I'm seeing some good bands lined up for the Summerfest side stages. Yes, you have to sit through what seem to be even more lousy local cover bands, but the headliners at the side stages are pretty good. Long ago Summerfest lost its respect when management decided to dumb down the side stage support acts. Now, it's best played like this: Work all day at your job since there is no point taking off of work to see bands like the Love Monkeys, go home, change, save yourself lots of money by eating dinner anywhere but the Summerfest grounds, bring your Summerfest tickets that you got free from your work, then hit the entrance about 7pm, grab a beer, and walk over to the side stage of your choice. Long gone are the days where you would spend the entire day at Summerfest seeing one national act after the other.
1 comment:
It's not that they're NOT national acts one after another that is the problem. It's that the acts are basically all cover bands, too afraid of offending (or scaring away) people who don't recognize original or "obscure" music.
Summerfest does have its share of great bands, to be sure, but you are right in that it's not worth taking a full day off work for. It's a shame, because there are some really terrific local acts that get booked at 3 pm on a tuesday on some side stage, while the Love Monkeys and Barry's Truckers and their ilk still get the same primo spots playing "Mustang Sally" again and again and again to adoring fans.
But as I've written in my blog, the day I stopped thinking of Summerfest as a MUSIC festival and started regarding it as the best dang church festival EVER was the day I began to love Summerfest again. You can too!
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