Daily Ruse - Woodstock 99

Scott reports on ..
Wouldsuck 99

Woodstock 99 in Rome, NY - 1999.07.23-25

I was supposed to buy a car this summer. It never happened.

Instead we took the terrorist van to Woodstock. The terrorist van is Fish's badass '86 Toyota with about 120k miles on it and huge dents on the side. Later when triple A would ask him what the model was all he could reply with was 'van'.

Taking the terrorist van wasn't easy. It wasn't what we wanted to do.

All summer I had been telling Dave, "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get there somehow." My dad nixed the idea of taking the Baron (which is too small anyway) and the terrorist van was off limits cause its inspection sticker was about 3 months expired. Why? It failed; some of its most important components were replaced with scotch tape. Toyota wanted $400 to replace the tape with real car parts. Dave and I went to Auto Barn and snatched a side view mirror and two yellow turning lights for $20. That was two days before we had to leave.

A bunch of epoxy and screws later we had a working van. Fish's brother got it inspected and the next day we headed out.

. . .

Dave and I were at work in the city when we were supposed to leave. We had bought Smirnoff at lunch to go with the four bags of cereal, 30 ring pops, 6 cans of pineapple, four mag lights, and some other shit I can't remember that we had bought at price club beforehand.

I got back to town after Dave so Fish picked me up at the train station -- he had already loaded his supplies and Gaku into the van. He took me home and an hour later we thought we were ready to go. To go pick up Dave.

Dave brought out his crap and his mom gave us all this water and a lecture on safety. The van was full and we tried to leave.

For some reason I don't know anymore we had to go back to my house, Fish's house, and Dave's house. Then to Dunkin' Donuts and some random street to pick up more supplies. (Or drugs as some people call them). I had my laptop all powered up in the back and had a fix on 5 GPS satellites. We had no idea where the fuck Rome NY was, but I figured the laptop knew and that was good enough for me. It was about 11 PM when we finally got on the Long Island Expressway.

. . .

Dave and I were in the back and as such lit up our Monte Cristo cigars and toasted the start of our journey. Fish was driving and Gaku Sato was bitching in shotgun. We only went the wrong way once for like 10 minutes.. I guess my computer was lying again. It had us take the most complex route of numerous parkways and roadways, but it claimed it was the fastest way.

Soon we all got hungry so Fish pulled off on route 5 of Carmel, NY, I think. The signs had promised food, but all the franchises in town were closed. We found a 24-hour diner and settled in. We were feeling pretty randy and ordered something besides cereal, cause that's all we would have for the next 3 days. The love/friendship/health tester machine on our way out ate $1 and the grip tester got $1 also. We learned that Fish is a sex machine, Dave is the healthiest man alive (his doctor later confirmed this), I have the hand strength of a gorilla and Gaku sucks. (Actually, I think he did well in the luck and health categories, but his left lung had just popped a month before, so I deem it not to count at cause of the inaccuracy of these machines).

In the parking lot we decided to disguise the vodka as water to smuggle into the festival more effectively. We emptied a gallon of poland spring into the bushes and replenished the jug with 3.5 litres of quality Russian vodka. Some local kids saw us but didn't care.

I took the wheel .. Rome was estimated to be 4 hours west. I got lost trying to get back to the highway and the van needed oil. The engine is under the fucking driver's seat, and was incredibly hot. I used a flashlight to open the oil cap and we fed it a quart. We found the main road and soon everyone slept. I almost slept. Rammstein and the wind were the only things keeping me up. Occasionally Dave would arouse himself and change the music.

We got to Rome itself at about 4 or 5 AM. The sun was just coming up.

You must understand that the process of getting to this point was rather uneventful. 75-80mph the whole way, and it was nice and cool. To get from the highway exit to the festival on the other hand...

. . .

There was a line of cars moving at no miles per hour. When it did move, the people walking next to us made better time. This one ass from New Jersey kept jumping on and off his friend's Explorer. Later two chicks in short shorts walked abreast of the car in front of us for half an hour. When they ran off, we conjectured it was to either pee or make out.

Dave mooned no one and I handed out only one package of crispy M&Ms. I brushed my teeth while driving.

E V E N T U A L L Y we got within viewing distance of the first tier of parking lots. It was about 9 or 10 AM by then. We were driving down a runway (driving in this case means really not doing anything amongst a line of cars), and I had to pee. Fish took driver's seat and I ran off to the grass on the side.

Now mind you there were probably a hundred or so cars within visual distance of me. Each car holding about 3 people. All those people started yelling at me and distracting me from the task at hand. So my trip to the grass turned out to be entirely unproductive. To shouts of "turn around", I did. I put it back in my pants, flipped everyone off, and chased our van down the road.

We drove into the parking area after a long time and passed thousands of cars. We were convinced we could never reach the extremities of the Parking Area and we would miss all the bands.

We did park at long last and I ran hastily to a porto john, which were quality accommodations by the standards of grass-on-the-side-of-a-runway with audience.

. . .

Unloading the car and walking to the campgrounds was worse than most things. Never do that. We had a cooler that weighed at least 100lbs and tents and shit. And that was only half our stuff. None of it rolled -- hence carried by four people with no sleep in 26 hours (12 of which were spent in a car).

I -- no, all of us -- were concerned from the start by the promised "tight security at the event". "Tight security" apparently means that no, two coke cans may not be permitted in, but on the otherhand your gallon of vodka and flashlight full of drugs don't trouble anyone at all.

It took half an hour and two cell phones just to find a place to put Dave's huge 14x10 tent. Fish and I set up ours -- Dave and Gaku paid some woman one ring pop to set up theirs. We smoked, drank, and then walked the grounds in search of something cool. Nothing was to be found so eventually we went back.

Fish and I slept through all the bands on Friday, including Live. (Which was all I wanted to see that day, but we had just seen them at Tramps two days before so I guess I didn't miss anything new). We woke up that night in time to catch the closing acts on the east stage: Korn and Bush. For some reason we did not go to the east stage. Instead our $150 tickets bought us an interesting (,=--) three hours in the parking lot searching for our car. I hadn't eaten in a long time, so I spent 5 of my 10 dollars on fresh Hapgalash. (You ever see the episode of the Simpsons where Homer's car is lost in NYC and he buys Hapgalash and crab juice?) I would've chosen the Mountain Dew myself, but Homer was right on about the meat on a stick. Mmm mmm mmm.

Finally we did find good old Van right where we left it; in tact no less! We sat in it drinking water and eating Cool Ranch for about half an hour (nope, didn't have Vodka or Drugs .. what idiots we were). Tired and sober we hauled our remaining gear back to camp.. Camp in this case being about a mile away.

. . .

My understanding is that at this point we slept, whereas Gaku and Dave did not. They took the keys to the van and disappeared. Perhaps one day they'll write an article here which will concern where they were. (Dave did. See it here).

Suffice to say the tent was 1000 degrees celcius come morning, so we were up with the rest of the yokels. This is when we went to see our first concert on the second day of the thing. So we walked and walked and walked. We saw numerous porto potties, water holes, tents, people, tents, people, refreshment stands, people, beer garden, tents... You get the idea. We did get to the east stage by 11 (having left the tent at about 10) and settled in about 100 yards out waiting for The Tragically Hip to take the stage.

The Hip performed many of my favorites off Day For Night. I can recount that they played Grace, too, Nautical Disaster, and New Orleans is Sinking. I'm positive they played many other songs too, all of which were excellent.

(See their set list and photos from Woodstock at their site: www.thehip.com)

In the Brilliance of the People Who Set Up Woodstock, we had no listing of events and their times. Only of events. So, the east stage opened at 12. The Tragically Hip were the first on stage. So I was on time for them. I also wanted to see Counting Crows followed by Dave Matthews. Regarless of when they would play, two acts preceeded them so we had time.

. . .

Back at the tent we found Gaku and Dave. They looked a bit worse for wear, but were in tact. Dave's first words were, of course, "I have something dreadful to report."

Yes, he had locked the keys in the van. (Or rather, Gaku had). Additionally they had mal-smuggled in my maglite which was stashed under the car. I wasn't pissed, cause it didn't matter; we were gonna get into the Van one way or another.

A cop had told Dave "$130 to jimmy the lock." We decided to call AAA. AAA was no help, so we went to find a tow truck. The tow truck departed with Fish (who as you may recall from last night had no idea where the car was) and $30 of ours. The cop was just full of shit, I guess.

That whole morning had been filled with conjecture about "when do the Counting Crows take the stage?". I imagined it to be 6:00. Gaku said 3:30. There were guesses in between. At about 3:35 we found out Gak was right. Fish came back (with keys) and we hit the trails back once again to the east stage...

. . .

We arrived in style, though I have no justification for saying that. Really, we just wandered over to stand near a giant television off to the right of the stage. Our view of the stage itself was horrible, so we sat down to smoke and just watched the TV.

Adam Duritz was halfway through his set, but what we did hear of it was quite excellent. He played A Long December, Murder of One, some new stuff and other old songs I knew but have since forgotten. Usually I'm not a great fan of Adam's live performances; while I won't claim that artists should perform their work verbatim in every venue, Duritz often omits singing entirely and merely claims his lyrics to the audience. I much prefer the emotional energy of his two studio recordings (August and Everything After and Recovering the Satellites.. Two of the best CDs ever manufactured). His performance at Woodstock contained much energy and singing. He did stop between songs to tell paraboles related to his past -- that was alright.

Fish had run off at this point, muttering something about a crappy band he wanted to see and how Dave Matthews was terrible. Dave, Gaku and I stayed put..

I'm still a great fan of Dave Matthews despite the fact that nowadays people can legally shoot you on the street in five states for saying that. I had never seen him live, though, and I think for this performance he was more baked than we were. I can't honestly claim he was incoherent, but it was either him or me to be sure. Granted, I can't recall which songs he played (I think Ants Marching was in there), but I do recall sitting on the dirt having a fabulous time, due in great part to the music!

We ran off after Dave finished muttering something about how Alanis Morisette is terrible, as did most of the other 100,000 people there.
. . .

We found Fish sleeping in his tent.

. . .
(More to come.. I can't type anymore).

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