It’s the time of year when most of your rock bands stop doing individual shows and start playing the Summer festival circuit. Well, I don’t much care for that. How about you?
Here’s my reasons – weigh in with whether you agree.
–Usually I am amped to see a handful of bands at any given time. I’m hidebound enough that the “opportunity” to see 14 new bands or bands I don’t usually follow strikes me as more of a distraction than a serendipitous opportunity to open new vistas.
–The festivals are almost always outdoors and . . . I don’t want to be worrying about rain, heat, mud, dust, portable toilets.
–The sets for any particular band are often shorter than at a real concert, which is a problem if it’s one of my top favorites.
–The big outdoor venues often require a hike, parking problems, etc. Whereas for indoor venues, there’s several within fifteen minutes of where I work/live.
–I could be wrong, but especially in these no-smoking-indoors days, I think there’s more dope use at the outdoor venues, which for a non-user like me is not anathema but is mildly annoying based on the smell and on the dirty-hippie aspect of it.
Dirty hippie? They can’t even afford weed these days.
That said, I agree. Mostly because I’ll only want to see one or two bands but I won’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for it.
SF had the Outside Lands festival last year. Tom Petty- one of my favorites- was a headliner, playing where I used to walk my dog. Sounds great, but not for $70+ a night. (Plus, I can chill in my parents’ driveway and hear just as clear.)
I tend not to drink at concerts so toilets aren’t too much of a concern. Parking/transit can be a real bitch, depending on where it is.
I generally enjoy the event aspect of the festivals, but yeah I agree seeing bands I like is usually not satisfying. My main complaint: I feel that most bands totally phone it in. Since they aren’t headlining, they don’t give their A game and just go through the motions, get their check and leave.
The most egregious example I’ve seen of this was at the Treasure Island Festival in 2007 when I saw M. Ward, and he could hardly be bothered to perform his songs. On one song in particular (one of my favorites), “Magic Trick,” he just was mumbling through the chorus like it was a chore his parents were making him do. Still a fun day, but not an ideal concert experience.
I think, though this is a bit speculative, that part of the lack of enthusiasm could be the challenges of delivering good acoustics outdoors, when most sound engineers are used to working indoors and where, unlike with a concert hall, you don’t have a particular acoustic profile to work with to enhance the sound, nor probably a house sound guy who does this five nights a week with the same stage/gear. Maybe the bands show up, conclude they’re not going to be able to get their usual sound, and accordingly, as you suggest, don’t try too hard in part for that reason. And I think you’re right that more generally they exploit the “it’s a big event so a lot of the crowd is just happy to be there” aspect – I saw a fairly well-regarded Irish band on St. Patrick’s Day and it couldn’t have been clearer that they knew the drunk-ass crowd was going to settle for, and think they loved, whatever half assed slop they served up.
I tend to avoid festivals. Too much money for too little reward. I have gout, and the way I keep that at bay is by drinking tons of water. Since I’m not going to be allowed to bring my own water in, I’ll have to buy a dozen pint bottles at $ to $6 each. No thanks.
That said, I did attend two festivals and had a great time - the Guinness Fledgh and WOMAD, both outside Chicago. The Fledgh was a day long Celtic music festival with the Chieftains headlining. The thing that made it so special was that a friend was playing, Mary Coughlan. We had met her a few years before when she played Schuba’s. She had played an in-store earlier that day, and we talked to her about shopping. She said she was amazed at how cheap clothes were here compared to Ireland and she had run out of space in her luggage (she has a number of kids). So we showed up at the show with a bunch of gym bags for her. The next year at the Fledgh, she saw us in the front row, and waved us over to the side of the stage at the end of the show and gave up backstage passes. These wonderful tools allowed us to go to the back of any of the stages, and move to any other stage without having to fight our way through the crowd.
With WOMAD, Lissener had the excellent idea of splitting the cost of a suite among our group of friends. We didn’t spend the whole show there, but it gave us a home base to always come back to and an un-obstructed view and a shield from the rain. A dear friend was in very poor shape, and it was worth it to have a place where he could always have a seat and a blanket.
Re-reading this, I fear I’m coming across as a snob, that I won’t enjoy it unless I get special treatment. Hey, I’m near 50 and I suppose it’s true to an extent. I did my time in the trenches doing sound for festivals and the limited amount of charm they possess was expended back then. I suppose I’d go to another if I knew that the following items were to be provided:
[ul]
[li]Free water.[/li][li]Bathrooms with constant attention so they remain clean.[/li][li]Seats.[/li][/ul]
But going some place where I’d have to stand for 12 hours and take a shit in a place I wouldn’t wish on Karl Rove? Not a chance.
This is my only real objection. Contrast the Gov’t Mule show I saw in '98 (start 10:30 PM, end 4:20 AM) with Gov’t Mule at H.O.R.D.E. in OKC (about 45 min).
'Course the second was mitigated by getting to watch all the “goth kids” dragging around the infield of a baseball field on a very, very hot day (103°) with all their dark cloaks and black makeup and angst. Smashing Pumpkins appreciated the effort, though. They played for almost an hour.
In my twenties I used to be a regular festival goer. It was a great way to discover smaller bands, on side stages. Somewhere along the way the whole concept soured for me. Sweltering heat, bad sound and (maybe it’s a Philly thing) people throwing bottles into the crowd. I stopped going after a while. In my thirties I managed to see two bands at festivals because I really wanted to see them, punkass bottle throwers be damned. I saw the Cure at the Curiosa Festival and was blown away. Not only did it sound amazing, but the crowd, being older, was almost quiet and enthralled. It helped that the two lead in bands were Magwai and Interpol. Sooooo glad I went to that show.
The other one was Radiohead at the All Points West Festival, last year. This may go down as the best show I’ve ever seen. They played for almost 2 hours (the best I can recollect) they shut the crowd up (and this was a big freakin crowd) the weather was awesome and the Staue of Liberty was lit up behind us. They played at least one song from every album, they gave the crowd many songs that they don’t play anymore, including Fake Plastic Trees. Just an amazing show.
I’ll go back to a festival, but it will have to be a band I really want to see, maybe a Smiths reunion or something that epic. I think it’s unlikely I’ll too many more shows of the caliber of the last two at a festival, but I’m willing to be surprised.
Huh? I’m not a festival veteran, but I’ve been to the last two Bonnaroos, and they give out free water. I also carried two unopened gallon jugs into Centeroo along with a camelback full of gatorade last year, and the people patting everyone down at the entrance didn’t even blink.
This is obviously a per-festival issue. Like gaffa, most of the festivals I’ve been to don’t allow any outside beverages, even water: you have to buy it from their vendors.
I hate festivals because there are a TON of bands I want to see, playing on different stages, at the same times. I don’t like having to plan out who I like more, I want to see them all!
Also, at least in Texas at ACL, it’s hot as balls.
Yeah, I’m a little annoyed that Depeche Mode’s only Chicago concert date on the US tour this summer is Lollapalooza. So now regardless if I want to go one day or all three, it’s going to cost me more to see a bunch of other bands I don’t really care to see. The atmosphere is different, it’s outside in August, and the sound will probably be much worse. Annoying.
It was a New Year’s Eve show with lot’s of guests (and one intermission that lasted about 15 minutes). We didn’t know it at the time, but it was being recorded and was released as “…With a Little Help From Our Friends” .
This youtube video is from that night. You can see me in it (if you know where to look and have really, really good eyesight ).
As a 30+ year concert veteran, I won’t even consider seeing a show unless I can get in the first 15 rows or so. I want the stage to fill my field of view and the sound to overpower any extraneous conversations/cellphone calls, etc. So, by default, I wouldn’t even consider going to a festival to see a band that I really like. I’m just not interested in paying money to have my view blocked by a young lady sitting on her boyfriend’s shoulders.
I’m pretty much the opposite. I like festivals because for the very reason I can wander around checking stuff out. I generally don’t like concerts where I have to sit in one place and watch a band for 2 hours.
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