For Josh Todd, the frontman of Buckcherry, playing Woodstock ’99 was the kind of surreal rock ‘n’ roll rite of passage you don’t forget—especially when history later rebrands it as a cultural meltdown. Todd opened up about the experience and looking back on Woodstock 99′ during an exclusive conversation with SNSMix (full video can be found below).
“We were on our first record in ’99 and had a hit with ‘Lit Up,’ so we got on the bill,” Todd recalls. “We played early Friday—around 4 p.m. to a huge crowd. Then we flew out that night for another show, so we missed all the chaos.”
Buckcherry’s quick in-and-out spared them from the disaster that unfolded over the following two days—a perfect storm of heat, exploitation, and neglect that culminated in riots, fires, and assaults, now etched into infamy by Netflix and HBO’s dueling documentaries. Todd hadn’t fully realized the scale of the tragedy until much later.
“I didn’t know what went down until I watched the Netflix doc,” he says. “My daughter told me about it, so I checked it out. The artists had a great setup, but the fans had a horrible situation. It was heartbreaking. As artists, we don’t want that for our fans.”
Watching the doc decades later, he says, was eye-opening. “The shady promoter stuff—just not good. I’m glad we got out early.”
Still, even amidst the dysfunction of that weekend, there was a moment of musical magic that Todd holds close: meeting the Godfather of Soul.
“One of the most amazing days in my music life,” he says of his brief but unforgettable encounter with James Brown. “Other than meeting all of AC/DC, meeting James Brown was the second best. I got a photo with him—no real interaction. His assistant told him about me, and I just ran up, got the pic, said, ‘I love you,’ and he walked off. He didn’t care, but I was fired up. That was enough for me.”
In the aftermath, Woodstock ’99 has become a cautionary tale, dissected for its corporate overreach, toxic masculinity, and sheer lack of infrastructure. For Todd, it’s also a reminder of how quickly a career milestone can be overshadowed by catastrophe.
“We were lucky,” he says. “We got to play, we got to meet James Brown, and then we got the hell out.”
California rock veterans Buckcherry released their new album Roar Like Thunder in North America via Round Hill Records, in Japan by Sony Japan, and worldwide by Earache Records. Roar Like Thunder was recorded in Nashville at Sienna Studios. The album was helmed by renowned producer Marti Frederiksen, known for his collaborations with Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Jonny Lang, and Sheryl Crow. All ten tracks were co-written by Todd, guitarist Stevie Dacanay (Stevie D.), and Frederiksen.
