Rock
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If you’re on the couch with your popcorn just aching for some more drama between pop singers, do not invite Paramore singer Hayley Williams to your party, because she’s not interested. In an Instagram Story recorded after a show in Hamburg on Tuesday (July 23), Williams hopped on camera to give her no-holds-barred take on the attempts by some to pit female pop stars against each other.
Sliding off screen to change, Williams gave a two-minute treatise on why she hates the internet, but also on the irrational focus on competition between artists. “Something I’ve been thinking about a lot, and why I don’t really love it [the internet]… Especially in the music world, like when it comes, to like, music, whether it’s the pop girls or any scene, really. People only give a f–k about numbers now, and stats. And that is so lame. It’s very fun, don’t get me wrong. It’s sick. We’ve had a #1 album and top this and that albums, yes. That s–t is great…,” she said.
After a quick change into sweatshirt, Williams continued, “But I just remember a time when that was not so important, and that also wasn’t like a gotcha for a stan-war type of situation. Anyway, I just think it’s really f–king annoying… My side of the internet, which is basically not really the internet. Where I just get to support all the pop girls. Maybe that’s privilege. because I’m not a pop girl, but I just think everyone should cool it and let people make really great music and s–t… I’m over it.”
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With just the top of her head visible as she hung upside down in the frame to give a view up her nostrils, Williams concluded that she is, “over it.” (Watch the whole video here.) As noted by Stereogum, the Story has since disappeared, but a residual tile remains on which Williams added, “witnessing stan wars makes me so happy pmore is not really in the pop world. i just get to enjoy the good s–t thats come out this year and im sorry some of yall cant thats gotta be tough damn.”
Paramore’s great summer adventure opening for Taylor Swift rolls on tonight (July 24) with the final show in Hamburg, Germany, before the outing moves on to Munich’s Olympiastadion for gigs on Saturday(July 27) and Sunday (July 28). The group will stay touring with Swift through a fifth and final gig at Wembley Stadium in London on August 20.
John Mayall, the British blues musician whose influential band the Bluesbreakers was a training ground for Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and many other superstars, has died. He was 90.
A statement on Mayall’s Instagram page announced his death Tuesday (July 23), saying the musician died Monday at his home in California. “Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world’s greatest road warriors,” the post said.
He is credited with helping develop the English take on urban, Chicago-style rhythm and blues that played an important role in the blues revival of the late 1960s. At various times, the Bluesbreakers included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, later of Cream; Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac; Mick Taylor, who played five years with the Rolling Stones; Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat; and Jon Mark and John Almond, who went on to form the Mark-Almond Band.
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Mayall protested in interviews that he was not a talent scout, but played for the love of the music he had first heard on his father’s 78-rpm records.
“I’m a band leader and I know what I want to play in my band — who can be good friends of mine,” Mayall said in an interview with the Southern Vermont Review. “It’s definitely a family. It’s a small kind of thing really.”
A small but enduring thing. Though Mayall never approached the fame of some of his illustrious alumni, he was still performing in his late 80s, pounding out his version of Chicago blues. The lack of recognition rankled a bit, and he wasn’t shy about saying so.
“I’ve never had a hit record, I never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never done a piece about me,” he said in an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent in 2013. “I’m still an underground performer.”
Known for his blues harmonica and keyboard playing, Mayall had a Grammy nomination, for “Wake Up Call” which featured guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor and Albert Collins. He received a second nomination in 2022 for his album The Sun Is Shining Down. He also won official recognition in Britain with the award of an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 2005.
He was selected for the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class and his 1966 album Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton is considered one of the best British blues albums.
Mayall once was asked if he kept playing to meet a demand, or simply to show he could still do it.
“Well, the demand is there, fortunately. But it’s really for neither of those two things, it’s just for the love of the music,” he said in an interview with Hawaii Public Radio. “I just get together with these guys and we have a workout.”
Mayall was born on Nov. 29, 1933 in Macclesfield, near Manchester in central England.
Sounding a note of the hard-luck bluesman, Mayall once said, “The only reason I was born in Macclesfield was because my father was a drinker, and that’s where his favorite pub was.”
His father also played guitar and banjo, and his records of boogie-woogie piano captivated his teenage son.
Mayall said he learned to play the piano one hand at a time — a year on the left hand, a year on the right, “so I wouldn’t get all tangled up.”
The piano was his main instrument, though he also performed on guitar and harmonica, as well as singing in a distinctive, strained-sounding voice. Aided only by drummer Keef Hartley, Mayall played all the other instruments for his 1967 album Blues Alone.
Mayall was often called the “father of British blues,” but when he moved to London in 1962 his aim was to soak up the nascent blues scene led by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Burdon were among others drawn to the sound.
The Bluesbreakers drew on a fluid community of musicians who drifted in and out of various bands. Mayall’s biggest catch was Clapton, who had quit the Yardbirds and joined he Bluesbreakers in 1965 because he was unhappy with the Yardbirds’ commercial direction.
Mayall and Clapton shared a passion for Chicago blues, and the guitarist later remembered that Mayall had “the most incredible collection of records I had ever seen.”
Mayall tolerated Clapton’s waywardness: He disappeared a few months after joining the band, then reappeared later the same year, sidelining the newly arrived Peter Green, then left for good in 1966 with Bruce to form Cream, which rocketed to commercial success, leaving Mayall far behind.
Clapton, interviewed for a BBC documentary on Mayall in 2003, confessed that “to a certain extent I have used his hospitality, used his band and his reputation to launch my own career,”
“I think he is a great musician. I just admire and respect his steadfastness,” Clapton added.
Mayall encouraged Clapton to sing and urged Green to develop his song-writing abilities.
Mick Taylor, who succeeded Green as a Bluesbreaker in the late 1960s, valued the wide latitude which Mayall allowed his soloists.
“You’d have complete freedom to do whatever you wanted,” Taylor said in a 1979 interview with writer Jas Obrecht. “You could make as many mistakes as you wanted, too.”
Mayall’s 1968 album Blues From Laurel Canyon signaled a permanent move to the United States and a change in direction. He disbanded the Bluesbreakers and worked with two guitars and drums.
The following year he released The Turning Point, arguably his most successful release, with an atypical four-man acoustic lineup including Mark and Almond. “Room to Move,” a song from that album, was a frequent audience favorite in Mayall’s later career.
The 1970s found Mayall at low ebb personally, but still touring and doing more than 100 shows a year.
“Throughout the ’70s, I performed most of my shows drunk,” Mayall said in an interview with Dan Ouellette for Down Beat magazine in 1990. One consequence was an attempt to jump from a balcony into a swimming pool that missed — shattering one of Mayall’s heels and leaving him with a limp.
“That was one incident that got me to stop drinking,” Mayall said.
In 1982, he reformed the Bluesbreakers, recruiting Taylor and McVie, but after two years the personnel changed again. In 2008, Mayall announced that he was permanently retiring the Bluesbreaker name, and in 2013 he was leading the John Mayall Band.
Mayall and his second wife, Maggie, divorced in 2011 after 30 years of marriage. They had two sons.
The Rolling Stones have been known as the world’s greatest rock and roll band for six decades, but Grammy voters were shamefully late in getting on board. The Stones weren’t nominated in any category until the 1979 ceremony, when Some Girls was nominated for album of the year.
How could that be? How could such classic albums as Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. have been completely ignored – not to mention such landmark singles as “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Honky Tonk Women” and “Brown Sugar”?
One reason is that Grammy voters in ’60s and ’70s were resistant to rock, favoring pop and what we now call traditional pop. (Nowadays, Grammy voters love rock and have been slow to embrace hip-hop. Resistance to the new and different is often a byproduct of institutional voting.)
The Beatles landed five consecutive album of the year nominations in the ’60s, but The Beatles were more in line with Grammy tastes. They were more often on the pop side of pop/rock, and Lennon/McCartney’s songwriting was more rooted in traditional songcraft.
Another reason The Stones were left out for so long was the Grammys didn’t have performance categories dedicated to rock until 1990 – and didn’t have a best rock album category until 1995. (Fittingly, The Stones were the first winner of the latter award.)
Since Grammy voters belatedly discovered The Stones, the band has fared pretty well in the nominations. They won a Grammy (best traditional blues album) for their previous studio album, High & Lonesome. Their three studio albums before that were each nominated for best rock album.
The band’s 2023 album Hackney Diamonds, which was mostly produced by Andrew Watt, has an excellent chance of landing a best rock album nod and an outside chance of landing an album of the year nod. “Angry,” the album’s opening track and lead single, was nominated for best rock song at the ceremony in February. The 2025 nominations will be announced on Nov. 8. The awards will be presented on Feb. 2, 2025.
Watt (profiled here) has his own following in Grammyland – he won producer of the year, non-classical in 2021, which makes him the most recent producer not named Jack Antonoff to win that award. Watt, who is just 33, wasn’t even born when The Stones’ Steel Wheels album was released in 1989.
Look and see how The Stones have fared in the Grammy nominations since 1979, the year Grammy voters first invited them to the party. The year show is the year of the Grammy ceremony.
1979: Some Girls
The path to 50 has not always been easy for Journey, whose members have been celebrating the milestone on the road, including a summer stadium tour with Def Leppard.
Over the decades, there has been rancor amid the music, lineup changes and lawsuits, periods of uncertainty and open-ended hiatus.
And yet the wheel — in the sky and elsewhere — keeps on turning for the group whose first show, at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom, ushered in 1974.
Legacy has a lot to do with it, of course. Journey’s catalog features a dozen platinum-or-better sellers, including two albums — 1981’s Escape and 1988’s Greatest Hits — that are certified diamond by the RIAA for sales (including downloads and streams) exceeding 10 million units.
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The band has notched 18 top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and one would be hard pressed to attend a sporting event where the 1981 hit “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” (also famously played in the finale episode of The Sopranos) isn’t piped over the PA.
Given those accomplishments, Journey’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 was long overdue.
Meanwhile, since the end of the pandemic, the act’s current lineup — including co-founding guitarist Neal Schon, longtime keyboardist-guitarist Jonathan Cain and, since 2007, Filipino frontman Arnel Pineda (whom Schon discovered on YouTube) — has been headlining arenas. And its summer stadium tour, which began July 6 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, reprises its 2018 bill with Def Leppard.
“They’ve sold out every ticket everywhere we go — it’s kind of crazy, and well-deserved,” says Jeff Frasco, Journey’s agent at Creative Artists Agency. “The songs are amazing; people want to hear them. Combine that with putting on a great show, and it’s great. They give people their money’s worth.”
All of that has somewhat mitigated the rancor of the past decade, which has included legal skirmishes that led to management changes and the departure of original bassist Ross Valory and longtime drummer Steve Smith, as well as trademark disputes with Steve Perry, singer of the band’s biggest hits. Schon and Cain have gone at each other, too, in well-reported conflicts over business issues that spilled into social media, most recently in 2023.
The good news, according to drummer Deen Castronovo — who played with Schon and Cain in the late-1980s group Bad English — is that “everybody has mended fences,” he says. “They’ve made amends and we’re all on one jet again, and it’s all for one and one for all.”
Clearly, “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” seems to be not just a song title, but an ethos for the band.
Fifty years is a big milestone for any act. What has kept Journey around and active — and successful — for this long?
Neal Schon: Well, it all started with the songs themselves, and I think we got some things right a long time ago and continue to bring it live. We made our statements and continued to move forward in writing new music.
Jonathan Cain: It’s something you respect and you’re grateful for; that’s how I feel about it. For me, it’s 44 years, and I’ve always felt like it was the highest honor to join such a prestigious band and then to be able to contribute and take it to another level.
Schon: Our fans are so loyal to us, and we have young fans now whose parents were fans of ours and now they have their own kids who are coming to the concerts, too, and they love the music. Bands usually disband because they stop growing, but we keep growing and getting new fans. That keeps it alive.
Take us back to Journey day one.
Schon: I had just come out of Santana and almost formed a band with Greg Errico and Larry Graham from Sly & The Family Stone. Then Herbie Herbert approached me; he was my guitar tech [in Santana] and he said, “Look, I’m starting a management firm. I want to manage you and wrap a band around you.” I was definitely looking for something to do. Herbie and I had always gotten along and he believed in me, and it just went from there.
Journey has been through a lot of changes — 18 members, give or take — and some major shifts, like when Steve Perry joined in 1977, or Cain in 1980, or Arnel Pineda in 2007. How has the group been able to navigate those changes and remain a draw?
Schon: I think the creativity. Any new person in a band brings out a different side in the chemistry in a band. We definitely had that chemistry between the three of us — me, Jonathan and Perry — in the old band, and we’ve shown signs as well in the [current] band.
Cain: The music’s bigger than [the band members]. Journey has always connected with the audience. It really comes down to the integrity of the songs and the message. It was positive music — which [critics] loved to hate. (Laughs.) A song like “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” has a huge connection because there are a lot of small-town girls and city boys wanting to get on the midnight train to anywhere. We worked hard to write songs [for the fans] about their lives.
It’s no secret there has been a lot of drama, especially over the past few years. You two seemed to be at each other’s throats and yet managed to pull it back from the brink. How?
Cain: Just looking at the big picture: The music is louder than the noise of the grumbling and the arguments and the disagreements and stuff. The show must go on, right? It’s just the drive of knowing that there are fans out there that don’t care about our differences but care that we show up and play for them. They care that we carry on, so we’ve got to put aside our differences for them.
Schon: The one thing I can tell you is Journey is everything to me. Journey comes first, and I’m going to do anything I need to do to prevail and make sure that ship does not go down. You have to forgive and you have to move forward. We’ve chosen to do that.
The band is managing itself these days, right?
Schon: Yes. It’s like myself, my wife, Jonathan and his wife. It comes down to how much you understand what your situation is about. I would tell a young player, “Get involved in [the business]. Know what’s going down with the contracts, understand it, trademark yourself. If something shady comes by, know what question to ask.” It took a long time to learn all that, but I’m happy we have.
If you could only have one album to hand to someone as a representation of Journey — and not Greatest Hits — what would you choose?
Schon: Infinity [released in 1978]. To this day, that’s one of my favorite records. There are many bigger records, although that was no slouch of a record, and musically it’s very, very creative. We did an amazing job of turning that corner, of keeping some of the past and moving forward into the future with Steve on board and everything. It was like a new era for us.
Cain: I’d have to say Escape. That’s our biggest record, and there was no accident it was. It still sounds fresh and it connects with people. I think the chemistry between all of us at the time, we were just a good, good band. We were on fire, young dudes with a mission.
You put out Freedom in 2022, which was your first new studio album in 11 years. Will there be another?
Cain: A single here, a single there. I’ve just written a new song; hopefully we can get it out there. Albums don’t really matter much anymore. You have to accept reality and adapt to it. Fortunately, I’ve got a lot of albums under my belt. I’m just happy the catalog is continuing to cook along.
Schon: I continue to be creative; we all do. We recorded [Freedom and] we recorded way more than what ended up on the album, a lot of great stuff that wasn’t used, so there is some stuff like that. But the business now is really about live performances and about whatever you can do with merchandise.
Speaking of live, you’re out this summer again with Def Leppard, like the two bands did in 2018. What are you anticipating?
Cain: It’ll be fun. It’s a rock’n’roll show, and there’s nothing better than playing in a big, open space and a place where you don’t have to worry about the echo coming back at you. It’ll be nice just letting it blow; a full-on rock experience.
Schon: We love those guys. We’ve always had an amazing time with them. We’ve had great chemistry together going way back to the first tour we did with them, when [lead singer] Steve Augeri was in the band.
Are there any archival projects in the pipeline related to the 50th anniversary or otherwise?
Schon: There’s lots of stuff I don’t think has ever been heard, live, from the early band. But I don’t think there’s anything from the older band, the ’80s band, that hasn’t been put out.
Cain: There was an album that came out in Japan, The Ballads, that I think would be a huge seller back here. You could even have [Volumes] 1 and 2; there are enough songs.
Has a stage musical or biopic about Journey ever been considered?
Cain: We’ve been down that road. I worked with Anthony Zuiker [creator of TV’s CSI franchise]; he’s a huge Journey fan and he had these songs in mind to create a play. And Perry shot it down. He didn’t want to know about it. Then [Zuiker] came back to me again; he had this Journey-Cirque du Soleil idea, and we were supposed to get something else with Netflix, the same producers who did the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary. Right now, I think that’s in the hands of Steve Perry to say yea or nay. You can’t use his songs without his permission, obviously.
So that’s another gorilla in the room. Arnel has been with the band 17 years now. Steve wouldn’t even sing with you at the Rock Hall induction. People are always asking about it, but is it time to stop and realize he’s never coming back?
Schon: I love Steve’s voice. I just wish he continued singing. If Steve wanted to be heard, he’d be heard. He came with his last solo record [2018’s Traces], and it showed hope that he was going to get out there and start doing things again. Without seeing him do it, I can’t answer something like that.
Cain: I just wish the guy well. Arnel is the longest tenured of any lead singer that we’ve ever had and he has crushed it for all those years, so you got to go, “How lucky are we to have a gentleman like that?” And [Perry] is always going to be judged on his contributions [to Journey] and the legacy he left behind. He wins more than he loses.
This story originally appeared in the July 20, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Slash announced the passing of his stepdaughter, Lucy Bleu-Knight, 25, on Monday morning (July 22). In a post, the Guns N’ Roses guitarist and solo star posted a tribute to the young woman he called an “incredibly talented artist, a passionate dreamer, and a charming, lovable, sweet soul.”
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The post noted that Bleu-Knight, born on Dec. 6, 1998, was the “beloved daughter of Meegan Hodges and Mark Knight, stepdaughter of Samantha Somers Knight and Slash, sister of Scarlet Knight, stepsister of London and Cash Hudson,” and that she died in Los Angeles on July 19; Slash’s birth name is Saul Hudson and Meegan Hodges is the guitarist’s longtime girlfriend.
At press time no information about Bleu-Knight’s cause of death was available and the family asked for privacy during this time, adding a request that “social media speculation be kept to a minimum as they grieve and process this devastating loss.”
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On Sunday morning (July 21), Slash also announced the cancellation of four dates on his S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour, announcing that “due to unforeseen circumstances, the S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour regrettably has to cancel the below performances.” A spokesperson for Slash had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on the cause of the show cancellations.
The affected shows are:
July 22 — Cincinnati, OH @ PNC Pavilion at Riverbend
July 24 — Interlochen, MI @ Interlochen Center for the Arts
July 25 — Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center
July 27 — Windsor, ON @ The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor
The traveling blues festival features a headlining set from Slash and support on select dates from the Warren Hayes Band, Keb’ Mo’, Larkin Poe, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Samantha Fish, ZZ Ward, Robert Randolph, Eric Gales and Jackie Venson. The next scheduled date on the tour is a July 28 show in Toronto at the Budweiser Stage.
See Slash’s posts below.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the S.E.R.P.E.N.T tour regrettably has to cancel the below performances. Refunds will be available at points of purchase. July 22 – Cincinnati, OH – PNC Pavilion at RiverbendJuly 24 – Interlochen, MI – Interlochen Center for the ArtsJuly 25 –… pic.twitter.com/zsQV2oLgOY— Slash (@Slash) July 21, 2024
Chris Cornell’s 60th birthday came with a surprise for fans – a snippet of the late Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman covering Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.”
In a tribute clip to mark the occasion, Cornell’s widow Vicky shared a previously unheard snippet of Cornell’s cover of the Chapman classic on July 20.
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The rocker died in 2017 at the age of 52 in Detroit following a Soundgarden show.
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“Chris would have turned 60 today. Although everyone that loved him is sad that he’s no longer here, it’s all of you, the fans, who made him, whose love has continued to keep his legacy alive. I’m so grateful to you all for that,” Vicky wrote alongside the video.
“While I remember him best as the wonderful husband, father and human being he was, I’d like to celebrate his whole life and everything he gave us. On his 60th we can all celebrate his genius as an artist who redefined music, but also the incredible man who touched and changed lives.”
She added, “He’s an icon, and he gave us all so much — his unique voice, his poetry, his creativity. His life was a gift to so many. And as you can hear — there’s more to come!!! Sharing this to thank you all for your love and support and come together in celebrating.”
The timing couldn’t be more fitting. “Fast Car” has been enjoying a major comeback, with country star Luke Combs’ version hitting No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023. Combs and Chapman even teamed up for a memorable duet at the 2024 Grammys, introducing the song to yet another generation.
Now, Cornell’s interpretation adds a new dimension to the song’s legacy. It’s a reminder of his ability to cross musical boundaries, much like his earlier cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
The unreleased track seems to be part of a larger collection of unheard material.
In 2021, Cornell’s estate released “No One Sings Like You Anymore: Volume One,” a covers album he recorded in 2016. At the time, Vicky hinted there was more to come. Her recent Instagram post, declaring “there’s more to come!!!”, has fans speculating about what else might be in store.
From Soundgarden’s 1994 chart-topper “Superunknown” to his Bond song “You Know My Name,” Cornell’s career was marked by versatility, and this unearthed “Fast Car” cover, even in its brevity, is a reminder of his skill for reimagining familiar tunes with his unique style.
As we mark what would have been Cornell’s 60th year, this musical snippet leaves fans curious for more.
Will a full version be released? Are there other covers waiting to be heard? For now, we’re left with this small but impactful reminder of Cornell’s enduring influence.
Check out the snippet in the video below.
Jack White has some tricks up his sleeve. The rocker seemingly released a brand new album on Friday (July 19), and employees at Third Man Records’ retail shops have been secretly slipping it into customers’ bags. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news According to Stereogum, a fan […]
The Smashing Pumpkins will release their 13th studio album next month. The Billy Corgan-led group revealed on Friday (July 19) that the 10-track Aghori Mhori Mei will drop on August 2 as the follow-up to last year’s three-act rock opera, ATUM. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news […]
Trigger warning: the following story features discussions about rape and sexual assault.
The first thing that hit you was the unbearable, eye-wateringly putrid stench. Then, the slow realization that some of the “mud” the kids at Woodstock ’99 were rubbing all over their viciously sunburnt, exhausted bodies and tossing at each other was not, in fact, just mud.
The sight of hundreds of young concertgoers wallowing in the fetid pool of human waste mixed with dirt pooling around the porta-potties would have made me sick if it wasn’t the 20th worst thing I would end up experiencing at Woodstock ’99. It was just one of the many flashing danger signs of the sinister, apocalyptic vibe that slowly spread across the three-day (July 23-25) festival 25 years ago — which was, of course, intended to honor the original 1969 peace and love gathering on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, N.Y.
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Instead, what became a disastrous cash-in on the good will of the original — following a well-received reboot in 1994 featuring Metallica, a mud-caked Nine Inch Nails, Bob Dylan and Green Day — turned into a fiery nightmare, ending in riots and reports of four alleged rapes and multiple sexual assaults.
I was there and watched in disbelief as more than 200,000 attendees baked on the tarmac of the decommissioned Griffiss Air Force base in Rome, N.Y. — a Superfund site that had formerly housed hazardous materials — at an event that was as far from getting “back to the garden” as humanly possible. Gouged by the promoters selling $4 bottles of water and flavorless $12 pizzas (with many of the promised free water stations just trickling or irretrievably damaged), the three-day event got progressively weirder, darker and scarier, as attendees whipped themselves into a testosterone frenzy to the strains of bro bands like Insane Clown Posse, Korn, Limp Bizkit and Buckcherry.
The many stories I wrote on site alongside my colleagues at the pioneering online music magazine Addicted to Noise — which later included a 20-plus-part, award-winning investigative series spearheaded by reporters Brian Hiatt and Chris Nelson that dove into the nitty gritty of what went wrong — are lost to history now, following Paramount’s recent decision to pull the entire MTV News archive offline. But those memories are still seared into my brain, and at the time I remember quickly dashing off a bleary-eyed day-after essay the morning after the fires assessing the damage to the site, the psyche and the legacy of the beloved original three days of peace, love & rock ‘n roll.
(It’s worth mentioning that the 1969 edition also had its own issues — including massive gate-crashing that forced overwhelmed organizers to reluctantly turn it into a free event, as well as miles-long traffic jams coming in and out and a lack of proper sanitation, food and infrastructure to handle the unexpected crowds.)
I stayed on site all night reporting on the aftermath at Woodstock ’99, watching as black-helmeted, storm trooper-like police in riot gear marched into the chaotic scrum while looters smashed ATMs and vendor carts, set fire to 18-wheelers filled with soft pretzels and crashed through the comically flimsy, daisy-covered “peace wall” meant to keep the non-ticketed hordes off site. Those depressing scenes came after days of watching young men harassing the many topless women who’d had their chests adorned with glittery paint at airbrush stations, while female artists such as Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow were greeted by cheers mixed with endless frat boy bellows of “show us your t–s!!!” A dozen state troopers and police supervisors were later demoted or suspended for posing in photos with topless women or agreeing to have their cruisers washed by nude attendees.
The MTV News crew was forced to flee the scene in a hurry after amped-up rioters began shaking their broadcast tower during the final night as fires broke out during the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ headlining set. “Holy s–t, it looks like Apocalypse Now out there,” singer Anthony Kiedis said as he looked out on the flames and smoke rising in the crowd. The veteran band had taken the stage wearing hard hats rigged to shoot flames into the air, and their decision to cover original Woodstock performer Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” proved to be ill-timed, as it was performed while a series of half a dozen massive bonfires sent flames into the sky all over the garbage-strewn field. The fuel for those fires: shattered shards of the what promoters had referred to as the perimeter-securing “peace fence.”
After suffering legendary gate-crashing at the original, peaceful event in 1969, which eventually swelled to half a million attendees, the 1999 promoters said beforehand that they were determined to lock down the military site. And in an effort that was comical until it was tragic, their solution was nearly six miles of plywood and steel fencing wall surrounding the tarmac, a barrier over which some fans easily tossed contraband to each other, and which they eventually breached on the final night. As the chaos erupted, I watched a stream of locked-out fans easily scale the wall. They were no match for the overwhelmed, by-then-exhausted uniformed force — which included more than 500 music fans in yellow “Peace Patrol” t-shirts, who’d had a total of two or three days of training and some of whom ditched their official gear to join the fun, and who struggled alongside 500 state troopers and a private security detail of 3,000 to maintain order.
Kid Rock during Woodstock ’99 in Saugerties, New York in Saugerties, New York.
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To be clear: the riots and violence were not the direct result of the performers whipping up the crowd, the ill-chosen former military site or even what co-promoter Jon Scher derisively referred to as a few “bad apples” in the crowd wilding out. All of those factors certainly contributed to the weird vibe in the air, but the creeping sense that things were out of control took on a life of its own.
During what escalated into contentious daily news briefings by the promoters as the extent of the quagmire came into view to the assembled, frustrated press, Scher — who co-produced the event with original Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang (who died in 2022) — was asked repeatedly about the obvious breakdowns in infrastructure, crowd control and fan safety all weekend. Pushing back on reporters, at the time Scher often dissembled and appeared to brush aside concerns about what was clearly an increasingly out-of-control situation. More than two decades later, Scher continued blaming Limp Bizkit for some of the violence after their fans tore plywood sheets from a lighting tower to crowd surf while again brusquely brushing aside claims of mismanagement.
“Nobody came thinking they were going to stay at the Ritz Carlton,” he said in the 2022 Netflix documentary Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99, once again blaming “knuckleheads” (which he put in the 50-or-so range) for “causing trouble”; Scher made similar comments in another W99 doc from HBO in 2021 entitled Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage. His most outrageous claims came in response to questions about how women were treated on site and about the reports of the alleged rapes and sexual assaults. “There were a lot of women who voluntarily had their tops off,” he said in Trainwreck. “Then you get into a mosh pit and you crowd surf. Could somebody have touched their breasts? Yes, I’m sure they did. What could I have done about it? I’m not sure I could have done anything.”
Scher, who was not involved in the original Woodstock but did co-promote the 1994 version, was also not a part of a failed 2019 attempt at a 50th anniversary edition that melted down due to permitting and financing issues.
Speaking to Billboard this week, Scher says one of the lessons he learned was “you can’t have these heavy metal based bands” performing one after another in such an “isolated” location. Asked if that was disingenuous given the riot-free success of the all-metal touring OzzFest, as well as dozens of other hard rock festivals in the years since that have not devolved into such chaos, Scher says it was a “different era… it seems to me that by 1999 the ‘tribes’ got more aggressive… [But] these were dumb kids out having a blast, many inebriated.”
Scher again points to Limp Bizkit, saying that in his 50 years of promoting he’s “never” had to pull the plug on a band like he did when the Fred Durst-led group’s set got out of control during “Break Stuff” as fans began crowd surfing on plywood panels ripped from rigging.
He also says his team opened up some hangars to give weary fans some much-needed respite from the sun: “Who could have predicted the weather would be that terrible?” in the middle of the summer, he protests. Scher also points to the “intense” permitting and regulatory statues in New York regarding live gatherings, a direct aftermath of the 1969 festival, as the reason that the number of portable toilets, water stations and security were “more than adequate” for the job.
Unfortunately, he claims, the company hired to clean the toilets simply “didn’t show up” to service them twice a day as contracted and unruly fans wrecked a quarter of the free water stations, a combo that led to the “mud”-covered masses. “We couldn’t anticipate that,” he says, noting that the one reported fatality of an attendee was a young man who was helicoptered to a local hospital, where he later died.
As for the many alleged sexual assaults and four alleged rapes, after his poorly received comments in the films, the promoter was careful to explain that he was, “not saying they didn’t occur… but [according to Scher] not one person who said they got raped reported it to police during or after”; The New York Times reported on July 29, 1999 that four women reported to New York State Police that they had been raped at Woodstock ’99 and that a crisis counselor on site said they’d seen at least five women being gang-raped in the crowd. At the time, Police Captain John Wood told the Associated Press that, “it’s going to be difficult to pursue this because people have scattered to all parts of the country” and in the years since there don’t appear to have been any arrests or convictions tied to the alleged sexual assaults.
Scher’s careful to stress that the sexual violence may have occurred, and that his team sent senior security team members into the crowd to find the alleged offenders as well as alleged victims — but that it was a small group of hard rock “knuckleheads” and “animals” who were the main perpetrators of the violence and riots; out of the 200,000 on hand, Scher says less than 2% (this time he put the number at around 2,000) were responsible for the rioting, disorder and violence. “What happened was an atmosphere we didn’t really anticipate — one that was probably three-quarters men and women who took their tops off or who weren’t wearing any clothes,” Scher says.
James Brown performs on the east stage at Woodstock ’99 in Rome, New York at Griffiss AFB Park for the 30th Anniversary Concert July 23-25.
Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect
Regardless of the explanations of why things went wrong, I have to say that over the course of a 30-year career covering music, I have attended all but a handful of Lollapalooza festivals (the original touring edition and the stay-put in Chicago), the first four Coachellas and all but two of the Warped tours, in addition to dozens of other festivals — and this was still an unparalleled experience for me. While other festivals have had technical glitches, unfortunate injuries (as well as tragic heat-and drug-related deaths) and unplanned annoyances, not once have I seen anywhere near the type of chaos and disorder I observed at Woodstock ’99.
Have I seen young men grab women (and performers) inappropriately while they crowd surf, fans try to hop the eight-foot-tall fences around Grant Park in Chicago to bust into Lolla, or scramble for a sliver of shade at Coachella when the temperature hits the 100s? Of course.
But Woodstock ’99 was a different beast. After the initial salad days of touring festivals in the 1990s that launched Lolla, the jam-focused H.O.R.D.E., the R&B/hip-hop leaning Smokin’ Grooves, Ozzy Osbourne’s metal-themed OzzFest, the female-focused Lilith Fair and several more, Woodstock ’99 felt like the end of an era.
The shock to the system of the festival business afterwards had immediate consequences, many of which you can thank for the more comfortable, safer festival experience that has become standard operating procedure in the 21st century.
A week after the Woodstock ’99 fires were put out, California promoter Goldenvoice announced the first Coachella festival, an event they pointedly promised would be “high-comfort,” located on the picturesque, lush Empire Polo Club fields in Indio, CA. Attending that first year, the vibe was like a bizarro version of what I’d experienced just months earlier — with ample free water, bathrooms and parking, misting tents, shady rest areas and not a whiff of the air of menace and mendacity I experienced in Rome. Even during the ground-shaking headling set by Rage Against the Machine, fans cooked by the nearly triple-digit heat all day moshed to their heart’s content with little to no reports of the kind of violence and violations suffered at W99.
Billboard‘s senior director of live music and touring Dave Brooks says that after Woodstock, promoters began to share best-practices with each other, while dissecting what Scher and company got wrong and realizing that “an accident at one was bad for the whole business.”
“Festivals after Woodstock were more about the music community and the ethos of the festivals, where it went from merely surviving to something more like creating a utopian scene and expression of ideals,” Brooks says, noting that such events now are much safer. They are, of course, by no means impervious to tragedy, as evidenced by the 10 crowd-crush deaths and hundreds of injuries at 2021’s Astroworld Festival as well as 2017’s mass shooting assault on Las Vegas’ Route 91 Harvest festival in which a sniper killed 60 people and injured more than 800 more while firing a high-capacity rifle from an adjacent hotel.
“There’s no fool-proofing it, but things are much better,” says Brooks of today’s massive festivals — which, while safer, still sometimes result in tragic deaths, heat-related illness and deadly weather events. “Content and blaming hard rock acts is not an excuse for crowd-control issues… plenty of hard rock festivals take place around the world that don’t result in riots,” says Brooks.
As an example, when Lollapalooza established a permanent beachhead in Chicago in 2005, promoters dialed in comfort and safety via an impressive display of security, robust fencing and perimeter maintenance — while also offering plenty of free water stations, shady rest areas and rapid-fire responses to dangerous situations via clear chain of command.
There too, when the legendarily intense Rage played the boisterous crowd repeatedly pushed forward, causing a domino-like collapse of sweaty fans during a raucous 2008 headlining slot. In that case, the band halted the set three or more times to give security and attendees a moment to settle, diffusing what could have been a dangerous situation.
And when a freak, dangerous storm popped up in 2015, Lolla organizers pulled off what seemed like an impossible task: calmly evacuating more than 100,000 attendees from the park to safe shelter in less than an hour, and then just as professionally inviting them back in, with almost no incidents of note to report.
While I sprinted to my hotel room as horizontal torrents of rain pelted me along Michigan Ave., all I could think was, “thank God this isn’t Woodstock ’99.”
Sheryl Crow performs on the east stage at Woodstock ’99 in Rome, New York at Griffiss AFB Park for the 30th Anniversary Concert July 23-25.
Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect
Despite the deservedly terrible reputation the festival has developed over the past quarter century thanks to the final night disaster, Scher says he’s talked to “hundreds” of people since who said they had an “absolute blast” at Woodstock ’99. He also says the “peace” fence didn’t come down until the last night when someone rammed a Mercedes sedan through it — at which point the festival had already ended abruptly, after what he remembers as two-plus days of “amazing” music. He also stresses that he didn’t believe he was dishonest during the sometimes three-a-day briefings, but merely did not “embellish” his answers.
I’ll admit he’s not wrong about the music. There were, to be fair, some lasting musical memories for me from those three days of madness at Woodstock ’99. They included seeing James Brown for the first and only time as he opened the festival with one of his legendary high-energy sets and the undeniable bounce of DMX’s career-peak sunset performance — one of the first, and blessedly last, times I witnessed more than 100,000 white fans yelling the n-word at the top of their lungs with zero chill. Then there was the Twilight Zone-like experience of hanging with one of my musical north stars, an exhausted George Clinton, at the Rome airport the day after, as we commiserated on what the intergalactic funk legend said was the “definitely weirdest” experience he’d ever had. (Consider that for a minute.)
“I think the bad things that happened happened and I’m not here to deny that,” Scher say of the fest’s overall grim legacy. “But once you get past the sensationalism from the press, the overwhelming majority of people had a great time… I’m proud of the lineup and music, but I’m certainly not proud of the problems that happened.”
The lessons learned from W99 were harsh, and a few of the complaints from those times persist. Yes, some of the most popular contemporary American festivals have fallen prey to the rampant commercialization, corporate signage-overload and pricey VIP experience traps that leave some fans with an icky taste in their mouths.
But, thankfully, things have gotten better and festival promoters have gone to even greater lengths to ensure safety and security, even as ticket prices have climbed into the stratosphere for many major fests. At the very least, never again have I walked through the grounds of a major festival and typed the phrase I distinctly recall SMS’ing to one of my editors as the weekend devolved into madness: “This seems bad. Like, really bad.”
Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information.
If you see Train perform live, odds are the last song is going to be “Drops of Jupiter,” the hit single from the band’s 2001 album of the same name.
“When people hear it, it becomes sad because they know that that’s the end [of the show],” singer Pat Monahan tells Billboard‘s Behind the Setlist podcast. “But we’re not gonna play something after that song. That song means the world to me for a lot of personal reasons, and it was a big song around the world.”
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Indeed, “Drops of Jupiter,” which Monahan wrote about his late mother, reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2001 — the band’s second-best chart performance behind “Hey Soul Sister,” which went to No. 3 in 2010.
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On Train’s current tour with REO Speedwagon, fans are likely to hear familiar songs rather than deep cuts. Monahan explains the band occasionally opened with “We Were Made for This” from the 2012 album California 37 on its recent European tour. It wasn’t released as a single, nor does it have the upbeat energy bands typically want to launch a concert. Rather, “We Were Made for This” starts out slowly and kicks into high gear about two minutes into the song with a soaring guitar solo by Taylor Locke. The momentum subsides again before the band brings the song to an energetic climax.
“The Train fans loved it,” he says, “but I don’t think it’s right for a tour with REO Speedwagon, you know. Because when they step off stage, people will have heard 35 hit songs.”
In most of Train’s July shows throughout the Midwest, Monahan and his four bandmates — Locke, bass player Hector Maldonado, drummer Matt Musty and guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Becker — have been opening with “Calling All Angels,” the leadoff track from the 2003 album My Private Nation. It’s a well known song for sure — “Calling All Angeles” reached No. 19 on the Hot 100. “I’ve grown to think that a first song should be recognizable [and] high energy, but not your biggest song,” he says, “that you don’t want to burn the biggest ones at the top because I think people are still taking you in.”
The middle of the set slows the pace. “Marry Me” from 2009’s Save Me, San Francisco, lets the audience know “I have a band with amazing singers,” says Monahan. “Bruises” is a “country rock” song that fits well into the concert’s acoustic interlude. Train will frequently play Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” which Monahan says is “a great transition” song that bridges the middle and latter part of the set that includes “Hey Soul Sister,” “Drive By,” a top 10 Hot 100 hit from 2012, and “Drops of Jupiter.”
When picking from Train’s vast catalog, Monahan thinks like a fan. He recalls a tour with Ben Folds Five, which had a hit in 1997 with the song “Brick.” “They’re a great band,” says Monahan, “but they avoided playing ‘Brick,’ because when they played ‘Brick,’ which was their hit, their fans got disappointed. And when they didn’t play ‘Brick,’ I got disappointed. I grew up wanting to sing along to the bands I loved, and so I don’t want to take that from Train fans.”
Listen to the entire interview with Pat Monahan in the embedded Spotify player below, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart or Everand.