman, onstage clash [15:10 actual incident]
• [18:02] Joe Cocker’s set, onset of the storm
• [22:30] Looming electrocution disaster
• [27:18] The “squares” step up and save the festival
• [33:09] Hendrix’s closing set—myth vs. reality
• [35:18] Scene shift: Woodstock 99 and repeating disaster
• [42:41] Film creates the myth; Why Woodstock’s reputation persists
• [46:00] Closing thoughts: Disaster movies, not love stories

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Tone & Style

Brennan’s storytelling is irreverent, dramatic, and unsparing. He injects seedy humor and historical skepticism, undercutting romanticized narratives with dark detail, biting sarcasm, and vivid, cinematic imagery.

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Summary Takeaway

Jake Brennan’s “Woodstock Pt. 2: A Disaster Movie” tears down the pervasive myth of Woodstock as a peaceful, epoch-defining beautiful mess, exposing the chaos, death, and near-catastrophe at its heart—and showing how mythmaking, not reality, forged its legend. For every moment of legend, there was a disaster narrowly averted, often by the very squares the counterculture dismissed. The music was great, but the movie was better. As Brennan puts it, Woodstock was “not a love story—a disaster movie.”

Transcript

[A]

This is exactly right.

[B]

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[A]

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[C]

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[C]

Goodbye.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

is a production of Double Elvis, The story about Woodstock. The real story. The death, the destruction, the downright disaster movie that the three Day supposed festival of peace, love and communalism really was is so complex that we needed two episodes to properly tell it. If you're just getting hip to this now, I suggest you hit pause and go back to the last episode of Disgraceland, Part one of the Woodstock Story, where we discuss the violent rock and roll festival foundations of Woodstock, the hypocritical hippie extortion that allowed the show to go on, the cunning and confidence of producer Michael Language, the surge of hundreds of thousands of fans, the near immediate declaration of disaster by the state of New York, and the ominous signs of death and destruction on the horizon. In this episode we get into the deaths of two concertgoers, Bad acid, near chaos and near death on an unimaginable scale. Woodstock's legacy and great music. The who, Joe Cocker and Jimi Hendrix to name a few. Again, great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called swatch out MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to in the year 2525 by Zager and Evans. And why would I play you that specific slice of futuro cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on the morning of August 18, 1969. And that was the day Jimi Hendrix took the stage at Woodstock, turning in an electrifying performance that would seal Woodstock as the culture defining moment that it was. On this episode, Brown acid, bad vibes, death, destruction and the disaster movie that was Woodstock. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. August 15, 1969, Woodstock, Aquarian Exposition, Bethel, New York. Yasgars Farm. Peace and love were not going to save them. Smith and Wesson were. Max Yasker, owner of the thriving and pastoral dairy farm Michael Lang and Woodstock Ventures were hosting their three day music festival on was hiding in his farm stand's office. He, his son and one of the workers on his dairy farm were fully armed shotguns with enough shells to keep a small army held at bay until hopefully this godforsaken festival mess he'd gotten him and his family into blew over. They were coming to take his land, take his home, using the chaos of the festival as cover to pillage and God help him, rape the land and life he'd spent 33 years building since taking over the farm from his father. They were modern day Vikings set to maraud and kill his family, steal the valuables and cash he had on site and make off into the night like the lowdown bandits they were, Max Yazgar wasn't going to down without a fight. As soon as the call came that a carpet bagging set of MC outlaws were making their way with their bikes through the backed up festival traffic to Max's home to conduct a violent raid, Max went to work. He barricaded himself in with all the firepower he could find in his office with his son and a local employee to beat back the violent bikers. It made for a sleepless, if uneventful night. The motorcycle club raiders never raided. It must have been a prank call, a false warning, one of the many forms of local harassment Max and his family had to endure since agreeing to host the festival. And back at the festival site, things weren't any less tense. Bad LSD was making the rounds. Kids were suffering drug induced psychotic episodes. So far it was under control. But if word didn't spread fast to not take the brown acid, then mass psychosis for hundreds of thousands of teenagers and ensuing riots lay on the horizon. Improbably, Hugh Romney and his hippie hog farmers were enlisted to help solve this very dangerous problem. A mud stained hippie kid stumbled into the Hog Farm's special medical tent, the tent known as Big Pink. On cots all around were fellow acid heads, psychonauts, bad trippers way in outer space, some limp and catatonic, some crazed and mumbling in tongues. Hog farmers treated them as only they knew how, as they were expected to do, as was their job, part of the reason Michael Lang had hired them. They applied cold water to the heads of the kids on bad acid. For others, for the ones freaking the fuck out, for the ones caught in some terrible time loop or psychic pattern they couldn't break, for the ones screaming and thrashing around, the hog farmers provided extra attention. They held them gently and talked them down. And the mud stained kid was in a bad way. He kept mumbling. Miami Beach 1994 Joyce Miami Beach 1994 Joyce Miami Beach 1994 JOYCE he was caught in one of those bad loops, trapped inside of himself. A carnival horror show of fears and regret. Visions of the future and not good ones. Hugh Romney, head hog farmer, could see it in the kid's eyes. Miami Beach 1994 Choice Romney grabbed the boy gently with both hands by his cheeks. Tune into your third eye, man, romney advised him. Romney asked his name, where he came from, brought the muddy tripper down to earth, led him to a cot, told him to sit a while. And then when he was well, Romney pointed to the next lost soul wandering from through the door. See him? He pointed at the new patient who just wandered in himself, blitzed on acid in a bad way. Romney then looked at the mud stained boy he'd successfully talked down from the bad trip and applied the finishing touch. He gave the bad tripper purpose, gave him a distraction, gave him a reason to believe in himself and to take control of his situation. Romney told the boy he was now okay. He nodded again to the new patient who just wandered into the medical school tent and told the mud stained boy quote, now you're the doctor. Take over. That was how things worked in the Big Pink. The medical tent was a peace and love psychedelics mash unit. But it wasn't all bad to assist bass player Rick Danko of the band, a dude who knew all about another Big Pink came through and posted up with an acoustic guitar. He strummed and sang softly to help chill out the kids who were having a tough time on their trips. It was a moment of genuine goodwill, like many others from that weekend, that were necessary to help offset the destruction taking place. Word spread of various disasters. Most were untrue. Abbie Hoffman spiked the water supply with brown acid. Richard Nixon called in the National Guard. The Hells Angels have taken Yasgur's wife hostage. But some were true, like the story about the young concertgoer who went to bed on that first night of the the festival in his sleeping bag and awoke to the sound of a tractor inches from his body that then proceeded to roll right over him, crushing him, and they airlifted him by helicopter to the local hospital. He died of his wounds before the chopper even landed. He was 17 years old. His name was Ray Mizik. He was from Trenton, New Jersey. Then there was the constant buzz about overdoses. Not just bad trips from acid from El lsd, but also from heroin, opium, cocaine, mandrakes, all MANNER of late 60s narcotics that contributed to more than 3,000 drug related incidents and overdoses. Three most seriously resulted in near death and whisked off by helicopter to area hospitals where they were revived. So steady was the air traffic from the concert to the area hospitals and clinics that SOS messages concerning the drug wounded were eventually coordinated through the United States Aerospace Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs via the Pentagon, which eventually authorized U.S. army Air Force Task Force pilots to run rescue missions in and out of Woodstock with Huey helicopters, the same exact kind of helicopters used to airlift the wounded out of Vietnam. The drugged out and otherwise wounded Woodstock concertgoers were flown to an emergency medical facility set up by the US government in nearby Monash, New York for treatment and then dispatched to local facilities for further care if necessary. But one Woodstock attendee was not so lucky. An 18 year old Marine home on leave, taking in the peace and love and a jack of illicit heroin that killed him. His name was Richard Beller. He was from Holbrook, Long Island. Death, drugs, destruction and great music. Sly and the Family Stone went on Way late 3:30am and turned in what to that point was the best performance of the concert thus far, laying waste to nearly all the performers who preceded them. Sly Stone was a sole assassin in a land of stoned hippies. He and his band worked the crowd into a delirious state with their high energy dirty funk. Everyday people dance to the music, I want to take you higher. All infectious bangers seemingly composed to move, shake and enthrall. Half a million people in one sense sitting as they just had. Steam was coming off of Sly's afro. The mammoth crowd demanded two encores. And when the band left the stage at 4:20am Sly Stone had one message for Pete Townsend about to go on next with the who. And the message was this. Follow that. Pete Townsend was too annoyed to care. It was late. This festival was a disaster. And they sure as hell weren't getting paid enough for for this. And let's be real, what this was was. This wasn't a movement. This wasn't about peace and love. This wasn't about a new way. This was about music for money. And poorly planned at that. This was a new mob trying to usurp the old mob. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This was tie dye in place of starch suits. This was a new pig in a new silk tie, paisley instead of pinstripes. Either way it was a lie. Might as well just call it what it was. Capitalist. But worse. Capitalism without efficiency going on at 5am what the fuck was that about? The who's stormed through their set with maximum power. Maximum rock and roll, maximum rhythm, maximum blues, maximum R and B. Everything was maxed. The who's volume, the who's energy, the who's attitude and the thinly veiled contempt Pete Townsend had for this whole Fugazi affair. The English guitarist was a tightly wound ball of barely containable violence, doing his best to blow up the stage right there in front of half a million confused and frightened hippies. This was not passive. This was not placid. This was nothing like the previous Woodstock performers. This wasn't Arlo Guthrie or Joan Baez or Country Joe and the Fish. Country Joe. Pete Townsend heard he'd named his son Joseph after Joseph Stalin. Americans. The was wrong with these people. But Pete wanted to get the gig over with and get the hell out of there. Pete stewed while he tuned his Gibson sg. Let's get this bullshit over with, he thought. In the wings at the side of the stage, Sly Stone wired out of his mind from either the set he just performed or from the White Lightning acid being passed around the Ho Chi Minh Trail, or both. Sly was there with Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, who is set to take the stage even later than the who. And of course, there was that dude who wouldn't shut the fuck up. The big guy with the big hair and the bigger mouth, talking white panther jive non stop. Sinclair this, yippee that. Steal this concert, Smoke this, revolution. Brothers, sisters, pigs, police, blah blah, blah blah blah. Abbi Hoffman. He reminded Pete of a less talented, less attractive, less interesting Lenny Bruce. He thought about how this guy's schtick would play back in London. Not even Princess Margaret would fuck this guy. Why did the Americans pay him any mind? Whatever, it didn't matter. The who was ready. The set was about to start. Finally, Roger looked at Pete. He nodded, shot a look at John, then peered over to keys to behind the kit. And then Abbie Hoffman rushed the stage. He grabbed Pete's mic. 4,000 of our brothers and sisters are being persecuted for no more than we're doing on this hill. It's only fair that we help out. We are the Woodstock nation. We are one. What the fuck was this? Someone cut the mic. Thankfully, Hoffman pissed, kicked the mic stand over. That did it. Fuck this guy. Pete grabbed the neck of his guitar, swung it back like a tennis racket, and swatted it flat into Hoffman's hairy grill. Hoffman, dazed, stumbled for a step or two toward the front of the stage before falling over into the crowd. He was absorbed by the audience, who, a day and a half into the festival, were too sleep deprived and blitzed on acid to comprehend the violence that had just taken place at this Fugazi festival of peace. Pete wasted no time. He looked again to Keith behind the kit, who quickly counted the band off and into the raucous set. The who set, violent and unnatural as it was, was nothing compared to the potential threat brewing from more natural cause.

[C]

I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season three podcast. This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families. It started more than seven years ago, when Cindy and Kenny were two 40 somethings who had just gotten engaged. Days later they walked into a scorched earth war they never saw coming.

[A]

Turn around and place your hands behind your back. The cops came into my house and threw me in jail.

[C]

And to Cindy's surprise, her fiance Kenny was charged with abusing one of her children.

[A]

I never once doubted Kenny and I always doubted the accusation.

[C]

On Season three, A Burden of Guilt, you'll hear a story about the lengths someone will go to in order to get what they want.

[A]

This case has got to be one of the most despicable.

[C]

Listen to Season 3 A Burden of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stephanie Young. The hit podcast Love Trapped is back with new updates in the case of Laura owens.

[A]

This is CR2025 State vs Laura Owens. I think she really believes that she still has an out. I'm quite confident that they're up to something.

[C]

We're following the case live as the criminal charges finally come to a conclusion.

[A]

Trust us when we tell you as the victims of Laura Owens, she will not stop.

[C]

Listen to Love trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse, the world gets crazier and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's respons you're the problem.

[A]

Do you know I just found out who Sydney Sweeney was. If he got a bunch of women then I should have a bunch of men do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to youo're the Problem with yamaneika Starting on July 15th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, English singer Joe Cocker and his backup group, the Grease Band took the stage around 2pm on Sunday afternoon to open the day's festivities with his brand of blue eyed epileptic soul and enthralled the audience who'd never seen anything like him before. The Grease Band had been touring the US since spring, but it was as impressive an American debut as he could have hoped for, and little did the singer know at the time would go on to become an iconic performance. But when his performance was done, Joe Cocker felt it in the air, the coming rain. The clouds moved in out of nowhere and the temperature took a slight sudden drop and the audience began to stir uncomfortably. Joe Cocker grabbed a bottle of something hard and split in search of a roof and four walls. Black clouds draped over the half a million concert goers and gobbled up the pink afternoon sky in an instant. The crowd gasped en masse. No one had planned for this, for rain. If festival producer Michael Lang was nervous, he didn't show it. He suppressed a slight grin. Perhaps he was amused that it was learned the unexpected rain being thrown their way was courtesy of a storm moving up the coast called Hurricane Michael. But this was no time to be amused. A smart stagehand screamed at everybody, and nobody in particular hit the power. A small battalion of backstage roadies took to the stage with the quickness and began covering every everything with slipcovers, power cables in particular, and they all shared the same look on their faces. Fear. Another voice rang out from backstage. Kill the power, man. Kill the power. Nobody was volunteering for the job, and the wind picked up and billowed into Yazgar's natural amphitheater, lifting as much random trash as it could along the way and sending it airborne. And the strength of the wind was sudden and intense. The clouds grew even more black. The vibe was beyond ominous, straight fear. Hanging above festival organizers heads, the massive 100 foot sound towers, huge metal and plywood constructions holding the speakers that were used to blast sound from the stage. They slowly creaked as they swayed. The wind pressed, the towers lurched. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The clouds got even darker. Kids on the ground braced themselves for a torrent from the heavens, and the towers bent a little more. Most festival organizers feared the worst and tried to play it cool, and one did not kill the power. Power was needed at the moment because there, up in one of the towers, some kids sat high above the crowd taking in the show, oblivious to the twin hazards of lightning and wind and breaking with the hippie edict of live and let live. Live. One smart Woodstock organizer jumped on the mic and got into it with the crowd. Would you please get away from the towers? Please clear away before someone gets hurt. The wind picked up again, and the towers, all of them, swayed a little more, and more kids were situated on them than before. How had this happened? The wind picked up again, and when it did, the towers nearly gave way. They bent even further. If they fell all the way, it would be certain mass destruction. Hey, get off those towers. Get off those towers. The kids in the towers ignored the voice, the idiocy on the mic. The organizer pressed for calm. Let's keep it nice and cool. Just sit down and be cool. Thunder then interrupted his plea with a loud crack. He continued afterward. Looks like we're gonna get a little bit of rain, so you better cover up. If it does, we should have a slight power problem. Just cool it out. We'll sit here with you. You'll be okay. Just then, thunder exploded in the sky as if to mock the comments coming from the stage. And that's when the organizer felt it. The stage. The slip. The whole stage had shifted under his feet. The massive stage's foundation was slipping. Forget the towers. The stage was about to go down. In front, a mass of kids were oblivious to what was about to happen. The stage shifting, sliding, potentially crashing down on top of them. The stage jolted forward in a quick burst and then stopped. The sky cracked open again with a massive thunderclap, and then the rain poured down. Kids in the crowd immediately started to rejoice, dancing in the rain, sliding in the mud, feeding off of the chaotic energy in the most peaceful way possible. It was borderline miraculous. But how long long could it last? How long before the kids got tired, got cold, and bolted for the exit? Backstage, a volunteer sprinted for her boss, looking for direction. How were they going to quell the crowd? How were they going to keep them still in the rain and not stampeding each other in an effort to head somewhere for dry land? She made it past the backstage wall of dead instrument cases. Her boss was nowhere. She ran through the small makeshift artist via VIP area, no boss around, toward where the crew served themselves. Mushy food and warm drinks, and still no boss back toward the festival command center's trailer. There. In there. He must be in there. In the trailer. She ran toward it, in and around, darting staff. She reached the trailer, put her foot on the first metal step, and was blasted up and back and away from the trailer and onto her ass from the electric surge. Her boss opened the door at the the moment, took in the scene, barely noticing his failed volunteer. She shouted to him, don't step on the stairs. You'll get shocked. And he leaped over the three stairs and down to the ground, and the ground was softened. Trampled grass, long since reduced to dirt, was now transforming into mud, and the mud was splashing away and under it. The festival's main power feed cable was emerging as more and more people trounced over it. The more the main power cable's insulation wore away, and the more the insulation wore away from the cable, the more its electrical surge escaped, and the more water that flooded the area around the cable, the more likely the chance for the electricity to travel. At that moment, it became very clear that 500,000 people were connected by more than peace, love and music. They were now connected by the heavens, by rain and by water, the perfect conduit for mass electrocution. We'll be right back after this. Word, word, word.

[C]

I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt season three podcast. This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families. It started more than seven years ago when Cindy and Kenny were two 40 somethings who had just gotten engaged. Days later, they walked into a scorched earth war they never saw coming.

[A]

Turn around and place your hands behind your back. The cops came into my house and threw me in jail.

[C]

And to Cindy's surprise, her fiance Kenny was charged with abusing one of her children.

[A]

I never once doubted Kenny and I always doubted the accusation.

[C]

On season three, A Burden of Guilt, you'll hear a story about the lengths someone will go to in in order to get what they want.

[A]

This case has got to be one of the most despicable.

[C]

Listen to season three, a burden of guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

Hey, everyone, it's the Jonas Brothers. This week on the podcast. Hey, Jonas. We're hanging out with Michael Buble. After Kevin's recent interesting confession about Michael, we figured there's only one thing to do. We must invite Michael Buble on the podcast and we want to know what's on his sexy time playlist. You know, I did an interview and they're like, have you heard about this Jonas Brothers thing? And they're like, what did you think of it? I was like, well, I mean, it's reciprocal. We talk about Kevin's confession, Michael's reaction, and a whole lot more. Our conversation with Michael Buble is out now.

[C]

Listen to.

[A]

Hey, join us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[C]

I'm Stephanie Young. The hit podcast Love Trapped is back with new updates in the case of Laura owens.

[A]

This is CR2025 State vs Laura Owens. I think she really believes that she still has an out. I'm quite confident that they're up to something.

[C]

We're following the case live as the criminal charges finally come to a conclusion.

[A]

Trust us when we tell you, as the victims of Laura Owens, she will not stop.

[C]

Listen to Love trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

This was it, the last straw. No one planned for the rain and Michael Lang couldn't really flash a quick stone Smile to stop the rain. Nor could he stop the stage from slipping. And he couldn't stop those towers from swaying and toppling over. And he especially couldn't stop electricity from escaping the main power feed cable and transferring itself through the wet festival grounds. In effect, barbecuing the half a million kids he'd assembled on old man Yaskar's farm. It was all beyond his control. Planning and producing, producing this festival had been his life over the past several months. His entire identity was now tied to it. It was a glorious thing if you looked at it through the right lens. Half a million kids getting along on their own. A new generation doing it their own way. The biggest cultural gathering in American history, most likely. And so far, despite the many close calls and constant stress, there was little incident. Sure, two kids had already died, but that would quickly be forgotten. With the right message, the rain would stop. The kids would settle into their own groove. Michael knew it. And this ride he'd been on with Woodstock. From a dream to a reality, then to having the location ripped out from under him at the last minute, to finding Yazga's farm, to setting the show up in under 30 days. To the extortion from Hoffman, from the cops, from the Grateful Dead refusing to go on unless they were paid in advance in cash. To Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix, who at this moment was still threatening to not perform. To the massive financial debacle that this entire event had turned out to be. All of it, all the problems, would find a way of working themselves out. And the glory on the other end of this thing was immeasurable. Michael would be the guy. Michael Lang would be the one who did something no one else had done. And that would be worth every ounce of energy he'd put into this thing. His business partners, John Roberts and Joel Rogan, did not have the same utopian view of their shared venture with Michael Lang. Forget about the hassles and the massive financial loss. They were concerned with something much darker. If someone didn't get the situation with the electricity sorted out, they'd be seen as far worse than financially failed festival producers. 6pm Sunday night. Security, along with the festival organizers, were huddled around the the main feeder cable. Backstage, their worst fears, it seemed, were becoming real. The cable's insulation had been nearly completely worn away. It was only a matter of time, some argued, before the electricity surged beyond the cable and was carried by the water over the festival grounds to blast the crowd. The kids in the crowd were jammed together, soaking wet. Mass electrocution was most certainly an option. If the cable failed, the potential destruction and loss of human life was incalculable. The options were cut the power, end the festival prematurely, with at least eight of the Weeknd's promised performers yet to play, including top drawing acts like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Jimi Hendrix, and risk total mayhem, a full blown riot by the upset crowd of 500,000. Or wait it out, do nothing and hope that the main feeder cable but would not fray any further and remain intact enough to contain the electricity. The fear from Michael Lang's partners, John Roberts and Joel Rosiman, was so intense that Roberts actually began to whimper and Rosiman dared not speak. The two, along with the festival's master electrician, sat in silence, contemplating the fate of a half a million souls. And Michael Lang was nowhere to be found. This decision was too heavy for, for him anyway, but not for Joel Rosiman. He broke the silence by grabbing the phone in the command center trailer backstage and ordering the sound man to keep the power on. He then ordered the master electrician to lay out all the options for him. Was there a way to fix this without interrupting the live performances and risking a riot in the meantime? They'd ride it out, do what everyone around them had done since the beginning with this godforsaken festival. Hold their breath and pray that it all worked out. Their lives are on the line and they put the lives of others on the line as well. If things went horribly wrong, if hundreds of thousands of kids ended up dead on their decision, they'd do the honorable thing. John Roberts convinced himself in the moment, if Woodstock ended in mass destruction, he would kill himself. But that wasn't going to happen. John Roberts and Joel Rosiman decision proved to be the right one. Rosiman hadn't made the decision on a wing and a prayer, and the master electrician had informed him that there was a way they could reroute the power away from the master feed cable without disrupting the power to the main stage. And at long last, it seemed like the adults were in charge. Turns out that you can't simply be cool and groove on each other and rely on peace and love to carry the day. At a certain point you need to step up and take responsibility. Joel Rossiman was the one who made the decision to keep the show going, not Michael Lange. And as it had been happening since the show began two days earlier, various responsibilities were assumed and executed by those who would be considered squares as establishment, as, God forbid, grown ups by some of the more idealistic festival organizers and attendees. But they were also the people whose actions led and the tangible results of said actions kept the festival from turning into a full blown disaster. There was old man Yasdor himself, rock ribbed republican, offering up his farm at the last minute. The ground on which the whole festival was raised to a bunch of war protesting longhairs. And there were the local radio DJs who sent out the alarm when the festival food began to run out, alerting the local farmers who responded by donating en masse canned goods and produce. Then there were the wives of the farmers who took it a step further and set about boiling hundreds of thousands of eggs to keep the crowd fed with hard boiled eggs they'd donate. And there were military personnel from the US government who painstakingly coordinated the food drops and medical evacuations behind the scenes. And the scores of area doctors and nurses who volunteered their time to help out with the endless stream of wounded. There was even a local small town bank banker, a banker who opened up his bank in the middle of the night on a weekend to process a loan for Woodstock organizer John Roberts, so that Roberts could pay some of the headlining acts who, devoid as it were, of any generosity of spirit, themselves, were refusing to go on without getting paid in advance in cash. A bank of feds, doctors, nurses, farmers, locals, all of them, quote unquote squares who generously committed themselves to helping the the mass of stoned kids on the farm. These weren't people down with the cause. These weren't hippies. These weren't even kids. They were good, solid working adults who saw a bunch of kids who were in trouble and a bunch of young adult concert organizers who were in over their heads and decided to help out out of the goodness of their hearts. For no other reason. None of these people had any invested interest in Woodstock's success other than simply caring about the well being of their fellow Americans, their fellow young Americans. These people weren't counterculture anti establishment types who came to the rescue. They were the establishment. But without these people, without these squares, without the establishment, Woodstock, a three day festival of peace and music, an unofficial rally against the establishment, never would have survived itself or its organizers. Which isn't to say Woodstock wasn't supported by intensely hard working staff and volunteers, young people and working touring music industry adults and professionals who believed deeply in their mission to create a one of a kind music festival that showcased the best their generation had to offer. Because it was. But hard work and good intentions aside, every organization is a product of its leadership when lives are on the line, Haphazard hippie confidence men, ramblings about peace, love and a new utopian way only goes so far. It was a miracle Woodstock didn't end in total disaster. Mercifully, the show approached its end by Monday morning, but not without some final fireworks at 9am as concert goers slowly began to dwindle out of the festival grounds to make their way home, Jimi Hendrix finally took the stage. Jimi Hendrix's set at Woodstock ended the festival. In the 1970 documentary on Woodstock, directed by Michael Wadley, the festival ends with Hendrix's version version of the Star Spangled Banner. It's an iconic moment. Jimi Hendrix on stage in the early morning hours, garbed in the hippie fashion of the day, his soul power Afro barely contained by his headband. And he's playing the country's rallying cry. But it's clearly not your father's national anthem. This is something new, something exciting, something decidedly subversive. Hendrix's excellent feedback driven Bombay Bastic take on the song under the new morning sun at Woodstock can't help but give the impression that Woodstock was about a new day, a new way. The imagery on screen hammers home the significance of the festival, except it didn't really happen that way. Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner and then he continued to muddle through the rest of his set with his less than stellar band at the time, Gypsy sun and Rainbows, the experiencer band of gypsies they were not and finished his set and the Festival of Peace and Love unceremoniously with hey Joe, a song about murder. July 24, 1999. Rome, New York. 140 miles from Bethel and 30 years removed. A new Woodstock Griffis Air Force Base. 220,000 kids. Hot red Hot Chili Peppers, Ice Cube, Corn, Rage against the Machine and Limp Bizkit topped the bill of the new Woodstock venture. By Michael Lange. Woodstock 99. Musically, it has little to do with the original festival from 1969. The passive folk stylings of Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie and Richie Havens would be booed offstage instantly at the festival. Yet the ethos of peace and love still exists, at least in the marketing of the festival, if nowhere else. But on stage, bare chested macho aggression leads the day and you can feel it in the crowd. At an MTV crew standup, Carson Daly is getting heckled. I could Jennifer Love Hewitt better than you could. Someone throws water in the VJ's face and he sheepishly pleads, just tell me that wasn't your piss, man. And near the east Stage, hundreds of people roll in the mud behind a row of portable toilets to cool off, even if it means writhing in human filth. And by this point, a hundred guards, the peace patrol, had quit, leaving little internal security. Gangs of so called mud people have formed, dripping in the stuff. They roam the grounds and supposedly guard the scattered public water fountains, which barely work. Unlike the original Woodstock, Woodstock 99 is blatantly commercial, with $4 bottles of water and $12 pizzas on top of a whopping $150 ticket price that seems normalish today in 2021, but in 1999, all of it was seen as exorbitant by fans. In the pit, bodies thrash, mud flies. A dozen or so college dudes sit above on a production trailer, more concerned with the thrashing crowd than the band on stage, which seems as though it's a mile away and they're chanting, show us your tits. Show us your tits. Dudes in the crowd get all horned up and begin manhandling the girls in the crowd, lifting them up as human trophies to signal their obedience to their chanting brethren on the trailers. The women are understandably horrified. Some oblige and lift their shirts and bras. The dudes erupt in approval. The girls are dropped and scurry away. A Limp Bizkit plays. The crowd goes fucking bananas for the nookie and especially literally, for the song Break stuff in the pit. Ribs are cracked, wrists are snapped. More women are harassed, their clothes torn off by force. A crowd surfer is raped all over. Glass bottles fly through the air and shatter against skulls. The crowd turned mob tears a siding off the media towers and camera platforms. But MTV has already abandoned the show to cover the medical tent. It's overflowing with serious injuries. Broken arms and legs, a fractured spine. Rage against the machine. Machine takes the stage and figuratively proclaims to Michael Lang's Woodstock generation that subtlety is dead. With pummeling beats and heavy riffs, they work the crowd into an orgy of aggression. They lyrically rail against capitalism while playing for a hefty paycheck for what amounts to little over an hour's worth of work. Only in America. And before they leave the stage, they burn the American flag. Perfect. Woodstock 99 is more of a destructive mess than its original predecessor. One person died after overheating and collapsing during Metallica's set. Police launched four rape investigations officially, and many sexual assaults were also reported. And beyond the police record, concertgoers reported witnessing multiple gang rapes, fires destroyed or damaged, a dozen trailers and a bus. Not to mention many of the overpriced booths and filthy porta potties. The booths and ATMs that weren't destroyed were broken into. How could this happen? Not a Woodstock. The entire media gasped as it collectively clutched its pearls. The stories from the mainstream non rock and roll press were typically simple minded and played off the contrast between the peace and love success of the original Woodstock with the destructive failure of Woodstock 99. But in reality, the two festivals were very similar. Woodstock, the original Woodstock was a literal disaster, declared so on its first day by the state of New York. Yet the lasting image of Woodstock is one of idyllic harmony. Woodstock was born of violence, sparked into existence out of Michael Lang's Mexican standoff with hillbilly armed guards and cops from down in Florida. And there were fights on stage, armed black shirted hippie gestapo on patrol, and most notably, two dead kids on record. Yet the word on Woodstock was it was born out of and demonstrative of an ethos of peace. Woodstock's organizers, even Michael Lang, were from the beginning driven by profit. Yet the word on Woodstock was it was an anti commercial venture conceived out of communalism. But hell, even the 1960s counterculture radicals, the most anti commercial among the hippie movement, avowed Marxists led by Abby Hoffman, extorted Woodstock organizers for tens of thousands of dollars in cash. Woodstock is hailed as an improbable organizational achievement that showed the power of young people coming together en masse in service of a higher ideal, a common good. Yet festival organizers nearly mass electrocuted hundreds of thousands of kids due to their poor planning. So strong was their fear of this possible deadly outcome that one organizer broke down on the scene and pledged to kill himself. So how then did we end up with this accepted narrative that Woodstock 69 was vastly different than Woodstock 99? How then did we wind up believing all these years in the hippie dream in 60s idealism? It's permeated our cultural power centers ever since. 60s idealism since Woodstock has transcended politics, sports, art, academia, film, television, media, and of course, music. But why, if Woodstock was such a disaster, why is its legacy so strong? Something else, something good, something ideal. Simple. Because unlike Woodstock 99, the original Woodstock had a better movie. Concert films don't sell. But Woodstock the movie sold, grossing $50 million in its original box office run and earning universal critical acclaim. Why? Because Woodstock the Movie isn't a concert film. It's a love story. Actually, it's a love letter to the 60s generation. At every turn, the film highlights the good from the festival and ignores the bad, or should I say the reality. Creatively, there is no shame in that. The director, Michael Wadley, had a point of view and he expressed it in the editing room, going so far as to say so himself, saying, In 1994, I saw this as a sort of back to the land, back to the garden beautiful event. If you look at the film that I edited, the whole film then created this kind of mythology. What was the real Woodstock and what was the mythological? The film is an idealized version of the events that took place that weekend in Bethel, New York in August of 1969. It is not what really happened. If the director were to make a realistic movie about Woodstock, the film would have been a disaster movie. Because the entire week, weekend on balance, was fraught with tension, violence, near death, actual death, chaos and destruction peppered in. There was, of course, some great music and I'm sure, some good times. But this notion that Woodstock was a generation defining moment so significant that it marked actual real change for generations to come is complete and total bullshit. Nothing changed. Soldiers remained in Vietnam for another another six years. In the next presidential election, Republican Richard Nixon, scourge of the hippie generation, was elected in the biggest presidential landslide in modern times, winning 49 of 50 states, declaring with authority what the majority of Americans actually felt about peace, love, and the vaunted ideals of the 60s. Nixon later resigned in disgrace and his Republican replacement, Gerald Ford, was defeated in 1976 by Democrats Jimmy Carter, in what was no doubt a rebuke of Nixon's party. But 12 years of Republican rule followed after Carter, the first quote, unquote rock and roll president. Numbers don't lie. But films do. Which is why the legacy of Woodstock, the baby boomers, the 60s, is so strong. It's why after two disastrous festivals, Woodstock 69 and 99, not to even mention the rainy blip on the cultural radar that was Woodstock 94, which was essentially a Lollapalooza knockoff. Michael Lang was once again given the opportunity to produce yet another Woodstock in 2019. But alas, that effort completely failed. Good old hippie planning finally caught up to Woodstock, which is a shame. It would have been great to go on up to the country, pay $250 for a ticket, six bucks for a bottle of water, and a 20 spot for some shitty pizza to see Imagine Dragons and the the Lumineers pump out some uninspired nowhere rock jams on a stage a million miles away under the blistering sun. I'm joking, of course. Festivals don't interest me. I'm a bigger fan of the movies. Not love stories, disaster movies. The bigger, more violent, destructive and disgraceful, the better. You know, kind of like Woodstock. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes [e-mail] if you're to Listening Listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on [e-mail] Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man. Hello, I'm here during the lunch rush with Janice who owns her own food truck. Best cheesesteaks in town. Janice traded up to Geico Commercial Auto Insurance for a food truck business. We're here where she needs us most. They sure are. We make it so easy for her to save with customized coverage that grows with her business. Sorry, I just get so emotional talking about saving folks money. Not this onion I'm chopping. It's just so beautiful. Oh yeah, nice.

[C]

The onion.

[A]

Get a commercial auto insurance quote [e-mail] and see how much you could save. It feels good to Geico.

[C]

I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 3 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families. It's a scorched earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want.

[A]

Cindy said I had to choose between the truth and my family. And I had to choose the truth.

[C]

Listen to season three of Burden of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

Hello, it's me, Anna Sinfield, the host of the Girlfriends. I'm back with more one off interviews with some truly kick ass women on the Girlfriends Spotlight. I'm going to climb. This is badness hereditary. Let's see how we can stop killing. I'm not too intimidated by her.

[C]

What are you talking about? Listen.

[A]

Listen to the girlfriend Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast?