Now that every other major live entertainment company has thrown their proverbial hats into the music festival ring it must be time for The Dolans to give it a shot.
For the past few months Madison Square Garden Entertainment has been trying to get approval to throw a three-day festival reminiscent of Bonnaroo and Rothbury in the sleepy Upstate town of Springfield once each year.
But it hasn’t been smooth sailing for a company used to getting its way:
Still, opponents say, that’s a far cry from what Madison Square Garden Entertainment has proposed for the sloping, verdant pair of farms just south of U.S. Route 20. Baseball fans and opera lovers, they suggest, will be much better behaved than 75,000, mostly 20-somethings camping on an open field for a long weekend of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
“These people are here to party their freaking heads off,” said Maureen Culbert, whose home built in 1813 sits directly across Route 20 from the festival site. “They chose this little Podunk town because they think they’re going to be able to do all their drugs and alcohol without getting caught.”
We were thinking the citizens would object to a company with little experience in throwing these kinds of events coming into town, but instead the good people of Springfield are focusing on the flashier issues. No problem Springfield, I’m sure “Straight Shot” Jimmy and MSGE can just take their annual drug-fueled orgy to Shelbyville.
But seriously, this isn’t 1969 anymore. The days of free love are over and many of the people attending festivals are in their 30s, 40s and 50s with plenty of money to burn. How can the town say no to this incredible opportunity to throw millions of dollars into their hurting economy for a week of aggravation each year? You know we haven’t heard the last of this story. We’ll keep you updated.
Last weekend we sent our newest contributor, Tim J. Nelson, to Baltimore for the Third Annual Virgin Mobile Festival. Let’s see what went down in Charm City…
Feeling festive? So many choices: Lollapalooza, now exclusively based in Chicago; Bonnaroo, in rural Tennessee; and Coachella, in the Mojave Desert – these top music festivals offer mucho musical diversity. However, a relatively new festival to the U.S., the Virgin Mobile Festival presented the entire history of rock-n-roll within the last two summers alone. For overall quality, it’s the clear choice and winner this summer.
This year’s acts included the grandfathers of rock Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, The Stooges (with Iggy Pop), and present-day rock giants Foo Fighters, STP, as well as eccentric crowd pleasers Gogol Bordello. And if you’re thinking that’s not diverse enough for your musical mojo, Rodrigo y Gabriela, the Latin-jazz-rock-flamenco-whatever uber-guitar duo wowed the crowd enough that at least one person (me) was thinking, “OK, that’s worth $97.50 alone.” You get the point. If not: a blistering display of flying fingers across strings plus guitar-body percussion equals WOW! The two only paused a few seconds between each offering – a real highlight. READ ON for more about the Virgin Mobile Festival…
While most NYC-area music fans were getting their Radiohead on at the All Points West Festival Saturday night, some of them went to the season finale of the Celebrate Brooklyn concert series: A Tribute to Bill Withers. Intelligent Rectum reports on the highly anticipated tribute, which started out well enough but died a painfully slow death during a disastrous second set.
As to be expected MMJ’s Jim James provided the two highlights of the evening with his version of Ain’t No Sunshine and his vocals during the Lean On Me finale.
Let’s take a look at what else happened this weekend…
Here’s a few stories from around the country:
The lineup for the first annual Outside Land Music Festival has now been completed with their latest round of additions. Joining the likes of Wilco, The Felice Brothers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, M. Ward and Mike Gordon will be Cake, Los Amigos Invisbles, The Duo, Thriving Ivory and Sila and the Afro-Funk Experience.
The festival will take place from August 22 - 24 at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Single day and three day tickets are still available at the moment.
Maybe you’ve heard; festivals are pretty popular nowadays. While seemingly effortless to concoct, the abundance of all this new festivage has led music fans to take for granted the grandiosity of work involved in building a festival from the ground up.
Think about the nightmare of just planning a Super Bowl party for example, where you had to coordinate keeping the Party Ball cold, picking up the Chicken Wings from Pluck U early enough to make kickoff-but not so early that they’d be cold-and making sure there were places for everyone to sit to see the television. Kinda puts it in perspective, when you realize that building a festival is kinda the same thing only you are arranging the party for anywhere from 500x to 5,000x more people, with the addition of high profile musicians, outdoors with nowhere to take a deuce, with food for everyone… And you have to get the A-ok from the community and the cops. You getting the idea? It’s awfully hard work to build a festival and run it smoothly.
So, we got in touch with Jimmy Hunt and Wes Hight (despite being Appalachian State fans, grrrr), the founders of the first-ever Music on the Mountain festival in Boone, NC to talk about the challenges and of giving it a go for the first time. Music on the Mountain takes place August 23rd in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains featuring Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Perpetual Groove. The mission of the festival aims to raise awareness as well as donate a majority of the proceeds to the cause of renewable energy. We are planning to run this as part of a two part series: before and after. So, we’ll check back with Jimmy and Wes after the festival to see how it went. READ ON for more about the making of a festie…
We sent Jeremy Gordon and Carla Danca into the world of Camp Bisco. Luckily, they came back unscathed and filed this report from Mariaville…
The reviews for Camp Bisco 7 are in and what a fantastic success. From Brownstein’s proclamation of “Best Camp Bisco Ever” to ILCC’s owner Frank Potter acknowledging the fabulous vibe of the event. The three day festival’s 2nd year at the Mariaville, NY site went smoothly for all…well maybe not for all.
Whether fans were enjoying bands like The Bridge, local favorites Jimkata or DJs MSTRKRFT and Ralph Lawson, many left the weekend shaking their heads, eager to hear more. The festival hosted a wide variety of sounds with the progressive sounds of U-Melt, trance DJ Prometheus, next generation jamband RAQ and indie- fence straddlers !!! (Chk Chk Chk). READ ON for more from Jeremy and Carla…
Having recently finished an enterprise feature for another publication on the glut of national music festivals and what role that glut creates for regional festivals with a lot more personality, I’m more excited this year for the Gathering of the Vibes than I have been in quite some time. As the man said, “He’d have to be one charming motherfuckin pig”…er, sorry, “Personality goes a long way.”
Compared to the Roo- and Coachella-sized behemoths, and a lot of the sexy new kids with names both playful and official-sounding—Rothbury might be a bit of both, and allegedly, it was quite the time—the Vibes is a creakier, more elegant dinosaur. A glorious, humble triceratops of a festival, yes, secure in its size, pleasant in its modest ambition and its abilities, not ostentatious, and kindly manageable.
And damn isn’t it great to have it back in New England proper (it returned in 2007 after several years of renovation to Bridgeport’s Seaside Park and a few years at various upstate New York locales)? For this born/bred New Englander, it’s not only in a New England/Tri-State area happy medium, but it fills a still-felt void left by the big Phish festivals of yore and especially the can’t-believe-it’s-been-five-years-now departed Berkshire Mountain Music Festival (1997-2003). (For Berkfest alums from those heady days, monsoon conditions and all, have a scoop of nostalgia on the house) READ ON for more about what you can expect at GOTV ‘08…
The summer concert season reaches its crescendo this upcoming weekend when three of the longest running festivals in the nation take place. Out in Chicago the promoters of Lollapalooza defended themselves from accusations that their radius clauses are killing the local music scene. Meanwhile, the schedule for the Newport Folk Festival came out, and there are plenty of maddening conflicts. For those of us unable to attend next weekend’s other major festie, the Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, CT, you can follow the action on iClips.
We’ll have plenty of news, reviews and photos from all three festivals.
Let’s see what else is goin’ on as we gear up for another busy week:
It’s been at least two weeks since we’ve heard any Led Zeppelin reunion tour rumors, so we thought we’d share the latest. Gigwise reports that the reason the band hasn’t moved forward is due to a rift between Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Come on guys, bury the hatchet and let’s get it on before you’re too old.
While the Red Sox may have the edge on the Yankees in the standings, NYC has sure been winning out when it comes to free concerts. But don’t count Beantown out just yet. Our Boston-area readers are in for a treat on July 19 when Melvin Sparks and Robert Randolph perform for free at Boston Common as part of the 2008 Life is good Festival. Besides the two guitar greats, this bash will feature classic backyard food as well as traditional games and activities. Sweet deal!
Here’s a look at some other stories of interest on this hump day…
Finally, Runaway Dinosaur turned us onto an amazing MUST SEE video called I Met The Walrus featuring the audio of an interview with John Lennon by a 14 year old named Jerry Levitan who snuck into his hotel room in 1969. This mesmerizing short film combines visually stunning pen work and digital animation with a heart-warming interview that shows off what a complete mensch Lennon was.
I’m feelin’ okay this mornin’
And you know,
We’re on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go…
Here we are for my last post on Rothbury. I’ve not slept in over 24 hours, but I’m ‘feelin’ okay this mornin’ so to speak. I spent 4 hours of the 11 hour ride sleeping and the other 7 driving. During my driving shift I reflected a lot on this past weekend. With that in mind I’d like to focus this post on two things: the festivals greening efforts and Phish. I’ll also be giving a few pros and cons of the festival logistics and other things, so perhaps they can improve on for next year. Rumor has it that the Double JJ Ranch has already invited the promoters back.
[Trey & Mike, with Fishman in the background watching]
I don’t think I emphasized the greening efforts on behalf of the promoters. I don’t have the exact number, and I’m sure they will do a press release on it after the site is cleaned. But the festival was able to divert about 80% of waste produced each day into either recyclables or compostables. I also failed to mention that all the cups on site were made from corn. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, after enjoying your nice tasty Magic Hat Number 9 you can dispose of your cups by composting them. Who woulda thunk? I’ve already mentioned the trash cans, but the site also gave away free portable ashtrays for all the smokers in attendance. They also took several initiatives to offset carbon emissions. I must say I have NEVER seen a cleaner site, and most people were very good about cleaning up after themselves. Bravo Rothbury, job well done! READ ON for more…
