'Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy' Review: What are you rebelling against, Travis?
Gross mismanagement of Travis Scott's 2021 Astroworld Festival caused the deaths of ten attendees and Netflix is here to capture it all in a hastily assembled, yet thematically pointed documentary
I’ve been attending music festivals since I was 16 years old. My first outdoor music festival was the Vans Warped Tour at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan on July 31, 2009. After wrapping a local production of High School Musical, my newfound friend and fellow cast member Katie asked if I wanted to join her later that summer for the concert and I naturally agreed. Little did I know, however, that going to Warped Tour would change the trajectory of my entire life. I couldn’t get enough of the rush of being able to see, meet, and discover new bands/artists whose music I connected with from a ton of different genres. I loved the chaos of people furiously running from stage to stage to get the most out of their experience, fervently checking set times, and basking in the glow of a great day. I’m now 32 years old, which means I’ve spent half of my life going to festivals so far, and I will continue to attend them for as long as my back can handle it.
Festivals, however, have become a completely different animal in the past 15 years, their growing popularity due to the massive rise in social media and our good old friend FOMO. The demand continues to grow, especially for the largest artists on the planet who strive to deliver an experience attendees will never forget. For years, Houston rapper Travis Scott has built a following with his mix of traditional and ambient hip-hop with major-label backing since signing in 2012. I haven’t dug terribly far into Scott’s discography, though at the height of his popularity, I gave Astroworld a spin and genuinely enjoyed his ability to meld genres and bring in fans from all types of backgrounds. Any artist actively working to break down the barriers of that kind of music is doing the Lord’s work, and Scott is no exception. However, the culture Scott was creating with his live shows was alarming from a distance, propagating an environment for fans to go as hard as possible. In order to responsibly curate an environment like this though, there has to be a certain level of control behind the scenes to prevent mass injury or even death. Anyone can instruct their fans to rage in the name of expression, but it takes a master to work within safety protocols to keep those same masses from going overboard.
In what was a telltale sign in both 2015 and 2017, Scott respectively pled guilty to charges after encouraging fans to rush his stage during performances at Lollapalooza in Chicago, Illinois, and at his own show in Bentonville, Arkansas. After his guilty plea for the Chicago charges, Scott remained under court supervision for one year, while the courts for his Bentonville guilty plea for disorderly conduct required him to pay a nearly $7,500 fine. Looking at the aftermath of his 2021 Astroworld festival in Houston, however, these charges would be small potatoes by comparison, which is the subject of a new Netflix documentary Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy (2025). Following up the streaming service’s in-depth coverage of the infamous Woodstock ‘99 festival in 2022, Netflix is moving forward with Trainwreck, a series of documentary specials covering events and incidents that ended in disaster, with their Astroworld coverage as the first installment. The series plans to cover everything from the Project X parties in the early aughts to the infamous Balloon Boy scandal of 2009, with weekly releases until the end of July. While The Astroworld Tragedy is the only installment I plan to cover for Films for the Void, it’s still worth mulling over the details to understand A) what went wrong, and B) how Netflix’s coverage impacts the state of documentary filmmaking.
Directed by Yemi Bamiro of One Man and His Shoes (2020), Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy marks the documentarian’s fourth feature. While Bamiro is admittedly still finding his voice in the genre, there are aspects of the presentation that really help drive the messaging home. Depicting how a combination of factors created a perfect storm of circumstances, the documentary smartly uses visual effects to show the events leading to the crowd crush, resulting in mass injuries and the deaths of ten attendees. Between the ignored safety protocols by those involved at Live Nation and a poorly planned stage layout that led to mass asphyxiation of those on the left side of the crowd, the unfolding events clearly show a lack of planning and forethought before the concert. All of the details are laid out for clear understanding, even if some of the framing of the interviews feels forced at times. The interviews with friends/families of the victims who passed have emotional heft, but their placement at the beginning of the documentary lacks direction and sets the documentary on an awkward foot when establishing our relationship. For a documentary that barely clocks in at feature-length, the building blocks of Trainwreck sorely need strengthening.
Regardless of the documentary’s shortcomings, the purpose is there and extends past a simple exposé of a tragedy. What could have so easily been exploited as a TV movie of the week (like the bargain bin P. Diddy trial coverage slop you can find on Tubi) actually has a heart behind its intentions. Bamiro’s focus on the aftermath of the incident, as well as the lack of justice to those who died after a Texas grand jury indicted Scott and LiveNation of any wrongdoing, gives the document some teeth and leaves his audience on a note of subtle ambiguity. Whether or not Scott, LiveNation, or those involved learned from the devastation of Astroworld, it’s clear that the focus is on the victims and their loss, which is where it should be in this adequate documentary.
B-
Feature image credit to Netflix via Time
