Festival Season

So Download announcement’s have started and as usual the internet is all excited.  It’s become a worrying part of our festival culture, that the announcements now seem to actually get more hype than any of the bands themselves and personally I’d love Download to follow the model that Hellfest does, where it just released the majority of its bands in one go (check out that line up by the way!)  That’s not what I’m going to discuss here however, but rather an interesting divide I have begun to see in festival announcement reactions.  It’s one that to be honest confuses me and while this isn’t the first time I have noticed, it is becoming more and more common.

This divide is between people who complain about the line up and have opinions on the various bands booked and those who sit there and claim that the bands aren’t actually the important thing, that they will go to Download anyway and have a great time.  Now, I have to be honest I’m not a fan of people ranting about festival line ups.  If you don’t like it, don’t go and getting annoyed because one of the bands among however many isn’t very good, seems a bit daft.  However, I have to say I also disagree with the idea that the bands aren’t important either.

This is a discussion point that came up not long after Sonisphere last year, when the Sonisphere Twitter account made a comment to Ginger Wildheart that they didn’t understand people who came to music festivals for the bands.  It was a comment that seemed to baffle Ginger and to be honest it baffled me too.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the atmosphere at Download and Sonisphere.  I have had some truly awesome times at both of those festivals when there wasn’t any music on.  Yet, that doesn’t change the fact that the reason I go to these festivals is for the bands.  I like all the people there, they’re all lovely, but I’m more of a fan of the bands themselves.

This idea that someone attending a festival should really not care about the bands is ridiculous.  I get that there are people who will go either way, they will have a great time and leave happy.  However, you can’t expect most of us to feel the same way.  I personally went to Sonisphere by myself last year, made a bunch of friends on the bus down and camped with them.  However, when the music was on I went off by myself and spent the day jumping between the stages, seeing as many bands as I could.  To me that is what a festival is about.  It’s about seeing all the great bands I love and about stumbling upon smaller ones I’ve never heard of, seeing something truly brilliant in a  field, with a handful of other people.  I enjoy everything else that goes on around that, but it’s just the cherry on top of an already fantastic cake.

The whole festival announcement palava has become a bit of a running joke in the metal community.  The whole #WhyNotDyingFetus? situation from last year was a great example of that.  However, it does seem to occasionally be taking away from what, at least to me, is the reason I go to a music festival.  It’s to watch a load of kick ass bands in a field, while getting drunk with a load of heavy metal fans.  This years Download line up is looking to be another great one (personally Faith No More might be enough to get me there single-handed) and I have no doubt the festival shall be another fantastic success.  However, that doesn’t change the fact that the internet’s reaction to all those stuff is becoming ridiculous.  I have long felt the keyboard warriors or internet trolls are bloody idiots, but at the same time you can’t go too far the other way.  Having an opinion is okay, as long as it is put across in the right manner, and not every single person who is negative about Download is worthy of scorn.