Music Festivals: The Tapas of Concert Going

Festivals are to the "concert going" experience as tapas restaurants are to the "dining out" experience. Only way worse.

In both instances, you get to enjoy a range of options in bite-sized increments. Sometimes, your favourite performer will hit the stage and you'll rue the fact that you're 35,000 corpses deep in the crowd. At other times, the focaccia will be dry. And for both, you often want to hit the Wendy's drive-thru afterwords since you're likely still somewhat hungry.

One could argue that this model works far better for dining than it does for concert going. It's less commitment, more intimate, the washrooms are (typically) better and there is just more personal space overall. Music festivals seem better in theory than in practice and while they inevitably produce countless moments that are primordially badass, the effort and intestinal fortitude to be upfront at one of these events is considerable. And really, there is a small degree of likelihood that you are going to get a prime set from your favourite outfit. In lieu, you'll get something bookended by sound and time constraints, dwarfed on a massive stage and flanked by a sea of shirtless dopes with Affliction t-shirts rakishly tucked into their board shorts.

Plus you might get squished.

Music festival do have merit if you are going primarily for a social experience with friends in a "Hey, it's summertime! Let's do something summer-y"-type fashion. Otherwise, they can be painful.

(End mini-rant)

Saw this amusing Jpeg on Facebook this week.

Amusing and completely accurate--a true template of the typical composition of a North American music festival. Using this as a model, here are two hypothetical festivals (one all Canadian acts, one not so much) that could conceivably take place sometime, somewhere in 2012.

BIG ROCK SHOW 2012
Foo Fighters * Beastie Boys
Ray LaMontagne * Rick Ross * Ween * My Morning Jacket
Gov't Mule * Leftover Salmon * Galaxie 500 (BTW why haven't these guys reunited yet?!?) * Kele Okereke * Mogwai * Diane Birch * The Shaolin Afronauts * Washed Out * Boy Least Likely To

CANADIAN BIG ROCK SHOW 2012
The Arcade Fire * Rush
City and Colour * Kardinal Offishall * Sloan * The Sheepdogs
Matt Anderson * Blackie and the Rodeo Kings * Eric's Trip * Edwin and the Pressure * The Weeknd * Lights * Iya Ire * Socalled * Feist