well it's festival season once again... i haven't been to a New Year's Eve or Michigan or Columbus fest in years. never made it to Krazy Fest, won't be going to Monster or Hell fests either.

i don't think it is because i am jaded. really. i think it is more to do with having to wait til 1am on the Sunday night of Michigan fest to wait for Okara to play to 100 people after everyone had packed up and departed. i don't understand why people need to have 25 or 30 or 45 bands play in a three-day window, knowing very well that there will be logistical and scheduling problems which make everything run overtime and drag the event out into an ordeal. it's the same thing with local shows here in Ottawa - do you really need six bands to play to give people value for their $5 or $6? four bands in one night does rather nicely, and is still more bang for your buck than a $10 movie, but i digress...

or maybe it's due to the over commercialization of fests, with more distro tables and consumption than free exchange of information and ideas.

or maybe it's due to all the bands being totally derivative falling into category A - metalcore, category B - emo (in the most bastardized sense of the term) or category C - hotjawbreaker4... all lacking the sense of urgency and passion of the shotmakers and swing kids and constatine sankathis of the genesis of the hardcore fest.

or maybe it's because there are more photographers than band members and technical crew, circling the band/stage in a complete 360, cheapening the documentation of the event into a paparazzi scrum.

the only way i would go to a festival today is if Q and Not U was playing AND if it was a solid opportunity to see friends from around the continent. in that case i would spend 30 minutes watching Q and Not U and the other 71.5 hours combing thrift stores, searching out eithiopian restuarants and hanging with said friends outside of the venue.

at least the nomenclature of hellfest is truthful...

link of the day
hellfest

word of the day

prehension  -  n.  the act of grasping, physically or mentally.

right: "When it came to Calculus, Johnson had some prehension problems."
wrong: "Howdy Doody and Lambchop were puppets from the prehension era."
 

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