6/5/13
Everybody who goes to a music festival is basically a cow headed to the slaughter. The metaphor isn’t airtight, but hear me out.
Everything at a festival involves a long line to make it from A to B. Before, after, and during these lines everybody consumes large quantities of grass while yelling Woo! Across the road cows chew their cud and yell Moo every day of their life, there’s little difference between this livestock and festival folk.
If you’re familiar with cows up close, you know their eyes are typically spread apart and dilated. This mindless expression has been worn by concert-goers for decades. Fortunately cows have four stomachs to save themselves from the poisonous nature of mass grass, humans do not. Festival folk ingest all manner of poisons during a festival but the music is so loud they can’t hear their body’s cries for help.
This consumption is endless and in some cases it’s followed by some harmless procreation; cows do that too, it’s as hilarious as it is boisterous.
Then more lines to deal with, some people actually Moo in an attempt to express wit, others Woo, and graciously displaying a modicum of civility over cows, people use Honey Buckets to poo.
Cows aside, the rave tent brings about a whole other animal; this is when everybody becomes bees (or buggers if you’ve read Ender’s Game). Everybody crowds in a hive to worship one Queen Bee, the EDM DJ.
Carbon copy dancers move to an addictive rhythm that ripples along the crowd to create a large picture of servitude. The crowd begs during the buildup of the beat for the Queen Bee to finally drop it. Then the crowd explodes in ecstasy from an explosion of bass that wakes the likes of Mozart from centuries of slumber. Don’t worry though, ole’ Wolfgang will just roll over in bed and get cozy again.
Cynical judgments aside, festivals have a saving grace that is the reason people deal with all the manure. The moment you experience music that actually moves you.
It could be the whole set or maybe just one song when you get a glimpse of an artist being an artist, not just a rock star or a celebrity. The vehicle for your insight is the way their music sounds and feels in the moment. You can identify with it on any number of levels that strike a personal chord but somehow amongst a crowd of thousands, it’s as if they are singing for you.
You become elated and eventually realize that everyone around you is feeling the same thing. Ladies and gentlemen this is part of a festival when festival folk become human. Our minds utilize their scope for complexity to appreciate an art form that few can harness. It’s a beautiful thing.
After all the cuds and buzzing, you blink and the weekend is over. People drive back with the shakes until finally they have a religious experience via hot running water and go into a coma. Now comes the last step, when you wake up the next morning and realize your brain is no more than chicken-fried steak because you just put it up for the slaughter.
I myself went to Sasquatch for Memorial Day weekend and it’s taken me this long to articulate the experience because my mind is finally focusing on the present rather than returning to the Gorge every 30 seconds. Festivals are the pinnacle of fun but summits like that can only happen once a year.
If you still have no idea what happened at Sasquatch, Pete Merriman has a great recap here.
