The 8th installment of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is scheduled to take place June 11-14. Produced by Superfly Productions in association with A.C. Entertainment, the 4-day event will remain in the same venue in Manchester, TN. Tickets can be purchased for pre-sale from December 4- 31. General admission tickets will be available for 5 payments of $50 or you can buy VIP tickets for $1,349.50 (not including fees).
Launched in 1993, San Francisco's Noise Pop Music Festival has since turned itself into one of the West Coast's most popular musical events. The central focus is indie rock and pop, but it features comedy performances, film screenings, and art panels. In past years, the event has done quite a good job at encapsulating San Francisco's artistic nature, the arts being one of the city's most distinctive qualities. Read more »
The second of two shows at Chicago's Auditorium Theater was postponed until Monday, December 8 due to Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan's illness. Having also played two previous nights at the Chicago Theater up the street, Corgan's voice could allegedly not handle a fourth consecutive night of screaming to the masses. As part of their current tour, the band decided to stop in their hometown and do an extra few shows. In many of the major cities on their tour,
Smashing Pumpkins have done double-nighters in which the setlists are completely different. The band decided to give names to each performance in their traveling two-night event, the first show dubbed "Black Sunshine" and the second "White Crosses". Those who had tickets for both nights at the Auditorium Theater were a bit less disappointed at the postponement of White Crosses. The venue, where Corgan supposedly saw his second-ever concert, is a beautiful old opera house where events like this rarely occur and it's exactly the kind of place where you'd expect an overconfident band like this to play. Smashing Pumpkins, now with Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin as the only two remaining members, put on a show on Friday that left many confused as to how they should feel about the whole experience. Read more »
Just because it's winter, there's no reason that a rock festival can't take place. The third installment of Florida's Open Grass Festival is scheduled to take place on January 9-10, a bit earlier than it's been the past couple of years. In addition to the date change, the event has been moved south from Brant Park in Lake Worth to the Old School Square in Delray Beach. The reason for this change is that the new location is more accessible. It's easier for tourists to find and the Old School Square is located in dowtown Delray. The festival, therefore, will be in closer proximity to restaurants and the like, with much more locals and tourists passing through. Delray also seems to be a more culturally driven community, and the event will likely thrive better in a location where the music is more appreciated. This will hopefully surpass last year's attendance of 1,000 by a large margin.
Last year, a Canadian tour company conceived a festival as an insider networking event for hospitality and nightlife operators, but it proved so successful that it has revamped the event in its second year as a winter break playground for vacationing clubbers from the general public. The second BPM festival returns to Playa Del Carmen on the Mexican Caribbean coast for 10 days of non-stop partying with international electronica artists and DJs. Events take place daytimes on the beach and nighttimes in the resort's many nightclubs.
According to the festival, the lineup includes "Get Physical's two-headed beast M.A.N.D.Y., flying Dutchman Sander Kleinenberg, the "King of Space" Steve Lawler, getting weirder by the minute Lee Burridge, Crosstown Rebels head honcho Damian Lazarus, Spanish house heartthrob Pablo Ceballos [of Chus & Ceballos] and Toronto's rising star Sean Miller."
Sounds like a great winter break option for the beautiful people in the frosty north. Visit the festival website for detailed information.
Although displayed on the site's main page as running from November 14th-16th, the schedule indicates that a day appears to have been added at the beginning. So the event will supposedly start on Thursday the 13th, featuring additional performances by Perpetual Groove and The Motet. Other headliners include JJ Grey and Mofro, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, Yonder Mountain String Band, Soulive, The New Mastersounds, Lettuce, The Everyone Orchestra featuring Jon Fishman and Michael Kang, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Dr. Claw (another Ivan Neville outfit), and many more. Read more »
We exited my apartment in downtown Chicago last night and made our way toward the Barack Obama rally in Grant Park. As Hutchinson Field had long since reached its capacity, my friends and I went to the opposite end of the park, the better part of a mile from where Obama was to give his victory speech (the stage was set up where the main AT&T Stage was at Lollapalooza). After weaving our way through the rapidly expanding mass of Obama supporters (of which there were supposedly more than a million), we spent a few minutes joining the masses in cheering and jeering at the current poll numbers being broadcast on a Jumbotron. Read more »
As of today, organizers of the annual Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival are still searching for a place to hold the event for June 2009. After its first five years in Lawrence KS at Clinton State Park, the festival planned to move to a new site at Circle S Ranch in Jefferson County, 12 miles north of Lawrence, but the county commission yesterday rejected the festival's permit application to hold a festival on that site.
Festival promoter Brett Mosiman said alternative sites are under consideration. It's possible the festival could relocate outside the immediate area or even the state.
The Circle S Ranch alledgedly "lacks infrastructure to host thousands of cars and people", even though Wakarusa is far Read more »
Recently I was lucky enough to see one of my favorite bands, The Virgins, perform at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. The first time I saw them was a few months ago when I went to a show they headlined at Cafe Du Nord (also in SF). When I went to that show, I'd originally gone to see one of the supporting acts, a local band called LoveLikeFire, but ended up falling in love with the sexy, driving bass lines and guitar licks, nonchalant vocals, and brutally blunt lyrics of the bad boy Virgins.
The Virgins hail from New York and played at the nearby All Points West this year. The CW caught some of their performance on video if you’d like to see live festival footage: Read more »
I recently provided answers to some survey questions from a college student about the economics of the live music industry, which gave me a chance to write down some of my thoughts about the underlying appeal of festivals and the likely impacts of the economic downturn on the festival market. It struck me that some of those answers would be interesting to also post to the site. Comments are welcome.
What is it about festivals that intrigues you?I believe that as our lives become more isolated and mediated by technology, we are seeking out immersive experiences that connect us with "live" communities and give us a sense of participation in a technicolor, multi-sensory world. Festivals are uniquely suited to providing this kind of experience in a contained weekend-long break from our otherwise humdrum, cubicled existence. Read more »
All Tomorrow's Parties (ATP) announced its return to Kutsher's Country Club in Monticello, New York for the 2nd annual ATP New York festival. The event will be held September 11-13, 2009 (moved from Labor Day weekend as previously announced). Last year's festival, co-curated by My Bloody Valentine, was a critical and cultural success with rave reviews from media and fans. Expect more of the same greatness in 2009, with no-holds-barred programming both musically and otherwise. While they have yet to announce the co-curator of the event at this time, ATP has announced the first seven artists slated for the festival, including Animal Collective (above).
