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By Jeff Stark

July 27, 1999 | ROME, N.Y. -- 8 p.m. Friday

The main stage at Woodstock 99 in Rome, N.Y., looks like something between a pop art rainbow and a massive arts and crafts quonset hut. The stage is at the far west end of the sprawling festival site, a former air base with military industrial charm, located 100 miles away from the farm where the most famous festival in music history took place 30 years ago. The sun is starting to drop, and the crowd, supposedly numbering around 200,000 looks pretty bad. They've paid $150 per ticket, weathered the first day's heat, escaped mud slingers and now have to clear trash just to sit down on the matted grass or hot concrete. There are three nights in front of them, and those who stick around through Sunday night will witness -- or maybe even participate in -- something resembling a riot.

The stage is flanked by two camera platforms on each side and a huge light tower smack dab in the center, blocking out any unimpeded long-distance views and forcing anyone beyond the tower to watch one of two Jumbotron video screens. A gully runs perpendicular to the stage, back about 400 yards or so, with sets of speakers on the right and left.

Right now, the crowd is pretty thick, lined up in throngs and waiting for the Offspring, the L.A. pop punk band that mines the Social Distortion catalog for sound and the teenage anguish of the Descendents and Suicidal Tendencies for storytelling content. It's a completely disassociative moment when the band hits the stage. From about halfway down the gully you can see the faces or hands on the huge screen, but it's so far away that there's a lag between the picture and the sound. Up on stage, the scrubbed and hairsprayed stars appear in fine threads. Down below, cavorting in the mud and dirt and garbage, the dirty, sunburned schlubs pump their fists in the air and sing along.

8:02 p.m. Friday

Someone throws a plastic bottle. Someone else retaliates. Within seconds, the entire valley is popping with 20 ounce soda bottles, like a plague of plastic grasshoppers leaping from one blade of grass to another. Offspring front man Dexter Holland smiles in awe. It's an impressive spectacle, even more frenzied than a cup fight at a sports arena. The only thing that I can think of as the bottles rain down on me is that each one cost $4 at the concession stands.

8:45 p.m. Friday

Cardboard sign: "Show me your tits."

9:12 p.m. Friday

Jimmy doesn't look so good. He's fighting to keep his head up, but gravity is besting him. He exhales out a quick, violent stream of vomit into his lap. His wife pats his back. "There you go," she says. A few minutes later, Jimmy feels much better. He's up on his feet and lip synching the words to the Eddie Grant song playing on the P.A. system: "We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue/And then we'll take it higher."

9:30 p.m. Friday

My neighbors in the nearly impenetrable chaos of tent stakes and tarps in the "campground" include eight Korn fans from Boston, two Korn fans from Connecticut and two more Korn fans from Indiana. They huddle in a tight scrum in a small circle cleared between their pup tents and dip into a seemingly bottomless bag of weed, recounting Korn shows they've seen in the past, what the new Korn record will sound like, what Korn might do at Woodstock and what bands sound like Korn. They're here to party and see only a few bands, the heroes of the "Korn Family Values" tour. They're young, around 19 or 20 mostly. "Hey, listen," he says when Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" echoes over a P.A. system. "It's that song from "The Wedding Singer."

"ARE YOU READY?" the massive crowd chants along with Korn the moment the set opens, an hour or two after my neighbors and I leave the camp. Fists pump in the air and 100,000 or so heads crane to look up at the video monitor. Front man Jonathan Davis wears a rubber shirt with studs running down the arms and what looks a lot like a kilt bought in a bondage shop. The kilt makes a little more sense later on when he marches out with a set of bagpipes.

The rest of the band hunches over their instruments, rocking. I'd always thought that raw sound was the essence of most Korn songs. The California five-piece does essentially the same thing with rap that Nine Inch Nails does with old industrial, melding cheap angst and emotional trauma to a cathartic mix of metal riffage and sonic crush. Turns out there are a surprising number of singalong, or shoutalong, moments. "I don't know you/So what? Let's fuck," is a big one with the crowd. So is "All day, I dream about sex," repeated ad infinitum.

Korn have been in the studio recently, and bravely debuted two songs from their new record, split by their singular radio hit, "Freak on a Leash." I'm proud to be the first to report that the new stuff sounds exactly like the old stuff. "It's going to be awesome," my Korn-fed neighbors tell me later.

11:25 p.m. Friday

An hour or so into their set, George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic are working their way through their fifth song over on the west stage, which is flanked by huge scaffolds and brightly lit Roman columns with an inflatable Woodstock peace dove resting atop one of them. (Both main stages run simultaneous programs and it's nearly impossible to walk back and forth between them to catch two bands in a period of 50 minutes.) There are about 30 members on stage, in diapers, a yellow jumpsuit, a Chinese guard jacket, a batiked mumu and cowboy leathers. Bootsy is there. Bernie Worrell is there. Digital Underground's Humpty Hump is there for a few songs. Clinton's job is to look crazy and conduct his freaky orchestra on a trip though funk's past. Two band members have thick markers and write messages to the audience on white tablets. "Long-ass song, huh?"

1:17 a.m. Saturday

After Bush's set on the east side closes, throngs of fucked-up sweaty guys still high on Korn begin jamming into the airplane hangar housing the nightly 1 a.m.-to-sunrise raves. The DJ on the side of the room is working a serviceable techno warm-up for Moby, but right now the stage is empty and the fucked-up sweaty guys are looking for a focal point. Two women climb atop some broad shoulders and peel off their tops. The men swarm toward them, shine their flashlights on their breasts and stare as if they've never seen a naked woman in their lives. They'll pull out their cameras and click a few frames. And then they'll stand there and stare some more. The women appear to enjoy the attention.

1:30 a.m. Saturday

In the dance music world, Moby, the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim are considered boring frauds who have dumbed down and corrupted a thriving underground scene. That might be true for the kind of people who hunt down white label vinyl and listen to Squarepusher and Photek, but in the pop world, all three are adventuresome geniuses. Their rhythms are complex, their beats are constant and they're all willing to push beyond traditional pop song structures. All three employ elements of rock -- the break-beats, bridges and refrains -- but none of them lean on three-minute three-chord monte.

Moby, backed by a three-piece band that includes a bassist, a live drummer and a keyboardist, shifts from old-school rap samples in "Bodyrock" to soulful African-American spirituals in "Honey" and pretty disco in "Feeling So Real." He's good enough to successfully distract the tit gawkers for his entire set.

Part of the problem that electronic music enthusiasts have with Moby is that unlike their beloved DJs, he's willing to stand up and command a crowd. They hurl their ultimate epithet: rock star. Moby, who's really a contrarian if anything, appears to embrace the insult, ending his show with a perfect rock star gesture. He dismisses his band for the last song, punches a few numbers into a computer. As the beats grow faster and faster he hoists himself atop his keyboard, standing tall and raising his arms into a Jesus Christ pose. Any club kid would have spit out a hit of acid in disgust. The Woodstock ravers ate it up.

11:29 a.m. Saturday

The Independent Film Channel is sponsoring a series of art house standards in a large hangar adjacent to the rave building. During the day, it's hot and woozy inside, but outside it's absolutely torturous; the roof at least cuts out the mean sun. The floor is filthy and splattered with all sorts of people crashed out, some resting their heads on sleeping bags, others on pizza boxes. On screen, Sueleen Gay had just stripped in front of the lecherous bar crowd in "Nashville," nervously removing her bra and stepping out of her panties before scrambling off into the wings. "This is the worst movie ever," I overhear one kid tell his friends. "It's so long and nothing ever happens."

12:12 p.m. Saturday

Cardboard sign: "Ladies: Ask to see my ring."

12:45 p.m. Saturday

On the pavement outside the rave stage and the movie building, a dozen kids have overturned metal garbage cans. They beat on them with sticks with a pulsing, arhythmic clang. One guy is clearly motivated by the drang. He's shirtless, and has a braided leather belt cinched around his neck. His black hair mats to his forehead and blood, sweat and filth smear across his torso. Beltless, his shorts are falling down, exposing at least four inches of vertical crack. He circles around the drummers and picks up a garbage can and slams it into the pavement, baring his teeth and grinning like an overgrown toddler enamored with a rubber ball that won't bounce. He continues this for 15 minutes straight, chasing his lump of tightening steel around the circle. A crowd gathers to watch his feat of stupidity. At least they're using the garbage cans for something, I think.

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