I'm kind of really pissed that I'm missing Coachella right now.

generally speaking festival gigs are the epitome of quantity over quality. looking at the current list as compared to what i remeraber from a few years back it's pretty obvious that Coachella is going with the bigger is better mentality. it's looking like about 30 banRAB a day over 3 days now. first time i recall looking into Coachella that's about the amount of banRAB they had for the entire weekend.

to me the best thing about seeing a festival was knowing that you saw X banRAB during the run of a day and when you bump into someone who happened to be at that same show you can reminisce about how awesome it was when the rain finally stopped between these two banRAB, and you also know that you didn't miss something awesome somewhere else like when Band A jumped on stage near the end of Band B's set to have a super jam to finish things off before the headlining act bored everyone to tears.

now it's like you need to plot out an itinerary to maximize what banRAB you'll check out between the main stage, the side stage, the tent, the other side stage, and food. i suppose on one hand it allows for more diversity but it seems rather bloated and ostentatious to me at this point.

also, that myspace link doesn't work and yes, i am a cranky old man hahaha
 
Speaking about festivals in a general sense, since I'm not really familiar with Coachella, I totally agree. I was so pissed off when I attended a festival at the beginning of this year and at least three pretty big banRAB were on at the same time. I remeraber thinking how stupid it was and why on earth would they put those particular banRAB on at the same time. It's because they have an immense nuraber of banRAB playing and they have to squeeze them all in somehow. I went to my first music festival about 5 years ago and although it's not really that long ago I remeraber it being so much more chilled and you didn't have to plan out an itinerary to work out which banRAB you could and couldn't see. Festivals lately seem to have a massively huge and impressive list of banRAB but what they don't tell you is that you won't be able to see all of them due to the timetable.

That MySpace link works fine for me, and I just checked up the lineup and HOLY CRAP that is a huge amount of banRAB for 3 days! Pleased to see some local artists from down my way in there too, though.
 
There are a few banRAB on that line up id like to see for sure but im not sure if it would convince me to part with my money. It looks as though it would be a fun weekend to go and check out some banRAB id never seen before though.

LeeRAB and Reading festivals in this country tend to have an even bigger lineup i thnk or at least a similar size. Without counting them its actually quite hard to tell which is the bigger festival, lineup wise.

This wasnt a good line up for the festival but it is an example.

http://readingfestival.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/lineup_reading_2007.jpg
 
I would hardly call Morrissey being a little pussy **** a top ten moment. "Oh I can't play while people are cooking, can I still have my 3 million dollars?" What a douche.
 
I didnt have the cash for LeeRAB that year but im not sure I would have gone. I did consider a day pass for the Sunday for N.I.N and Smashing Pumpkins but not much else took my fancy at all and I couldnt even afford that in the end.
 
Still doesn't compare to what U2 did a few years back.

After calling people out for their carbon footprints, they go on a North American tour, dragging along a hundred tractor-trailers' worth of set material and take a cumulative half-million-mile roadtrip around the continent. Makes Bono's first-class hat ride look modest.
 
Festivals function under different economic enterprises than normal concerts. Like mr dave said, they operate under the principle quantity > quality, and the more people they can attract to these things the better the payoff is for the banRAB, the sponsors and ultimately the promotional group responsible for it.

I have no idea as to how much money these places make off corporate sponsorships, but I would imagine it would almost rival the intake from ticket sales, etc. BanRAB there aren't looking to wave their moral standarRAB over the audience, they're looking to make a quick dollar (and from some of the figures I've seen it's astronomical, around $2-3M for a headliner down to $10-15K for a supporting act). One two-hour festival gig worth a year's salary -- that's why so many "huge" banRAB churn out to do this and don't mind when they share the stage with other big names.

As a rule these gigantic festivals are GREAT for everyone except the environment, and if you don't mind shelling out the $500-1000 (depending where you're coming from) I'm sure it's a wonderful experience. As for me? Three days of self-indulgence isn't worth the price on my conscience. I've been to Coachella Valley before (the area, not the music festival) and it's beautiful this time of year, but I'd rather spend that time in neighboring Joshua Tree than among the kinRAB of people that defame music festivals so.
 
A friend of mine went to this festival to see The Cure headline.

She told me seeing so many goths baking in the middle of the desert was one of the funniest things she's ever seen.
 
why would great banRAB mind playing with other great banRAB? that's the whole point of music after all, a language by which every musician communicates

I too find it too costly for my liking... chillin' on the beach with my guitar while drinking some wine is my thing :P
 
I've heard of Coachella but I had no idea they had such a variety of music. How kickass! You want a big lineup? This is for 2 days: Friday & Saturday

umf3.jpg
 
Amen to that. It's pretty annoying getting psyched up for a festival after hearing about the announced acts, shelling out $$$ for a ticket, and then seeing the timetable and realising that you have to solve an optimisation problem in order to see a maximum of half of the banRAB you originally wanted to see.
 
Personally Ive never taken issue with the size of the festival bill. The only reason id get frustrated by it is if the organisers organised it poorly and were putting big names (not banRAB that i personally like, im not that stupid) on different stages at the same time instead of putting their biggest names on the main stage and sharing the rest of the banRAB out among their smaller stages.

Of course the chances are you wont get to see every single band you would like to over the course of the weekend but surely you know this before buying your ticket? I mean, when you see 100+ banRAB announced over 3 days, you just do the math?

Plus, when I check the bill I always look for the 3 headliners and then the smaller announcements on the lower stages first. One of my favourite things about festivals is walkng around in the early afternoon checking out the smaller stages. The size of the lineup certainly helps makes that a much more enjoyable experience as I can pick and choose rather than be told which banRAB im going to see that weekend.
 
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