An Editorial Festivals Suck

An Editorial Festivals Suck

Festivals suck. Though that statement may seem harsh, it would seem the only tenable position anyone viewing our culture, and the rock and roll scene in particular, can hold at this time.

Festivals are a near-deadly phenomenon that has assumed near-deadly Frankenstein proportions; they’re a monster that has youth culture backed against the wall.

Everybody who has ever heard about a pop festival wants to go to one. And we could even deal with that, but one’s second festival is almost always blatant evidence of conspicuous consumption of the worst sort.

This isn’t to suggest that there’s anything wrong with having a good time or to malign giant gatherings of freeks. But there is something wrong with being part of a phenomenon that is touted as the high point, the ultimate product of our culture but in reality demonstrates our most '"devastating weaknesses--our gullibility, our shallowness, and our proclivity to be manipulated by mass merchandising moguls, indeed, by mass anything.

What do we do with festivals? Are we locked in or are they locked out? Knock yourself out, kill yourself even, it’s a festival and as Iggy Stooge once put it, we’re all determined to have a real cool time tonight.

With all the frustrated energy that our culture represents, we ought to be able to find real ways in which to channel it, rather than paying $15 for the privilege of doing what we should be able to do every day anyway and cavorting for a bunch of tv addicts.

Not only are festivals fucked because of the cultural implications (the Shriners do more constructive things) but they’re also fucking up rock and roll both aesthetically and economically.

It should be obvious at this point that there’s a big difference between the music festivals of the past (of course, there’s still Newport, Ann Arbor Blues, Mariposa and the like) and temporary bivouacs that pass for today’s festivals. The music is obviously not the attraction, it’s obviously just one of the many accoutrements that entrepeneurs so gratuitously provide for our pleasure.

The effect is near catastrophic; the traditional relationship between audience and artist, which in rock and roll tied the two together, has been undermined and we’ve reached the point where any Alvin Lee can excite any tasteless mass of teenagers. (Not that it’s their fault that they don’t have any taste, because that’s all they’ve ever been presented with.) And that’s not to take away from the genuine thrill of seeing a truly dynamic performance, and being part of a unified mass of hundreds of people

digging the same thing at the same time; that is a genuine thrill and we’re not jaded enough to deny it.

What this amounts to is absolutely no quality control in rock and roll; the next stage just might be planned obsolescence and all the other little consumeristic devices that tie us to what we don’t want to be tied to. A festival like Gooselake is a finely tuned machine, well-oiled and organized in the same way that an army is well-oiled and organized. No expense was spared to make the fences high enough, the shit-holes sufficient and for just enough promotion to make sure 200,000 kids felt obligated to be there.

Coupled with the cultural stagnation and aesthetic devastation that has reduced rock and roll to the least common denominator (in the sense of Ed Sullivan showbiz, not the fact that it is relatable to so many of us) is the economic debacle that festivals have perpetrated on the very framework of the rest of rock, i.e. the good parts. The gargantuan amounts of money represented by a festival are smothering the rest of rock and roll. The most outstanding symptom is the death of clubs and even ballrooms.

The vast number of teen clubs around the country that have historically been the spawning ground for bands and the focal point of local communities have hit the dirt in droves because the kids save their money for the festivals and the festivals have changed the price structure of bands so radically. At this point, a small club can hardly afford a popular act.

If this continues, there’ll be no place left for bands and kids to have the real rock and roll experience. (And the solution to the problem, just as the solution to so many of the problems, is to gather together in locals, not in centralized areas, not massively). Bands need a place to grow and develop and we. need a place to learn from each other in a more one to one relationship.

Any asshole with 500 acres can throw a pop festival but only we can develop truly alternative cultural imperatives. To do that we have to have roots; our culture doesn’t just meet on weekends.

Because of all this, there is really only one alternative; festivals have to center around people not around rock and roll. The time is past when we can be locked into a field somewhere and pay for the privilege. Our gatherings need to go back to the original concept of the Be-Ins, as Toby Mamis suggests in this issue and become tribal gatherings. We need to gather our energies around each other. It’s really the only way to save our music and our culture.

That’s the only way to prevent the disappointment of Powder Ridge, the paranoia induced cancellation of Eagle Rock, the concentration camp consciousness of Gooselake. And the music can then be presented righteously, in its proper context, like it was at the Blues Festival.

It’s almost 1971.

THE EDITORS