Music Festivals

When the hell did music fests get so Top 40?

Lollapalooza, bonaroo, Edc, ultra. I for one was not ready for music festivals to go mainstream. What was once a holiday for hipsters, a mecca for trendsetting fashion and discovering “before they were famous” bands, is now a whole season, spanning April to December. Festies today are a dime a dozen—or rather a few hundred dollars for three days—and it’s all becoming very predictable. The successful wannabe’s like Outside Lands and Sasquatch know the main ingredients to a good time include: a throwback headliner, a buzzworthy list of up-and-coming dj’s and bands, and a healthy showing of local grub and retail. The Great’s step it up with hologram resurrections, surprise celebrity onstage cameos, major musical debuts, and even second weekends.

While I will always tip my somewhatironic fedora to the classics (I’m looking at you, Coachella), I simply can’t condone the newbies saturating the market and polluting good lineups for us tride-and-true hipsters and technovamps. No, Seriously. Stop it, Bumbershoot. —kg