In 1991 one of my heroes came up with this idea to gather together the best musicians of the ALT rock scene and have this great big ol' outdoor concert. At the time us wee kids only heard of concerts like this from our baby boomer parents who hazily passed down stories and sometimes pictures from the historic Woodstock.
We were the perfect market to start this up again, the seed was planted and we all would readily make the same trek as our parents did to some outdoor alternative rock mecca to pray for three days on drugs and rock and roll.
Jane's Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Ice-T/Body Count, Living Colour, Butthole Surfers and The Rollins Band.
Back then that line up would have brought peace to the middle east.
Its pretty early on a Sunday morning, I am as always awake with ideas swirling, I'm online making my rounds, round, rounding the corners of the globe and I come across a banner ad for what I thought had ended in 1998.
Lalapalooza is back except this banner ad wasn't to come make some trip to some field to tune out for a few days... rather it was telling me that they didn't actually expect me to make it and that I should be tuning in ONLINE!!!
Do I feel old? NOOOOOOO.
Ok yes.
The web page I ended up on said this...
"Tune-In To Lollapalooza Live On the Web
Can’t make the trip to Chicago for Lollapalooza August 1st-3rd? Never fear, blue room is here. Experience Lollapalooza LIVE via webcast just by turning on your computer. Mark your calendars now! Tune in to watch Wilco, The Raconteurs, Love and Rockets, Bloc Party, G Love and Special Sauce, Flogging Molly, and many, many more!"
Like most smart businessmen in this capitalistically ravenous country, Farrell sold the Lollapalooza brand to Capital Sports & Entertainment. The concert was revived to become a two-day fest only to remain in one location, Chicago's Grant Park. The concert actually relies on the web to stream it to the world.
THE WEB!
Ok maybe I have geeked out completely but this is a profound cultural swing. The web is now a venue for concerts, not just any concerts but big ones, those summer ones that change your life, the ones that evolved from Woodstock to free us of our addiction to pop music and usually ended up with an addiction to something totally new, and bound us together in the darkness and angst of Alternative melodies as we were soon thrust out unto the world to start our lives.
I'm in my very early 30s and I am ranting like a geezer here.
The web has accelerated time. We have built a time machine except it progresses culture, information, music, arts, education and if you don't keep up, your gonna be left behind.
2 comments:
Yeah but who wants to be at a concert through a screen, isnt the whole point of a concert is to experience it live and with an entire crowd of people who listen to the same music you do, having your friends around...i mean how many things will we bring to the web, dont you think that there is a limit to what you as an individual can do from your screen-your seat- your hands typing...
i believe that experience cannot just come from anywhere, it comes from a place, time, and vision within your senses, without being limited to eyes only. the self should rely on all the sense to experience something profound...
Yeah but who wants to be at a concert through a screen, isnt the whole point of a concert is to experience it live and with an entire crowd of people who listen to the same music you do, having your friends around...i mean how many things will we bring to the web, dont you think that there is a limit to what you as an individual can do from your screen-your seat- your hands typing...
i believe that experience cannot just come from anywhere, it comes from a place, time, and vision within your senses, without being limited to eyes only. the self should rely on all the sense to experience something profound...
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