Sound - this is important, so pay attention. Music sounds rubbish outdoors. It does. If you disagree, you either hadn't heard that particular music before or it was always rubbish or you were too drunk to care. Music, like claustrophobia, works best in confined spaces. Lift music must just be the exception which proves that ill-considered rule. It doesn't deserve to be mistreated this way.
Proximity - live music works best when you're within 100 yards of it. Good luck getting closer than that for the main acts at a large festival. I remember getting to the front for the White Stripes at Reading one year - I literally couldn't put my feet back on the ground for about half an hour; I think they had to stop the band at one point. If you're tempted to try, remember this - towards the end of the day, everyone at the front is either racked with dehydration-induced hallucinations or they're surrounded by their own urine. Do you want to be stuck touching them?
Cost - festivals cost far too much, especially when you factor in travel and the disgusting food and drink you're forced to buy on site. As I understand it, they usually turn a pretty big profit. I'd rather book for specific bands that I definitely want to see, in places where I want to see them - even if that means spending £300 on gigs each year.
Blocked chemical toilets, food poisoning, no showers - not for me, thanks all the same. I'm sure things are slightly different at ATP, but if I wanted to spend all day surrounded by middle-class hipsters I'd just walk to Shoreditch. Hygiene shouldn't be reserved for VIPs.
You people - stoners, students and hippies, the lot of you. Most of you have terrible taste. Some of you know absolutely nothing about any of the bands and have just come to buy drugs, like an expensive and protracted trip to a very busy cash and carry. You're pushy, rude, dirty and badly dressed. I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to stand downwind of you and I certainly don't want to hear you strum your guitar all night. You can't play, you're awful, give up and go read a book. Just fuck the fuck off.
Tom, regardless of the fact this is your personal opinion and you're entitled to it, on the whole it looks like you've given into lazy generalisations about festivals here.
ReplyDeleteYeah Reading, Leeds, Download etc are horrible holes populated by overpriced bands, junk food and Kerrang-reading teenagers, but they serve a purpose- and when I was 15, 16, 17, it was the most fun thing you could possibly do in the world ever (!), so I shan't judge the kids in retrospect.
But smaller festivals are totally different. I would defy you to go to (a good) ATP, or even better, End Of The Road festival, and not have a good time... unless of course you'd already decided you were going to have a bad time out of principle... in which case, you're a wally.
Festivals are populated by 98% obnoxious idiots who say things like "I like to traahhh-vel...have you heard of Laos? EXAAAHHHCTLLAAYYY" (Overheard at Outlook 2010)
ReplyDeleteThe other 2% are people who went for the music and immideately remembered why they "don't usually go to festivals".
I hate festivals. I don't know if that came accross. But then again I hate people who take hair straigteners camping, wear woven leather bangles for 6 months of the year and listen to Audioslave on the sly.
Kate - yes, I generalised. But I've been to big dumb festivals and little boutique ones, day and camping, and never enjoyed one - without by any means seeking to validate my preconceptions. I haven't been to ATP or End of the Road, but I can't imagine wanting to take a three-figure risk on either contradicting my experiences to date. Music needs a roof over its head, as do I.
ReplyDeleteKatie - *high fives*