WHERE THE MOSHERS ARE
By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY
Live rock isn't dead, but as spectacle it's hurting. After all, when you've watched invaders from outer space obliterate the White House, how exciting is it, really, to see some alternative rocker smash his guitar? If you've seen Tom Cruise hurled from an exploding helicopter onto a moving train, is it really that thrilling to see a bassist jump from the top of a three-foot amp? If you've just seen a twister tear apart a town, doesn't a mere mosh pit lose some of its anarchic joy?
Although summer is when the concert business usually generates much of its revenues, so far this season ticket sales are just O.K. With the movie industry anticipating record box-office grosses, onstage performers face some serious competition from the spectacular events taking place onscreen. Says Rob Light, a senior agent with the Creative Artists Agency, which is booking this year's H.O.R.D.E. music festival: "I don't think any of us anticipated how strong the movie summer would be, which always takes away entertainment dollars." And it was already a weak year. According to the trade magazine Pollstar, over the first six months of 1996 the top 10 tours took in $152.5 million--compared to $225 million over the same period in 1995.
Another problem is a lack of big names out on the road. What with R.E.M., U2 and Pearl Jam sitting the summer out (all three are preparing new albums) and the Grateful Dead disbanded (in the wake of front man Jerry Garcia's death last August), there are no surefire-draw megabands touring this summer, no must-see, tell-your-grandkids musical events--with the possible exception of the affably popular supergroup Hootie & the Blowfish. Sure, the Sex Pistols and Kiss have reunited and are touring, but those are concerts you tell your grandfather about.
To bring back some excitement to concertgoing--and some emotions other than nostalgia and/or pity--the music industry has turned to festivals. Not stationary, one-time events like Woodstocks I and II, but massive, carnival-like musical tours that feature at least half a dozen acts as well as food booths, souvenir stands and more. This summer several festivals are touring the land, each with a distinct character, each vying for a hold on the pop-culture imagination and wallet.
Three have already hit the road. Lollapalooza, the five-year-old alternative-rock extravaganza, defied expectations this time around by booking Metallica, a mainstream metal band, as its headliner. (Says Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich: "We wanted to throw this concert for a loop.") H.O.R.D.E., which has built a reputation over the past four years as a haven for tie-dyed twentysomethings, has a solid lineup featuring Blues Traveler and Lenny Kravitz. Meanwhile, the scrappy, year-old Warped Tour has won a following among the particular set of youngsters who enjoy punk rock, ska and skateboarding. Next week the House of Blues will launch an R. and B. tour, and in August, Perry Farrell, the progressive rocker who hatched Lollapalooza, will inaugurate a new venture: the tree-planting, obscure band-booking, alternative-to-alternative ENIT festival. Ticket prices vary from tour to tour and site to site but are usually under $50.
Lollapalooza set the road-show festival standard. That's not necessarily a good thing, since Lollapalooza was originally intended to be a status quo-smashing event. The festival made its name by booking bands from a wide array of alternative genres, deliberately forcing often parochial rock audiences to expand their musical horizons. Past participants have ranged from Ice Cube to Sinead O'Connor.
This year, however, Lollapalooza is as insular as a humidor at a men's club. Each of the main-stage acts on the bill (which includes Screaming Trees and Psychotica) plays hard rock or punk; each is led by a white male. Given all that testosterone, Lollapalooza feels less like an alternative-rock concert and more like an N.H.L. locker room. In fact, the moshing during Metallica's focused, fierce set last week in New York City was like an N.H.L. game. Still, Rancid's set at the same stopover was gleefully uncontrolled, and a few acts on the second stage, like the soulful Beth Hart Band, were compelling. But the Ramones were the most apt symbols of this year's fest--a bunch of guys set in their ways, one pretty much indistinguishable from the next.
The H.O.R.D.E. festival features a more diverse lineup, including (for eight dates) singer Natalie Merchant on the main stage and the Native American band Red Thunder on the second stage. At last week's stop in Somerset, Wisconsin, crowd members danced and twirled around Deadhead style, even during the obligatory rock-festival thunderstorm. "To me, sleeping in a tent and watching rock bands in the rain doesn't seem like that great a time," says Merchant. "But the kids seem to enjoy it." Actually she seemed to revel in it too, turning in a sexy, hip-swaying, strong-voiced set. She also admonished moshers to cool it and just listen to the music. Most did.
She was joined for an onstage jam by John Popper, lead singer of Blues Traveler and founder of H.O.R.D.E. He says the festival's appeal lies in its emphasis on performance, improvisation and musicianship, an aesthetic the Grateful Dead helped champion, which now lives on in H.O.R.D.E. "People have called us hippie music and all of that," says Popper, "and we've had to live with it because the kind of music we play is older than us and it's going to go on after us. It's something that's real. Lollapalooza deals very much with what is popular. The music we play will always be in and out of vogue."
This year's Warped fest, by contrast, latches firmly onto a hot trend: ska. At the tour's San Francisco show, the pop-ska band Dance Hall Crashers turned in an ebullient set on the second stage, as did Goldfinger, a ska-punk group. On the main stage, another ska-punk band, NOFX, got the crowd kicking up dust, and Fishbone--a pioneering ska-punk band--played a set so raucous and dissonant, even members of this hard-core crowd seemed put off. Warped easily lived up to its reputation as the youngest and edgiest of the major fests.
One of the summer's most anticipated tours is the House of Blues' Smokin' Grooves Tour, which features cutting-edge R. and B. artists such as the Fugees and A Tribe Called Quest, and will kick off next week in Sacramento, California. Less anticipated by most audiences is Lollapalooza-founder Perry Farrell's new ENIT festival, beginning Aug. 9 in Cleveland. ENIT--named, says Farrell, for a festival of harmony and enlightenment found in a science-fiction novel called Cancer Planet Mission--will feature Farrell's band Porno for Pyros as well as some acts that aren't exactly in heavy rotation on MTV, such as the Orb and Meat Beat Manifesto. ENIT will start each of its shows with a tree-planting ceremony and will also include a communal meal and a beer-and-wine happy hour.
Farrell doesn't expect to make money and doesn't care. "Why did I leave Lollapalooza?" he muses. "They are a business now. I can't expect them to go in this year and ask them to lose a bunch of money. Myself, I'm up for it. I'm young, I don't have high overhead, I have the time, it turns me on."
He may have company in the red. With so many tours on the road this summer--and the fact that, increasingly, radio stations are sponsoring their own minifestivals--every new tour will face a challenge to find an audience. Indeed, some festivals have been suffering from slow sales in some markets. (In Lollapalooza's case, it could be a Metallica backlash among the festival's traditional alternative-rock fans.) Still, House of Blues vice president Kevin Morrow figures it's worth losing money this summer for HOB to "get the brand name out there" and establish Smokin' Grooves as a future franchise. After all, this summer's oddly titled money loser may be next summer's well-known moneymaking Lollapalooza.
--With reporting by Patrick E. Cole and Jeffrey Ressner/ Los Angeles and David E. Thigpen/New York
With reporting by PATRICK E. COLE AND JEFFREY RESSNER/ LOS ANGELES AND DAVID E. THIGPEN/NEW YORK