Bumberbust and the Fests
Stereogum has this year’s Bumbershoot line up. Just a couple days ago I was thinking about making a habit of going to Bumbershoot. I went last year and enjoyed it. It’s relatively close to SF, fairly cheap ($18 a day, I seem to remember) and I have good friends in Seattle.
Then I saw the line up:
The Shins
Wu-Tang Clan
Panic! At The Disco
Crowded House
Lupe Fiasco
Steve Earle
DeVotchKa
Devendra Banhart
Gogol Bordello
Kill Hannah
Norma Jean
Plain White T’s
The Gourds
Lyrics Born
Roky Erickson & The Explosives
The Holmes Brothers
The Avett Brothers
Yungchen Lhamo
Allison Moorer
Magnolia Electric Company
The Aggrolites
Am I the only one not excited about it? Most of the bands I’d see there (if I were to go) I’ve passed up opportunities to see here.
Also cheap ($35 for two days!) but far away and in a place where I can’t crash with friends is the Pitchfork Fest, which has a bunch of bands I’d see including Cat Power, Iron & Wine and Girl Talk.
There is, of course, Coachella, which is close, but expensive and I don’t really want to camp out with 20,000 of my closest friends. With 1 trillion bands playing, of course there are bands I want to see, but none of the headliners (Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine) excite me at all.
Sasquatch has similar problems, though I’d be able to stay with the same friends that I stayed with for Bumbershoot. They have Arcade Fire and Polyphonic Spree (both of whom are great live). There are a bunch of smaller bands that I’d like to see there, too, including Mirah, Aqueduct, Viva Voce and the Slip. It’s getting close so plane tickets are probably getting up there in price.
Bonnaroo has a better line up than Coachella (Police, Wilco, Flaming Lips, the Roots, Kings of Leon, Lily Allen, Elvis Perkins, Hold Steady), but is farther away and shares the same problems otherwise; it’s expensive and there are approximately five billion people camping there with you.
I guess I’ll just be waiting for next year’s Noise Pop, right here in SF and consistently good year-to-year. Or maybe I should think about this “SXSW” thing all the kiddies have been talking about. Or CMJ. sample hentai clips moviefree cumshot moviesfree movies incestmovie sybian clipsfree movies handjobmovies anal freebeastiality moviesmovies porn gay freesex movies teenfucking free movies machine
April 7th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
you can crash at my place if you want, anyone who wants to see sonic youth play ‘daydream nation’ front to back should have the chance.
April 7th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
that comment was for pitchfork by the way
June 20th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
[…] [1] As I mentioned in my festival summary earlier, festivals tend to be expensive and far away, they involve camping with a bunch of people I don’t know and seeing acts in spaces with way too many people. I could fly across the country and go to Bonnaroo, sure. I could see the Flaming Lips and maybe eight more bands I want to see with 60,000 people and camp out. On the other hand, I went to 11 concerts this March for the grand sum of $98. None of the venues had more than about 600 people (and in fact, some had as few as 50) and fully seven of them were in the great-to-amazing range. […]
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
[…] I’m not squealing. I’m not a huge fan of the big outdoor festivals. I can see more bands I actually want to see for less money and with fewer other people in clubs, simple as that. (Case in point: last March I saw 11 bands for a total of $98. Three incredible shows, four great shows and four good shows. I don’t see reviews of outdoor festivals with that sort of hit rate.) Also, I like listening to Radiohead occasionally, but I’m not a die hard fan at all. […]
March 27th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
[…] But tickets are $225 (+ absurd ticketmaster fees)–Scott made a good point that you might need an extra job to pay for that pretty hefty fee–and I’ve made known my preference for venue-based festivals over giant outdoor festivals. I know I sound like an ornery old man in saying this, but I’d prefer going to see just the bands I want to see in a small venue rather than with thousands of people while sitting or standing miles from the stage. […]