I hate festivals with a passion.
At least over night ones.
Warped isn’t bad if you get the right year and the long gone Guinness Fleadgh was a blast. And the Beastie Boys once put together a beaut to help Tibet -one of the few times I’ve been able to stomach ratboy Thom Yorke.
But otherwise, really, isn’t it just Lollopolooza and swimming in your own vomit? Woodstock set the tone -a million miles away from the closest band and a complete collapase of any control was # 1, # 2? Limp Biscuit lookalikes molesting teenage girls and $4 glasses of water (the equivalent of $20 today).
I always thought this wasn’t much of a country for outdoor music festivals -I thought it was all all UK, all the time: drowning in the soggy rain while various rockstars get electrocuted on stage.
But times changed while I wasn’t looking and from Austin’s irritatingly titled SXSW with more than a hundred bands you don’t want to ever hear again. OK that’s an exageration and at least this is in a buncha clubs not a field unlike something called the Sasquatch Festival-which I have no recollection of hearing about whatsoever though alt indie faves like MGMT and Vampire Weekend are headling. And there is the ridiculous in the desert Coachella Festival – Leonard Cohen was there last year being cheered on by Conor Oberst from the sideline. Sounds like fun? Sure if you wanna stand in a desert for days staring at ants in the background.
I realize I am the wrong everything but music love for festivals but in these big sprawling ones, it sure hits me there is nothing to be gained by days of, if you’re buying the cheap tix, going unwashed, unkempt, weekend hippie to hear (because you won’t be able to see a damn thing, ten “A List” bands and 450 bands you weren’t be caught dead in a ditch with.
And, as Helen mentioned in an earlier post today, there is always the threat of getting hurt in a stampede in General Admission concerts. Or getting stabbed to death at Altamont while Hell’s Angels beat the crap out of you. And for what? Maybe the sermon on the mount fine, but Paul McCartney? Not so much.
I like the intimacy of clubs or leisure of theatres. At festivals all you get is distance and discomfort. Fooey on em.