Norman Quentin Cook, an English musician, DJ, and record producer better known by his stage name Fatboy Slim, had a significant impact on the development of the big beat genre in the 1990s.
The DJ spoke about the incident in an interview with Netflix’s recently released three-part investigative documentary, Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99.
As stated in the show’s synopsis: “In contrast to the peace and music that Woodstock promised in 1969, its revival in 1999 brought days of anger, violence and real harm. Why did things turn out so horrible?
As the 1999 edition of the Woodstock music festival went up in flames, a British man, Fatboy Slim, questioned what he had gotten himself into. The musician, whose real name is Norman Cook, gave a detailed account of what happened the night of his most terrifying performance.
Limp Bizkit angered the crowd of nearly 400,000, who then tore down walls and destroyed other podiums throughout the venue. The rave hanger was where the raging energy headed for the nightly entertainment. People gathered in the area acting in the most hedonistic of ways.
Although Slim was scheduled to headline Saturday night at the 30th anniversary celebration of the original peace and love hippie festival taking place in upstate New York, and the concert was thought to be one of his most notable performances, turned out to be such a tragic event that it is still talked about 23 years later.
It absolutely did not turn out as Fatboy Slim expected. The documentary described a staff member who was working that night as saying that he turned on his light on the floor and saw people on all fours engaging in sexual behaviour.
Another staff member reported seeing several naked people lined up with their hands against a wall and a line of people behind them, saying the scene was much more debauched than the dark Berghain area.
The musician still has nightmares of a girl being sexually assaulted that night, which was another horrific incident. A van crashed into the audience while Fatboy Slim was performing at Woodstock in 1999, an incident he called “terrifying.”
During his performance, Cook began to play one of his songs. He had only finished a few tracks when he noticed a large object moving towards the hangar. At first, he thought the truck was just a silly addition to the show, like the art cars in Burning Man.
It wasn’t long before that truck, which had been stolen by a group of people, crashed into the crowd. Cook admits that he was heartbroken by the request to pause the music so they could get the truck out of the hangar, but he refused because he believed that since it was Woodstock, it was normal for him to be criticized during concerts.
After that, he was not well received by the crowd, and they started throwing bottles, glasses and other debris at him; this was another recurring motif throughout the rest of the event.
When stage manager AJ Srybnik arrived, he saw a person holding an “old and rusty” machete, a boy pulling up his pants, and a teenage girl who was unconscious and had her clothes removed.
When Netflix started broadcasting this terrible event as a documentary, Fatboy Slim recalled and narrated all the previously reported details. Information was solicited from several other attendees that night to create this Netflix episode.
Fatboy Slim, a famous British DJ and producer, no longer focuses on creating hit songs. Despite committing to art and film ventures, he still has the DJ itch. The veteran DJ’s net worth is projected to be $20 million in 2022. Read more about Kaia Gerber and Austin Butler’s dating history and relationship timeline here.