Twenty-five years ago, thousands of people flocked to upstate New York to experience the third iteration of Woodstock. While festival organizers promised peaceful nostalgia and popular music, concert attendees experienced the complete opposite in 1999.

In our resurfaced narrative series, host Steven Hyden examines what happened at the doomed musical festival and whether Limp Bizkit deserves part of the blame. This is Break Stuff: The Story of Woodstock ’99. 

The first episode is out now.

“By 1999, Limp Bizkit wasn’t merely a popular rock band—they were a pop band. MTV’s signature teen music show TRL played the video for ‘Nookie’ nearly as often as it played clips by Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. ... After Woodstock ’99, Limp Bizkit went from the bad boys of TRL to the villains of the festival. The media said that Limp Bizkit drove the audience to riot when they played the incendiary ‘Break Stuff,’ a standout track from [the band’s second album] Significant Other. ...

Even now, this is probably the one thing that everybody thinks they know about Woodstock ’99—Limp Bizkit played ‘Break Stuff,’ and tens of thousands of hooligans were provoked into breaking lots of stuff.

That’s the story, right? Well, it’s what at least one of the organizers of Woodstock ’99 would have us believe.” —Steven Hyden