Rock/Soul/Progressive

This past week celebrated the beginning of festival season. Yes folks, this past week/end was South by South West or, as it’s lovingly called, SXSW (which translates to the first name given, which is what everyone says when referring to the second.) Anyone who is anyone, or wants to be anyone, in the indie music industry flew, drove, and possibly swam to Austin, Texas for a four day love fest. And thus began festival season.
At this point I feel I should mention that I’ve labelled myself, and others who know me have labelled me, as a bitter old so and so. I’ve been to exactly one festival, and only for a day, and nearly got sun poisoning. When put into this context, along with knowledge that I believe all the really important festivals happen in Europe, the upcoming rant will become a bit more logical. So yeah, onto festival season.
Festival season, oddly enough, starts and ends in Austin, Texas. SXSW, usually in March, begins the whole affair and Austin City Limits, usually in early September, ends the season with a bang (and predictably scorching weather.) In between you have a good number of festivals on the west coast, a smattering in the middle of the country, and a handful on the East Coast, usually towards the end of the season. Meanwhile over in Europe, everyone parties every night, especially if they’re in Ibiza, and every weekend there is a festival. Maybe even two festivals in you’re lucky. (Did I mention the bitterness?) Europe is the main hub of festival season, as I’ve pointed out before, because its weather is much cooler and…its weather is much cooler. (My other statement would have been incredibly mean and possibly not at all true. I do have some dignity.) But by having festivals every weekend, this leaves North America in a lurch. Summer is the time of the year were most major tours occur, predictably because the audience the music industry is supposedly catering to is out of school, but since most bands promise their souls to European festivals that leaves exactly one week for them to tour North America and there’s a very good chance that the day they come to your city is a day you have work/school/final exams/life. And while there are some festivals in the States (as I’ve pointed out before), most of the really important ones occur at least a hour and half drive away from Virginia and at the most the cost of a round trip plane ticket, plus hotel, food, merch, and festival pass expenses.
The last time I wrote about festivals (I’ve already given you the link twice, I’m not doing it again) I focused on the history of a handful of festivals and not at all on my complaints with festival season. In general I think festivals are a great thing. I don’t particularly like them, but they does allow a much larger audience to experience many, many, many live bands over a period of 1-2 days (SXSW and Austin City Limits being odd in their length) for a fairly reasonable price (if you don’t include hotel, travel, food, and merch expenses.) However, if you can manage to get yourself to a festival, you’ll be spending most of your time in an open field in the middle of the summer, and if you’re particularly lucky and end up going to the Pitchfork festival, you’re in Chicago, which is like being in Texas but without the dry heat. Only the Europeans, or Americans who can get over to Europe, are saved from the horrible weather. Instead, on the Continent they get reasonable weather in open fields, if you’re in the UK reasonable weather and rain, or if you’re in Ibiza, a club scene to die for (and who really cares about the weather if you’re sleeping through the day?). So, if you take away the weather, the long lines to get into the festival grounds, and the ridiculous cost of everything, festivals are pretty cool. Now if only I could get my TARDIS to work…
(Half way through writing this, I realized I’d already written a rather extensive, less bitchy, entry on festivals. Now, at least, you have all the mean nasty thoughts I was thinking when I wrote the first one along with all the information that can be found in that entry. Also I feel I should point out that Asia also has a handful of festivals during the season, but Asia, as well as Australia and all its buddies, are consistently overlooked in tours and I’ve already got a whole continent to worry about, I don’t need another.)

Original post by Anglo-Audiophile: The Reviews