Staggering amounts of human filth, unthinkable debauchery, stifling crowdedness, chaos at every turn, $6.50 for a bottle of water...yeah, huge music festivals are awesome, and none in America more so than the Bonnaroo and Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festivals.
Last week, the initial line-ups for the two biggest American music festivals were made official, and again the best musicians from loads of genres and different nationalities will be taking stages on both coasts to celebrate art, creativity and the fact that summer is really hot.
For the fifth June in a row, a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee will host Bonnaroo, three days of sweat, mud and shows by, all told, nearly 150 bands representing close to the entire musical spectrum.
Beginning in 2002, the inaugural festival was geared almost solely to the dread-locked and dirty hippie crowd, with a jam-band heavy lineup. Acts like Widespread Panic, Phish's Trey Anastasio and String Cheese Incident drew crowds of nearly 70,000; the show was so successful that promoters promised a return in 2003. 2003's Bonnaroo was still a distinctly jam-fueled event, with The Dead (not "Grateful," due to the death or retirement of several of the group's original members) and Widespread Panic headlining. However, younger, edgier acts just cutting their teeth on the jam circuit, particularly Atlanta's Sound Tribe Sector 9 and Louisville's My Morning Jacket, beefed up what could have been a homogeneously jammy roster.
Moreover, with the addition of a handful of non-jam-bands, including live hip-hoppers The Roots, post-rock artistes Tortoise and cultish freak shows The Polyphonic Spree, the festival began burgeoning from a "stupid hippie jam-band festival" to a legitimate music event.
2004 and 2005 continued that transformation, pairing the earthy sounds of Yonder Mountain String Band, Dave Matthews and O.A.R. with the sullied indie rock of bands like Yo La Tengo and Modest Mouse, the urban snarl of hip-hoppers like The Perceptionists and Saul Williams, and the teary introspection of singer/songwriters like Damien Rice and Joanna Newsom. Though the more recent festivals were still headlined by quintessential jam-bands, a wider palate of supporting acts attracted crowds of nearly 100,000 (well, that and the drugs).
The Tent Commandments
2006's may be the least jammy Bonnaroo lineup yet. Though former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh (and Friends) headline the first day, debatably-jam rockers Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers headline the second, and alternative, progressive, utter non-jam-band Radiohead headlines the third. The Oxford band closes out Bonnaroo on June 18th, their only U.S. festival date this summer; they should ensure that, for once, almost everyone stays for the last night.
In addition to Radiohead, 2006's Bonnaroo, which rages from June 16th-18th, features other prominent, well-shaven, non-tie-dyed acts. Musical chameleon Beck, this year's biggest indie breakout band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, emo rappers Atmosphere and Boston cabaret punks The Dresden Dolls are only a few of the critically credible musicians taking over the stages and tents of this year's Bonnaroo. Bonnaroo's five stages, whose names (What Stage, Which Stage, This Tent, That Tent and The Other Tent) are clearly designed to confuse drug-addled concertgoers, are on the outskirts of the festival's epicenter, Centeroo. A dizzying array of various stimuli, including, among many other things, a movie tent, an arcade and a silent disco, where people wear headsets and dance savagely to music that no one else can hear, Centeroo is where you will most likely see some wayward concertgoer naked in a puddle of mud or dancing around a candle he or she has placed on the ground, also naked. It is the epitome of the decadence, madness and abandon with which live jam-music has become synonymous, and no Bonnaroo experience would be complete without it.
However, with festival promoters eschewing the jam-heavy lineups of old for a more diverse musical menu, they have shed some of the more colorful characters who tend to follow bands like 2002's Karl Denson's Tiny Universe or 2003's Medeski, Martin, and Wood. Moreover, with the mainstreaming of the event and amidst community complaints, Bonnaroo has increased its police presence, again weeding out some of the wonkier, more essential fanbase.
Put me in, Coachella
On April 29th and 30th, six weeks earlier and about 2,000 miles away, a different crowd will be massing on the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California for the seventh Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and the fifth consecutive since adopting its current two-day format.
Debuting in 1999 with approximately 40 alternative and electronica acts and around 15,000 fans, Coachella has blossomed into one of the world's largest musical events. Last year's installment featured more than double the bands of 1999, five stages and tents and a sold-out audience of 100,000.
The list of Coachella alums reads like a scenester's blog: Pavement (1999), Blonde Redhead (2001), Bj?¶rk, (2002), the White Stripes (2003), the Rapture (2004), M.I.A. (2005), etc. Name a band that people with messenger bags like, and they have played at Coachella. Loyalists of artists like these are Coachella's core constituency: hipster-types who don't really get out much, but when they do, they go to shows and stand in the back with a beer, nodding approvingly but solemnly. They tend to wear black, and they always wear pants and sneakers, and these also tend to be black.
Given that much of the festival's fanbase is not accustomed to spending time out of doors, that their standard apparel attracts sunlight and that Indio, California is just a smidge south of the Mojave Desert, it is a wonder that there are still living Coachella ticket holders. Temperatures at the crowded, largely un-shaded, desert festival grounds regularly hover around or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and with thronging crowds of 100,000 thirsty people, water and breeze can be scarce.
Though it is perhaps best known for its laundry list of Pitchforkmedia.com darlings, Coachella also has a legacy of featuring cutting edge hip-hop artists. Some of the biggest names in underground rap, like pre-drama bug Mos Def, Sage Francis, Aesop Rock, MF Doom and Dizzee Rascal have performed in Coachella's many tents since 1999.
So too have the world's absolute finest and most famous DJs. Trance gladiators like Holland's Tiesto and Armin Van Buuren, house legends Basement Jaxx and electronic banger-makers The Chemical Brothers are a few of the globally recognizable names that have rocked the DJ tents of Coachella over the years.
Like Bonnaroo, the diverse sounds of the artists at Coachella unite music fans of different backgrounds and interests. In 2005, for example, while waiting for glittering electro-pop act M83, the aforementioned scenester might have stood side-by-side in a tent with a devout hip-hop fan nodding his head to the barbed tongue of fem-cee Jean Grae. Its ability to bring together the elitist tastes of all kinds of music fans is one of Coachella's best features. Unlike Bonnaroo, though, 2006's initial Coachella lineup indicates that this year in Indio will be more of the same.
Back in black from head to toe
So far, Coachella seems to be continuing its tradition of blending indie and alternative rock with notable hip-hop and world-renown techno. Again, experimental quartet Animal Collective, Icelandic ambient rockers Sigur R??s, young British post-punks Art Brut and Bloc Party, and brazen punk trio Sleater-Kinney are but a small sampling of the critically acclaimed indie/alternative rock options for this year's Coachella.
The list of hip-hop performers is decidedly less impressive, but should delight nonetheless. Chicagoan Common is the biggest name, followed in stature by goofy "Hasidic Jewish reggae rapper" Matisyahu, but in ability by the duo of Def Jux rapper Murs and Little Brother beat-smith 9th Wonder. The Coachella alums will perform tracks from 2004's "Murs 3:16 9th Edition" and hopefully from their as-of-yet-unofficial follow-up, reportedly due out in April.
But while the hip-hop artists have been better in Coachellas past, the techno has not. British DJ's Paul Oakenfold and Carl Cox and French duo Daft Punk, making their first US appearance in six years, headline the tents, but the biggest name is Massive Attack. Supporting the release of greatest hits compilation "Collected," the Bristol collective largely credited with popularizing trip-hop reunites with vocalist Tricky for the first time since 1994 for the penultimate performance of the festival.
And while the non-music entertainment at Coachella is less ambitious and less amusing than at Bonnaroo, were you to somehow end up without a band to watch, you could just meander around the festival grounds glancing at the art displays. If he wasn't standing in the back of shows and nodding, you might find our hipster friend looking at progressive and contemporary art, and again, Coachella provides a suitable environment. The "Arts" part of the phrase "Coachella Music and Arts Festival" refers to the many displays of huge contemporary art pieces scattered around Polo Empire Field. Artists simply submit photos of their pieces through Coachella's website to a committee that says yay or nay. Also, independent and often strangely avant-garde films screen in Coachella's version of Bonnaroo's New Line Cinema Movie Tent. It is not a silent disco, but it's aesthetic.
Still, while on paper Coachella looks like a music lover's trip to Valhalla, whether it will work in practice is something else entirely. For one thing, while nearly all of these bands are great, are they suited to play a boiling hot show in the middle of the day? Does Sigur R??s sound good if not in a dark, close room or your headphones? Will sweaty, dying audience members want to dance to the rollicks of Franz Ferdinand or of The Go! Team if they can hardly stand up? Is listening to Cat Power's down tempo vocals something you want to do at a bustling, dynamic festival?
Whether the music of Coachella's artists can make the transition to the sweltering stages of the festival, and whether Bonnaroo can continue to mainstream itself while keeping its bent appeal are questions only answerable with a ticket, and while that will cost some serious coin (the early-bird special for Bonnaroo is $169.50, and the flat rate for a two-day pass to Coachella is $165), you get what you pay for. These are two extravagant ordeals, the grandeur of which cannot be understood unless seen firsthand. More than that, the Bonnaroo and Coachella Music and Arts Festivals are quickly becoming cultural institutions, both in as musical events and as national pastimes for Americans aged 17-30. But then again, it's really damn hot there.
