Lollapalooza
Once a touring festival, Lollapalooza has now found permanent home in Chicago’s Grant Park, and has signed on to schedule each future festival there until 2011.
This year, Lollapalooza will bring back a band from the festival’s touring days when Pearl Jam takes the festival stage for the first time since 1992.
More than 100 other artists will play alongside Pearl Jam including Daft Punk, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, Muse, Iggy and the Stooges, Modest Mouse, Interpol and My Morning Jacket, as well as more than 100 other artists.
The festival’s Midwestern location provides NMU students a more realistic option in regards to travel than music fests in California or Tennessee.
“It’s a lot closer than some other festivals,” NMU geography sophomore Matt Niemi said. “It’s in downtown Chicago, so that location’s a definite plus.”
Niemi said the variety of music available at Lollapalooza was one of the draws for him as well.
“Festivals are just unique because everyone comes from different backgrounds and just enjoys the music together,” he said. “I was looking at the headliners for [Lollapalooza] this year, and no two of them are the same genre of music at all. But they’re all just clumped together at this festival.”
Like most other music festivals, Lollapalooza will be hosting a large lineup of bands, allowing festival goers the opportunity to view more bands, in a shorter amount of time, for comparably less money.
“The sheer number of bands that you get to see is amazing,” Niemi said. “The ticket prices might seem like a lot, but really if you think about it, you’d be playing $25 for a concert. And you get to see 130 bands at Lollapalooza for $130, so it’s absolutely worth it.”
OZZFEST
For metal maniacs with empty wallets, Ozzfest 2007 is the holy grail of summer entertainment. Ozzy Osbourne and wife Sharon announced in February that Ozzfest tickets are free.
“This will change everybody’s impression of the way touring in the summer in America should be,” Sharon Osbourne said at the press conference announcing the wipeout of ticket prices.
The Ozzman himself is headlining the main stage, along with Lamb of God, Lordi and a yet-to-be-announced fourth act. Second stagers include Hatebreed, Nick Oliveri and the Mondo Generator, Behemoth, Nile and Ankla.
The entire festival is being dubbed “Freefest,” because not only are the tickets free, but the bands will all be playing for free, as well.
The tour rolls through most of the U.S., including a stop roughly five hours from Marquette, at The Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisc. Alpine will host Ozzy and company on August 18. The entire tour stretches from July 12 through August 30. Since the festival began in 1996, it has hosted some of today’s biggest names in heavy metal music – Disturbed, System of a Down, Slipknot, Incubus and Linkin Park all have rocked the Ozzfest stage.
Coachella:
On April 27, the Indio Polo Grounds in Indio, Calif., will be transformed into America’s alternative music Mecca. Instead of jockeys and horses, the polo grounds will be filled with Converse sneakers and extra-slim fit Levis- all for the sake of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
The polo grounds, 23 miles southeast of Palm Springs, Calif. will host to the sixth annual festival, which has showcased alternative music giants Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The 2007 festival marks the first time Coachella will go to a three-day format, with the first night of the festival being Friday April 27 and the festival ending on Sunday April 29.
Senior psychology/sociology major Dylan Watkins, who is also the music director at Radio X, said he hadn’t been to a music festival since before he got to college, and that increased his interest level in this year’s Coachella Festival. But Watkins said the biggest reason he was making the trip was the lineup, which is highlighted by headliners Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers and the newly reunited Rage Against the Machine.
“This year, I saw Coachella’s lineup and I just said, ‘Forget it; I don’t care how much it’s going to cost me, I’m going to that,'” Watkins said.
Country USA
The population of Oshkosh, Wisc. will triple this summer. Starting June 20 and continuing through June 24, the city of Oshkosh, with a population of around 60,000 people, will add more than 120,000 country music fans for the five-day festival dubbed Country USA.
NMU freshman secondary education major Dan Faust will be in the Country USA crowd, somewhere in the immense sea of cowboy hats and farmer’s tans.
This year will be the third consecutive year he’s been at the festival.
“Last year for Toby Keith and Rascall Flatts, we got there really early,” Faust said. “We were probably 10 rows behind the VIP section, and when you looked behind you, you couldn’t see the parking lot or anything. There were just huge amounts of people – it was just crazy.”
This year’s festival will include headliners Alan Jackson, Montgomery Gentry, Dierks Bentley, Trace Adkins and 2006 Country Music Association female vocalist of the year Carrie Underwood.
Faust said the environment at Country USA was “very patriotic, very Republican” and that American and Confederate flags dotted the surrounding campgrounds.
“The three biggest tents there are the beer tent, the Copenhagen tent and the NRA tent,” Faust said.
Faust was planning to go to a Kenny Chesney concert at Ford Field this summer as well, and added that the environment at a music festival is much different from a single concert.
“People are just really more laid back and personable at a music festival,” Faust said.
Faust said the price for a music festival was another factor.
“You get to see a lot more acts at a festival,” Faust said. “It’s only $120 for 5 days, and you get to see 6 or 7 people play in a day. So it’s really worth it.”
