The 5 Best Things About Festivals

Spring has sprung in Michigan, and while we in the Midwest can never be too sure when we’re going to get a freak hailstorm or other one of nature’s bitch-slaps, most of us are breathing that deep sigh of relief that means that summer is finally on its way.


For me personally, the agitated energy built up over the course of a long, gray winter is morphing from restlessness into giddy excitement as my favorite time of year—festival season—bears down on us. With the rise of McFestivals like Bonnaroo, attendance at music festivals has skyrocketed in the past few years (Coachella sold out in a record-breaking three days this year) and more and more music fans representing all tastes and age groups are coming out to enjoy weekends full of nothing but sunshine, friends, and music.

So, basically, this month, all I have to say is May, schmay. Bring on the summertime. Until then: let’s get stoked.

5.) The drive.

You’ve finally crossed the seemingly innumerable days until today off your calendar, and now, it’s time to leave. The van is packed with a weekend’s worth of supplies (read: beer and sunscreen. Mostly beer) and your best friends are fighting over shotgun.

Is there a better moment than this? Magically, yes; the drive is only the first of many excruciatingly blissful moments that you are about to experience, but there is nothing quite like the anticipation of loading up the car and setting out on those first few miles of highway standing between you and three days of pure, unadulterated happiness. And while your mind might be on nothing but the festival itself, it’s true what they say: it really is the journey, not the destination. And if you’ve never been cruising down the freeway, watching the sun set over a sea of cornfields, knowing that soon you’ll be seeing all the bands you’ve been blasting full-volume for the whole drive, you’re yet to learn that there really is only one kind of road trip: a festie road trip.

4.) The “vibe.”

The word utopia is a Latin joke on the English-speaking world. My fellow nerds know what I’m talking about: the word ‘utopia,’ meaning a perfect society, actually translates from Latin to a word meaning “nowhere,” which is to say, someone seems to think that the perfect society can not exist.

Wrong. With an economy of perfectly-balanced microcapitalism, a culture based on shared learning experiences and support of the arts, and an abounding spirit of sharing, community, and helping one’s fellow (wo)man, festivalgoers comprise the most perfect nation conceivable. This atmosphere of support and camaraderie creates an almost-palpable “vibe” of oneness that one can really get used to; it is absolutely possible to experience “culture shock” upon re-entering the “real” world. You might say that festivals are the world that the world should strive to be.

3.) Stuff falling on you at shows.

It’s Saturday Night at the festival and the whole field is rockin’; you’ve got your scummy little hands in the air like you just don’t care. And over the course of a night, you find yourself bestowed with a bevy of new gear: volleyballs, glowsticks, blow-up dolls, stuffed animals, dance toys, crowdsurfers… you name it. At late-night shows, it is not at all uncommon for random objects to come your way when you least expect it. And while festie etiquette stipulates that you should probably keep it moving, it’s alright to sneak yourself a little souvenir once in awhile.

Also, the festival world is enjoying yet another wonder of the social networking world: mass organizations of glowstick wars, which are, if you’ve never experienced one, exactly how they sound… fun to participate in; more fun to watch… Just watch your head.

2.) Hearing the song you came to hear.

For me, it’s Umphrey’s McGee’s “Gulf Stream,” whose refrain, to me, sums up everything beautiful about a festival: “All my friends are here now/ this is what we came to do.”

Enough said.

1.) Flying your freak flag.

The increasing popularity of festivals is noticeably shaping counterculture as a whole: the festie scene in recent years has seen an unlikely melding of two seemingly opposing groups: jam band-following hippies, and electronica-loving ravers. While, in 90s, most kids would probably never check out Phish and Paul Oakenfold in the same summer, festival kids nowadays are blurring the “scene”-based lines that sometimes dictate live music culture.

Perhaps it’s that we weirdoes are feeling more and more out-of-place with every season of Jersey Shore and the various barrages of quarreling housewives, but the safe “bubble” of a festival provides the perfect environment for everyone to be as weird as possible… and love it. A festival is one of the few places where the weirdest guy at the show is the coolest guy at a show. Weird clothes? No worries. No clothes? No problem! Feathers in your hair: power to you. Paint on your face; goddess circlet; ubiquitous hula-hoop? Done; done; and done.

So basically, the way things are shaping up, 2011 could be the next Summer of Love. And we in the festival world have one thing to say: hell yeah.



(run in the May issue of West Michigan Noise)