Music lovers will at all times yearn to retreat to an open discipline with their favourite band – and 100,000 different folks. However how did the trendy music pageant come to be? Even a long time later, essentially the most mythic pageant stays Woodstock, that three-day August 1969 celebration of peace, love, music, and dust. Not solely does it stay essentially the most well-known pageant of all time, however it could even be the very best documented. By the spring of 1970, everybody who’d missed Woodstock might get a vicarious thrill from a three-hour film and three-LP soundtrack, each epics for his or her time.
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The mythology of Woodstock
Woodstock wasn’t by any means the one large pageant of its time, nevertheless it stays the touchstone. The mythology holds that Woodstock modified lives and remodeled the world, and what promoter wouldn’t wish to declare that? Occasions equivalent to the large California Jam in April 1974 aimed to outdo Woodstock for cultural influence, or at the least to make more cash (and, within the latter case, simply succeeded).
And Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s “US” Festivals of 1982-83 aimed to outline their technology the best way Woodstock had, pointing the best way to a utopian high-tech future (the fest’s title was meant to sign an finish to the “me” technology). Whether or not they managed that is extremely debatable, however at the least The Police and Speaking Heads performed nice units.
The early 90s introduced a resurgence of nice bands at membership stage and a brand new tradition round MTV, making the previous days of crowding right into a discipline seem like previous hat. However simply when it appeared just like the age of the pageant could be winding down, alongside got here Woodstock… once more.
Woodstock for the MTV technology
Co-produced by Michael Lang, who’d helmed the unique pageant, Woodstock ’94 was in some methods a throwback to the unique. Joe Cocker even received to open the primary day along with his Woodstock ’69 anthem, a canopy of The Beatles’ ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’. Held 15 miles away, in Saugerties, New York, the ’94 pageant was really nearer to the city of Woodstock than the unique (which passed off at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, hour’s drive away). As soon as once more, Woodstock turned a free pageant by mistake, because the overflow crowd found out how simple it was to leap the fences. Likewise, there was loads of bare frolicking within the grass (which the pay-per-view TV cameras had been solely too glad to catch), adopted by a rainstorm and dust dancing. As David Crosby quipped onstage in ’94 earlier than taking part in one among Crosby, Stills & Nash’s late 60s anthems, “It’s like ‘Déjà Vu’ all over again.”
Whereas Woodstock ’69 was spiritually aligned with the anti-war motion, Woodstock ’94 formally partnered with Greenpeace and recognized company greed because the period’s nice injustice. Greenpeace arrange an “Eco-Village” on the pageant, demonstrating the potential of photo voltaic heating and recycling. Nevertheless it additionally did one thing gutsier by pointing fingers straight at company offenders. In press releases earlier than the fest, Greenpeace took intention at Time journal for utilizing polluting paper mills and even scolded the pageant’s personal sponsor, Pepsi, accusing them of sending plastic bottles to Asian landfills moderately than recycling them, as the corporate claimed. This type of activism could be integrated into Lollapalooza and different fests to return. It was partly a nod to Woodstock’s countercultural roots, nevertheless it additionally confirmed the affect of modern-day stars equivalent to U2, Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M., who had been all giving foyer area and onstage shout-outs to progressive organizations at their reveals.
Woodstock ’94 additionally confirmed how a lot crowd expectations had modified. Alcohol had largely changed that infamous brown acid because the drug of alternative. The viewers (estimated at 350,000) was now not content material to know there was a stage on the market someplace. They at the least wished a combating likelihood to see and listen to the bands. Woodstock ’94 doubled these possibilities by having two levels, which minimized the lengthy delays between acts, and outside amplification had come a great distance since 1969. And no extra hamburgers from these native distributors throughout the road, followers got here with bank cards to spend on higher-priced meals and bottled water (although the place these playing cards went through the bare mud dances is anyone’s guess).
Cynics on the time complained that Woodstock ’94 could be a mere money in, or that the crowds would get uncontrolled. However that largely didn’t occur – at the least, not till they raised Woodstock yet another time in 1999. In the meanwhile, peace and love nonetheless ran the day and the 2 generations of concertgoers appeared high-quality with taking in one another’s music – Bob Dylan and Site visitors for the child boomers, Metallica and 9 Inch Nails for Gen Xers, Peter Gabriel and Aerosmith for everyone. The breakout stars of the fest had been, nonetheless, Inexperienced Day, who performed within the wake of a rainstorm and turned their set right into a mud-throwing extravaganza; this scene was repeated at Inexperienced Day reveals for years afterward.
The primary Lollapalooza
In the meantime, one other pageant was making a play to turn out to be a brand new technology’s Woodstock. By no means a person recognized for understatement, Jane’s Habit frontman Perry Farrell based Lollapalooza to present his band a correct send-off; the primary Lollapalooza, in 1991, doubled because the farewell tour for the band (till their reunion six years later). That first line-up introduced collectively bands that had impressed Jane’s Habit, alongside bands they’d toured with and bands they simply favored: 9 Inch Nails (who weren’t superstars but, however quick getting there), Ice-T (debuting his infamous metallic band, Physique Depend), Residing Color, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Violent Femmes and extra.
Whereas Lollapalooza turned synonymous with “alternative” tradition within the 90s, the definition was inclusive. There was at all times a metallic band, a rap act, and normally a trailblazing punk act (together with Ramones, who delayed their break-up for a number of months so they may do Lollapalooza in 1996). You in all probability couldn’t hear George Clinton on mid-90s different radio, which was nonetheless shamefully skinny on black artists – however you may see him and the P-Funk crew at Lollapalooza in 1994, sharing the identical invoice along with his religious heirs Beastie Boys. Lollapalooza even had its personal dramas and intrigues – lots of them involving Courtney Love, who performed with Gap throughout her wildest days in 1995. Love’s misadventures on that tour included a bodily altercation with Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna (who later pressed costs), verbal squabbles with headliners Sonic Youth, and fairly a number of loose-cannon performances. The sudden departure of a troubled Sinead O’Connor halfway by means of the tour additionally made the ’95 Lollapalooza essentially the most dramatic one.
However Lollapalooza wasn’t simply in regards to the music: Farrell was sharp sufficient to acknowledge a sure edgy Technology X aesthetic, and labored out learn how to each replicate and market towards it. Lollapalooza was one of many first locations the place concertgoers found virtual-reality video games, and we will solely guess what number of future tech leaders that impressed. The producers additionally had progressive social causes arrange with tables at each present, and a smaller stage the place native indie bands received their first breaks. And few can neglect the acute antics of the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, which blew your thoughts, grossed you out – or each. After a number of on-and-off years, Lollapalooza stays a profitable pageant, occurring in Chicago and internationally. However through the 90s it was a full-blown ceremony of passage.
Jam band nation
For some audiences, the 90s weren’t about different tradition; they had been extra about jamming. Followers of Grateful Useless had been already used to the thought of a live performance as neighborhood expertise: for Deadheads the parking-lot events turned as important to the occasion because the band’s efficiency. The Useless world would by no means be the identical after Jerry Garcia’s dying in 1995, however that didn’t imply the get together was over. By summer time of ’96, the stays of the Useless (quickly rechristened The Different Ones) had been again on the highway with the Furthur Competition, named for a misspelled signal on Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters’ legendary hippie bus. Regardless of some post-Garcia rising pains, Furthur served discover that the Useless’s music, and the parking-lot gatherings, would go on.
The Vermont band Phish, the trendy band of alternative for a lot of Deadheads, went high-concept with its string of festivals, normally held on unique terrain equivalent to Air Power bases and Native American reservations. As an alternative of multi-band payments they provided way more Phish, with a number of units over the course of a weekend, and sufficient environmental happenings – air reveals, large artwork installations, circus acts – to rework the ambiance. Phish outdid themselves with their millennial pageant, held in Florida and often known as Large Cypress. Their turn-of-the-calendar set was the longest one the band (and presumably any rock band) ever performed: seven and a half hours, beginning simply earlier than midnight – and it was solely one among 5 units they performed over that weekend.
The jam band nation additionally had its personal touring pageant. Based by Blues Traveler in response to Lollapalooza, the HORDE (Horizons Of Rock Growing In every single place) tour debuted one 12 months later, in 1992, and have become an alternative choice to the choice. A lot of the bands related to the jam motion performed through the seven HORDE excursions, however that lined numerous floor – from free-flowing improvisers the likes of Phish and Widespread Panic to historically styled rockers Melissa Etheridge and The Black Crowes. When it comes to defining HORDE’s music, all bets had been off by 1997, when the line-up included Beck and Neil Younger, two wildly idiosyncratic artists who slot in in all places and nowhere.
The mid-90s additionally noticed the delivery of the Warped Tour (now formally the Vans Warped Tour), a punk establishment to today. Warped discovered its area of interest by presenting punk and ska bands – upstarts and veterans alike – in a comparatively laidback, family-friendly setting. After 22 years, it’s the longest-running touring fest there may be, and loads of younger punks who dragged their mother and father to Warped within the 90s are bringing their very own children now.
Lilith Truthful
If the above line-ups appear a bit of testosterone-heavy, there was an antidote for that too. Feeling that ladies had been marginalized in music for too lengthy, Canadian songwriter Sarah McLachlan created the Lilith Truthful in 1997. The three-year touring fest (revived briefly in 2010) used the Lollapalooza mannequin of a number of levels, rotating line-ups and all-day occasions, drawing completely from feminine artists and female-fronted bands (lots of whom had been making large business waves on the time, equivalent to Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman and Indigo Ladies). McLachlan’s instincts tilted towards gentler singer-songwriters, which drew some complaints from feminine punk bands (particularly the band L7, which flew a banner studying “Bored? Tired? Try L7” over a Lilith present in Pasadena). That didn’t maintain Lilith from turning into one of many top-grossing US excursions throughout its 1997-99 run, and McLachlan did make a degree of pulling in a number of edgier artists, equivalent to Liz Phair, The Pretenders, and Luscious Jackson, for later editions.
The notorious Woodstock ’99
Woodstock was again yet another time in 1999 – however, sadly, this time it was extra like The Rolling Stones’ notorious Altamont present of 30 years earlier. As soon as once more the line-up was wildly eclectic, however the heavier acts – Korn, Bush, Limp Bizkit, Metallica, and Megadeth – had been within the majority. And this time, the previous hippie magic didn’t work. Confronted with overcrowding, damaged lavatory fixtures, and temperatures hovering above 100 levels Fahrenheit, the group took their anger out on the services – and on one another. There was rioting, one dying from heatstroke, and at the least two reported circumstances of sexual assault. To be honest, the violence in all probability concerned just some hundred of the 400,000 individuals who attended – however then, a number of hundred folks can do numerous injury. Among the many casualties had been Woodstock itself, which by no means returned for an encore; and the fame of Limp Bizkit, whose music ‘Break Stuff’ was performed at precisely the incorrect time.
Bonnaroo, Coachella, and the trendy pageant
As the brand new millennium dawned, Bonnaroo and Coachella got here ahead because the fests that reigned supreme. The roots of Bonnaroo are in New Orleans, the place the Superfly manufacturing workforce (which began Bonnaroo) would promote late-night, jam-heavy reveals as an adjunct to the town’s annual Jazz & Heritage Competition. Although Bonnaroo takes place in a rambling park area in Tennessee, the New Orleans inspiration ran deep when the pageant started in 2002. The early line-ups had been heavy on Crescent Metropolis heroes and Jazz Fest favorites, and even the pageant’s title got here from a beloved Dr. John album, Desitively Bonnaroo, which is Physician-speak for one thing actually nice.
The crowds grew bigger (as much as 100,000) because the headliners received greater, however Bonnaroo managed to keep up an environment of laidback good vibes, the place you may splash on a waterslide or play hacky-sack between units. The vibe prevailed even when the headliners had been far outdoors the hippie/jam realm (Metallica and 9 Inch Nails in 2008 and 2009, respectively). Eyebrows had been raised in 2015 when the Reside Nation conglomerate acquired a controlling stake in Bonnaroo, and the headliners became mainstream superstars the likes of U2 and Crimson Scorching Chili Peppers. However look additional down the line-up and also you’ll discover the Preservation Corridor Jazz Band and the Louisiana Cajun rock band Candy Crude, nonetheless a nod to the pageant’s roots.
The stunning origins of Coachella
However Coachella is now the largest and splashiest US pageant, routinely drawing a capability crowd of 90,000 – and, for a lot of followers, is the musical peak of the 12 months. Satirically sufficient, the pageant was not directly began by Pearl Jam, who at all times had a combined relationship with enormous occasions and rock stardom. Throughout their early 90s feud with Ticketmaster, the band opened up the Empire Polo Membership in Indio, California, in its place live performance area. This labored so effectively that Coachella made its debut in October 1999 – simply three months after Woodstock ’99, for which it aimed to be a extra peaceable, better-run antidote (whereas that includes one of many identical headliners, Rage Towards The Machine). Through the years, Coachella has managed the trick of being mainstream and cutting-edge without delay, with massively common headliners (this 12 months it was Girl Gaga, Radiohead, and Kendrick Lamar) alongside late-night raves and scorching UK and European acts.
In 2016, Coachella’s producers used the identical area for Desert Journey, which aimed to be the last word child boomer pageant, and just about succeeded: When you’ve gotten a Beatle, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan on the identical weekend, you’ve received the demographic represented. Dubbed “Oldchella” by skeptics, Desert Journey wound up providing a number of small bits of musical historical past: Neil Younger jamming with Paul McCartney, Dylan dusting off some 60s numbers he’d lengthy deserted, and the Stones taking part in The Beatles’ “Come Together” for the primary time.
It doesn’t matter what pageant you may attend, nonetheless, there’s at all times an opportunity that one thing simply as particular may occur. Such is the facility of a well-run, musically numerous pageant. When completed proper, they’re an unbelievable factor to behold.
