Sheryl Crow remembers ‘awful’ moment that made her stop playing infamous Woodstock ’99

The 1999 edition of the US music festival unravelled into an epic trainwreck of violence, sexual assault, looting and poor sanitation

Sheryl Crow has recounted an “awful” memory from Woodstock ’99, which ultimately led her to cut her performance short.

The disastrous events of the 1999 Upstate New York music festival were brought to light in Netflix’s recent documentary Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99.

Featuring interviews with staffers, festivalgoers and attendees, the series shocked viewers with its retelling of the infamous festival that “degenerated into an epic trainwreck of fires, riots and destruction”.

During the latest episode of the Fly on the Wall podcast – hosted by Saturday Night Live alumni David Spade and Dana Carvey – the 60-year-old “All I Wanna Do” singer recalled her “disturbing” Woodstock ’99 experience.

“I watched part of [the documentary] on the aeroplane a couple of days ago, I had to turn it off. It was so disturbing and I remember it. I remember how awful it was,” Crow said.

“When you watch how everyone went bananas. I can’t believe who would stay, it was so bad,” Spade added.

“It is interesting that people did stay. Almost felt like they couldn’t leave,” Crow responded. “It was debauched from the beginning because we were on the first day. You could look out and see girls who were topless on guys’ shoulders, trying to get the MTV camera to sweep around in front of them and get on TV.”

'Trainwreck: Woodstock 99' (Netflix)

“And they were already throwing s*** from the outhouses that were not set up right, that were leaking,” she remembered.

“At one point, some landed on my hand while I was playing bass during ‘My Favorite Mistake’. That’s when we stopped. We played about four songs and I remember saying, ‘Nah, not gonna do it.’”

However, despite the horrible memories, Crow called it a “highlight” of her live performance stories.

Earlier this year, the nine-time Grammy-winning artist released her new self-titled documentary, Sheryl, which is available to stream now on Showtime.