I recall distinctly when the levee broke (the crowd’s sanity, not my bowels): around 8:30pm on Saturday night, when Limp Bizkit were onstage. During their performance of Break Stuff, frontman Fred Durst began inciting the audience to do just that. The exhausted, filthy mob were much obliged, taking their anger out on anything they could get their hands on: trash, light fixtures, wooden booth panels, other people. It was ugly, and I remember feeling – for the first time at a rock show – unsafe. As if anything could happen to me, and no-one – not my friends or the police – could help.
By Sunday night, the chaos had come to a head during Red Hot Chili Peppers’ energetic set, as they performed the festival closer: a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Fire. The song inspired guests to use candles – distributed earlier by an anti-gun violence organization – to light bonfires, plastic bottles, and plywood from the security fences. My friends and I had run into some other kids from our high school – not exactly upstanding citizens back home, either – who bragged about looting a snack booth, their arms filled with pretzels and soft drinks. The whole scene looked like something from Lord Of The Flies.