As you all know, it's music festival season and there are way too many of them. Have we reached peak music festival? All the lineups look alike (remember 2014 when Outkast headlined 40 festivals in one summer?). Do festival-goers even care about who's performing or is it just about photo-ops now? At the last large music festival I attended, it was so difficult to even enjoy the music: getting close to the stage requires camping out all day and getting stomped on when the band's shortened set finally begins, drinks and food were too expensive and the bathrooms felt like they were a hundred miles away (and completely disgusting).
Kanye West was the headliner that weekend and by the second night, when he finally took the stage, I was completely worn out and in one of the shittiest moods of my life. It didn't help that the sound was horrendous and I was so far away from the stage I had to resort to watching him on the jumbotron. I probably would have had a better view if I just stayed home and watched it on YouTube. Was it worth it for the experience? In my opinion, NO. I did get to see Kanye at the Verizon Center twice and both shows were worthwhile musical experiences. Lesson learned: if you're like me and you hate people, don't go to any music festivals.
According to Paste, "the big-name festivals used to have distinct identities. Coachella booked established hipster groups, Pitchfork booked emerging hipster groups, Bonnaroo trafficked in jam-bands, Lollapalooza revived the alt-rock aesthetic it developed as a traveling festival in the ’90s, Austin City Limits had a rootsier bent and Summerfest was a big mix of everything. Now they share many of the same acts, with each other and with newer festivals, which makes all of them less distinctive. To stand out, they’re increasingly resorting to gimmicks: R. Kelly playing Pitchfork, for example, or Madonna or AC/DC or hologram-Tupac at Coachella, which this year is shoveling cash at Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan to headline as Guns N’ Roses."
Festivals are expensive as crap and they're all the same anyway. Are they really worth it though? Is this mass consumption of drugs, music and partying just making American music more basic? Meaning, it's a completely manufactured and commercially-sponsored experience so is everyone just becoming more conformist about the types of experiences they seek out?
I'd like to see more people being a part of their own communities and culture and supporting their local music, food and arts scenes with their money. Or you know, you could make something yourself. Think about what Carl Gustav Horn said: the most sincere subculture is that of the individual.
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