Norman Quentin Cook, an English musician, DJ and record producer, better known by his stage name Fatboy Slim, was a major influence on the development of the big beat genre in the 1990s.
The DJ discussed the incident in an interview with the recently released three-part Netflix investigative documentary Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99.
As the show’s synopsis states, “Contrary to the peace and music that Woodstock promised in 1969, his rebirth in 1999 brought days of anger, violence and actual harm. Why did it end so badly?”
Read on to learn why Fatboy Slim is still concerned about this particular incident.
What happened in the EDM tent at Fatboy Slim?
When the 1999 edition of the Woodstock music festival burned to the ground, one Brit, Fatboy Slim, questioned what he had gotten himself into. The musician, whose real name is Norman Cook, detailed what happened on the night of his most terrifying performance.
Limp Bizkit enraged the crowd of nearly 400,000, who ripped down walls and destroyed other platforms throughout the site. The rave hanger was where the angry energy roamed for late night entertainment. The area gathered people who acted in the most hedonistic way.
Though Slim was scheduled to perform the headline act at the 30th anniversary celebration of the original Peace and Love hippie festival in upstate New York on Saturday night, and the performance was considered one of his most notable performances, it turned out to be a tragic event, beyond which is still being spoken 23 years later.
It didn’t go the way Fatboy Slim had hoped at all. The documentary described an employee working that night as saying he threw his light on the floor and saw individuals on all fours engaging in sexual behavior.
Another employee reported seeing several naked people lined up with their hands against a wall and a line of people behind them, and said the scene was much more expansive than the dark area of Berghain.
Woodstock ’99 investigates the case of the girl in the tent being attacked
The musician still has nightmares about a girl who was sexually assaulted that night, which was another horrifying incident. A van slammed into the audience while Fatboy Slim was performing at Woodstock in 1999, an incident he called “terrifying”.
During his performance, Cook began performing one of his songs. He had only finished a few tracks when he saw a large object move into the hangar. At first he thought the van was just a silly addition to the show, like the art cars on Burning Man.
It wasn’t long before the van, stolen by a bunch of people, crashed into the crowd. Cook admits it was heartbreaking to be asked to stop the music so they could drive the van out of the hangar, but he declined because he believed since it was Woodstock it was normal to be criticized during concerts will.
After this, it was not well received by the crowd and they started throwing bottles, cups and other debris at him; this was another recurring theme for the remainder of the event.
Fatboy Slim remembers the terror of Woodstock ’99
When stage manager AJ Srybnik arrived, he saw a person holding a “rusty old” machete, a boy pulling up his pants and an unconscious teenage girl whose clothes had been stripped off.
He exclaimed: “I was overwhelmed. It literally took my life away from me.” A sexual assault victim had just come into his view. The girl was then taken directly to the hospital in an ambulance.
What measures has Fatboy Slim taken? After going through such dire circumstances, the musician was ordered to leave the performance, which he did. He never forgot the terrible event that happened that night.
Net Worth and Netflix series for Fatboy Slim
When Netflix began broadcasting this horrific event as a documentary, Fatboy Slim remembered and shared all the previously reported details. The information was requested by several other participants that evening to create this Netflix episode.
Fatboy Slim, a famous British DJ and producer, is no longer focused on creating hits. Despite being committed to art and film projects, he still has that DJ itch. The veteran DJ’s net worth is expected to be US$20 million in 2022.