As recently as five years ago, the idea of an American summer festival circuit was unimaginable. Although a mainstay of the European market, thanks to gatherings like Reading and Glastonbury in England and Roskilde in Denmark, the Stateside music business hadn’t caught on to the idea. Only a few events—Coachella, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and Bonnaroo among them— existed. And even for those involved, expectations were low. Rick Farman, one of Bonnaroo’s founders, recalls that in planning the first Bonnaroo, in 2002, he and his partners had a dream: to gather together five main acts. In Farman and his partners’ fantasies, Trey Anastasio, Ben Harper, Widespread Panic, the String Cheese Incident, and former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh would all be available to play the same weekend.
more festival tours. We’re at the beginning of this early stage modeled on the European circuit.”
Yet some big questions remain: Will 2008 be seen as the beginning of a new kind of touring season—a watershed moment for a new industry—or as its saturation point? And given what’s become the highlight of many of these gatherings, who will play those main stages in 2012, once there are no important ’80s or ’90s bands left to reunite?
IN ROCK HISTORY, festivals are as old as sunstroke: Monterey Pop attracted almost a quarter million people to San Francisco for three days in 1967, followed by Woodstock two years later. Although the riots and out-of-control bonfires at 1999’s Woodstock
“I remember thinking that was a huge challenge,” says Farman. “It’s pretty funny to look back on it.”
In 2008, it’s the fans who face a daunting challenge: Which festival to attend, and which of the hundreds of bands to squeeze in at each? Stretching from New Jersey to Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, to San Francisco, the number of spring-to-fall festivals is now five times what it was when Bonnaroo began. And they’ve rarely been so eclectic: Metallica, Lupe Fiasco, M.I.A., and Kanye West at Bonnaroo? Roger Waters re-creating Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon at Coachella? Sonic Youth at the same Arkansas festival as Southern rockers Charlie Daniels and . 38 Special? “It’s like a three-dimensional iPod,” says Brian Long, who manages VHS or Beta and José González, both doing the circuit this summer.
Indeed, the increasingly diverse festivals feel like a Steve Jobs invention: the iFest. When Ohio blues-rock duo the Black Keys were first invited to play Bonnaroo, in 2004, they hesitated. “Dan [Auerbach, singer and guitarist] and I did not want to be associated with bands we were associating with that scene, like Phish or Slightly Stoopid—bands we thought were god-awful,” says drummer Patrick Carney. They said yes anyway, and to their surprise, wound up on the same stage as Yo La Tengo. “It wasn’t just a jam-band festival,” Carney adds. The experience was so pleasurable that they played again in 2007.
Even lumping all these gatherings together feels simplistic. There are now festivals set in scenic, out-of-the-way campgrounds (Coachella, new additions like Rothbury in Michigan and Summer Camp in Illinois). There are some taking place in easier-to-reach cities, either in outdoor stadiums over the course of several days (Ohio’s Rock on the Range) or huge public parks (Lollapalooza and newcomer Outside Lands in San Francisco). And there are still the traveling festivals like Warped Tour. “You used to see a lot of kids who’d go on tour with the Grateful Dead,” says Jeremy Stein, organizer of the eco- and jam-band-friendly Rothbury. “Now they’re going on
made many promoters think twice about organizing more, the rise of the new American circuit reflects current, sobering realities. “A typical amphitheater show [of recent years] didn’t sell out or even come close,” says Pollstar editor-in-chief Gary Bongiovanni. Other factors: the decline in the number of newer rock bands big enough to headline amphitheaters and arenas, and the flood of midlevel indie and blog
bands whose buzz (if not record sales) makes them ideal for festivals.
For an industry facing its own recession—according to Pollstar, which tracks the concert business, last year was the weakest since ’04, with grosses down 15 percent—the festival circuit is welcome. “The industry is evolving with the demand of the fans for more of this kind of entertainment,” says Greg Dean, a production manager for Green Day and My Chemical Romance. “I can see a time when the U.S. will present multimedia events across the country that will generate their own touring season or cycle. Touring is changing.”
While it’s too early to tell if festivals will rescue the concert business, they can be financially beneficial to certain players. For bands, paychecks are often comparable to headlining gigs at whatever size venue they normally play in that area: Top-drawer indie-rock and rap acts can get at least $10,000 per show at the likes of Coachella, while headliners can walk away with six- or seven-figure checks. Promoters don’t do too badly, either. Last year, according to Pollstar, Coachella grossed $16.3 million, Austin City Limits $11.3 million, and Lollapalooza $9.8 million.
As Perry Farrell has learned, the new, big-money atmosphere swirling around the festivals is making itself known in other ways. “I’d love to believe my reputation—or our reputation as Lollapalooza—is one of integrity,” says Farrell, who mutated Lollapalooza from a multi-artist tour to a stand-alone Chicago-based event in 2005. “The truth is, money still talks in this world. You put money out to these managers and groups, and you get their attention. There are a lot
If the mere thought of being dragged to one of Jack Johnson’s 174 summer-festival sets has you nodding off, look toward the side of the stage and you might see Barbie Parker making things interesting.
The coordinator for Alive Performance Interpreting, Parker, 40, is one of dozens who will go to festivals this year to present artists’ lyrics to the hearing-impaired at Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits, among others. Statistics from school for the deaf Gallaudet University say Parker’s audience could comprise up to 10 percent of the crowd; they latch on to bands through videos and closed captioning, making experiencing the music live a logical step.
Often working in two-person teams—one on a platform, one crouched on the ground with backup lyric books—interpreters
With Joss Stone at ACL, 2007
communicate the meaning of lyrics and the feeling of the music through facial expressions and body movement. That means subtlety and innuendo often get lost in translation.
“Try making the fellatio gesture in front of 100,000 people,” Parker says, recalling a Satellite Party set at Lollapalooza last year—blue language becomes pretty blunt when signed. (Lesson for the day: Shit
is communicated by extracting a thumb from a clenched fist on the opposite hand.) Parker says preparation typically begins six months in advance, with interpreters loading up their iPods with every song by all the artists they’ll be presenting that year. It’s a discipline that’s fraught with challenges, from going into a miles-deep catalog like Bob Dylan’s—Parker caught that one last year at ACL—to wringing coherent meaning out of tangled lyrics by Lupe Fiasco and Björk.
“Björk was definitely pretty tough, but the hardest one we did last year was Muse at Lollapalooza,” says Parker. “Part of your job is to convey the same energy the band is putting out, and Muse just crushed it the whole time. By the end of the night, we were so tired we could barely get ourselves off the stage.” CHAD S WIATECKI
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