The Decline And Fall Of The Festival Empire...

Seems music festivals in the US are going the same way as their British counterparts according to Ms Lipton of the Harvard Crimson: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=524103&disqus_reply=2503736#dsq-alerts.

So what happens next?

Well, many of the small festivals that have sprung up over the past few years, in what seems like a reaction to the large corporation dominated events, are going to have a tough time next year. The sheer amount of these small festivals has meant that they aren't selling out, which has led to several of these festivals being cancelled, Hampshire's Blissfields and Somerset's Sunrise being two of note.

This trend can't be blamed solely on a saturation of the market however. Severe weather conditions, the 'credit crunch', to give it it's snappy title, and general organisational disasters have also been cited as reasons for the sudden wave of cancellations and postponements this year.

I don't know firsthand how 'corporate' these festivals have bocome in America, but watching footage from the AT&T sponsored Bonnaroo this year and the same company's blatant censoring of anti-establishment lyrics sung by Eddie Vedder last year, I have to admit that the future doesn't look too bright.

Back home things don't seem quite so bad. Reading this year was excellent, with a re-united Rage and a re-energised Metallica bookending the headline spots over a weekend of complete wreckage and mayhem. A nice surprise this year was the absence of a sponsor. Piss strength 'session beer' Carling has sponsored the Reading and Leeds festivals since recent memory, and a lack of corporate direction has only allowed organser Mitch Benn put on undoubtedly the best festival of the year.

Would Zack De La Rocha's 10 minute political rant have been televised if they'd played 'Reading Festival, Brought to you by British Petroleum'? Fuck that, they wouldn't have even been invited. We'd see 'safe' headliners like Scouting For Girls, The Kooks, or uh...The Killers... Wait... Hang on... they did get the sound right for The Killers...

Still, if does all go tits up, the festival industry as a whole implodes and even Glastonbury is cancelled, take a trip to a cold, wet field in the middle of Salisbury plain next midsummers night, and experience what I consider the original and best event in the hippie calendar, Stonehenge.

Solstice Solace...

30,000 hippies, druids, old school acid heads, 20-something students and other curious wierdos from all walks of life and nationalities descended upon the 5,000 year old stone circle during the night. Their reasons for seeing out the solstice in the middle of the Salisbury Plains one cold, wet midsummers morning in June varied as much as their haircuts, political stances and drug consumptions.

You can hark on all you like about millennia long tradition and the inherent spirituality of the place. I won't argue with you for an instant. However, any eastern philosopher will tell you one does not find the buddha at the top of the mountain, you bring it with you. In this case along with three litres of scrumpy, a big bag of grass, a hip flask of cheap whiskey, and 5 grams of the best mexican red cap mushrooms it's possible to find in the suburbs of Bournemouth.

Ok, you may not find anything approaching enlightenment, but I guarantee it'll be one hell of a party...

And it was.

Doubts surrounding the weather conditions proved well founded as the light drizzle continued to bathe the monument in a refreshing shower for the duration. It doesn't detract from the event so much as sort the men from the boys. In the rain you can rest assured that those thousands of of people dancing, chanting and drumming to the tribal beat are the most deserving, chosen few. Those for whom no absence of music can stop the party. We were the music, and we played all night long.

From the moment we entered the car park we knew that we'd finally found a place that our kind of behaviour was almost acceptable. Apart from Michael Eavis' Glastonbury festival, summer solstice at Stonehenge is a rare opportunity for the masses to gain some kind of insight into an 'alternative' lifestyle shared by only a few thousand. However, fewer still are capable of actually turning their 'strongly held beliefs' into positive action. It's a speculative fact that only an insignificant proportion of those in attendance actually stick by their principals come voting day, and an event with a turnout of nearly 30,000 like minded people is unable to bring those people together in such a way as to make a major positive change in society today.

And here we have the problem with our country. We've gotten far too comfortable with our 9-5 lifestyle, maybe not entirely happy to grant our MP s a 20%-30% pay rise every year, but beset with the opinion that we as individuals are utterly powerless to stop it. And it is those in power who are perfectly happy for this defeatist attitude to continue.

But away from the politics of it all, those of us who enjoy living our lives one day at a time, with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested, to paraphrase the master, there is no better time and place to simply forget about the modern age's problems and live for the moment, if only for 5 or 6 hours a year.