Remember that one time...?

So you think it’s the music that gets you hooked? Addicted like a junkie, you’d sell anything of value just to get your fix, yup, that’s the ticket, but not the kind you inject, smoke or ingest, but the ticket that gets you into an experience you can share with thousands of others, whether you actually talk to the guy standing next to you or not, you can look at each other during a remarkably stellar guitar solo, smile, nod your head, and you’ve said it all; creating a sense of community, unity and pride.

My first adventure attending a music festival was Rockfest 1999 at Nova Scotia’s Shediac Can-Am Speedway. There were over 25,000 people converging on the entrance to the festival, it was a 30-40 minute walk in the scorching hot sun from the main road (where our friend who wasn’t attending pretty much kicked our asses out) but it didn’t matter, we were just happy to be there. I remember feeling like I had come home, like this was where I belonged, I was 16 years old and little did I know this would be the beginning of a life enhanced and influenced by the power of music. The energy was so alive; it was happy, peaceful and alive. You know the feeling, being surrounded by thousands of people all excited about the same thing, it’s absolutely invigorating.

I’ve been to a lot of festivals and there’s always something that wasn’t thought of or doesn’t quite go as planned, and this case was no exception…there were no free sources of water. Now of course vendors were selling it…at $2 a bottle (remember were talking 1999 here), but heat exhaustion was brewing and finally the bands had to demand that the festival managers provide fresh, free water or they would cease to play, and good on them, caring about their fans, that’s what I like to see! So the the problem was dealt with in the moment, as it should be, the show must go on!

Now luckily my friend and I didn’t have families who were too concerned about what we did in our spare time, no run of the mill Brady Bunch family would allow their 16 year old daughters to go on a weekend camping trip to an all age's music festival. We had a one man tent which we pitched in some gravel on the side of the road in the RV section…yeah…why we didn’t find the tenting area I have no idea, it’s not like we slept much anyway, we had no sleeping bags, no food, and no water; really we just had a few changes of clothing, some “goodies” and our smiling faces. Camping across the road from us was a group of VIP goers who had an amazingly huge, entirely stainless steel RV, complete with bathroom, refrigerator, and awning; to top it all off, the back of the RV was decked out with a very large Kiss tongue, complete with spikes of course. This group was in their mid to late thirties and they were a riot, they fed us (food and booze) all weekend, and most importantly…they got us into the VIP section (now, for any of you out there with minds in the gutter, and you know who you are, please note: no favors were completed in return for said food, liquor, or VIP access, these people were old enough to be our parents!). Two things you could easily get away with back in those days:
    1) Talking your way (or your friends way) backstage or into VIP access, and
    2) Convincing liquor and cigarette merchants you really are eighteen, proclaiming “You can trust me!”
Ahhh the good old days…wow I sound old…but anyway, this one solitary weekend would be the beginning of more than a decade of dedicated concert and festival attendance, complete with friends, memories, and copious clouds of tom foolery.

Some of the bands were Matt Good, Collective Soul, Big Wreck, Nazareth, Kansas, Styx, and ZZ Top amongst others. But of course it wasn’t always all about the bands; some shows and festivals are worth attending strictly for the sake of community, being a contributing factor to the building blocks which are always recreating the foundation of our music industry, to be a part of something which in your eyes is monumental. From sitting in circles in the grass passing around acoustic guitars (amongst other things) to watching a dirt covered speedway turn into a messy, wicked, Woodstock influenced mud pit during a large but brief thunderstorm, these ARE the good times.

I have always loved spontaneity; time spent is like a transaction with another person, you are exchanging bits of your life, passing moments back and forth. You can make a lifelong bond with another person simply by blowing up a raft and floating down the flooded roadways of your small home town in the middle of a record downpour, smiling, laughing, and singing as you merrily row along, amused as you watch the shocked and frantic faces of others running for cover.

My point is that it’s always the experience that matters most, when you go to a restaurant, when you go on vacation, when you go on a first date, therefore, the more bands and musicians aim to make their shows increasingly interactive, engaging, and outrageously contrasting in relation to past shows they’ve played, the more attention and following they are bound to create, what will they do next? But hey, that’s just my opinion as a fellow music lover.