Sunday, May 27, 2012
Laura Jane Grace Hits the Stage
This weekend, Against Me!'s lead singer Tom Gabel, now Laura Jane Grace, took to the stage for the first time since coming coming out as transgender. Rolling Stone, who broke the original story about Grace, followed up with the singer after the show in their article here. It has also been confirmed that the group's next album will be entitled Transgender Dysphoria Blues.
Warped Stages
Head to the Vans Warped Tour site to decide which stages you'll most want to check out this summer. This year's stages include Kia Rio Stage/Kia Soul Stage, Monster Energy Stage, Tilly's Stage, House of Marley Stage, Ernie Ball Stage, Kevin Says Stage, Acoustic Basement, Silent disco, Cherri Bomb, and Skinny Lister.
UK's Failing Fests
On Friday, Hypebot ran an article listing the numerous UK festivals that have been scraped for this summer. With the well-known and highly anticipated Reading and Leeds festivals sweeping the alternative world every summer with their classic dirt field set up, other UK festivals aren't seeing the over 80,000 patrons that these twin giants do. While T in the Park, Slam Dunk, and Sonisphere are all well known even here in the states, you may be surprised to hear that the latter also saw the chopping block this year along with nearly a dozen others.
In 2009, Kevin Watson presented the UK Music Festival Report at Live UK: The Summit and UK Festival Awards & Conference. Here he notes that from 2004 until 2008 the total licensed capacity of UK festivals rose from just under 1.2 million to over 1.8 million. 2009 saw a slight drop in those numbers, which Watson said indicates that "the market has reached saturation point." With 3 million people attending UK festivals in 2009 despite the price of tickets skyrocketing, how much is too much?
Although the UK can draw attendees from continental Europe, it is still a smaller nation which makes performers and concert goers alike wonder how many times will a big name band play there in one summer and for what price? Although the market it rife with smaller, though still talented, bands, these are not what will draw droves of fans willing to shell out top dollar for a ticket.
Cloud 9, another recently cancelled festival, stated in its cancellation letter that last year saw their attendance number reach nearly 5,000. However, that number is low when compared to major fests like Reading and Leeds. Cloud 9 stated, "The festival environment this year has been incredibly difficult for many small, independent festivals and has proved to be too challenging for us to overcome." While no major bands graced their released lineup, a fact that could contribute to their inability to create needed revenue, Sonisphere was slated to have rock idols Queen, KISS, Incubus, Marilyn Manson and more.
However, they too stated, "Putting the festival together in what is proving to be a very challenging year was more difficult than we anticipated," and pulled the show from the listings.Despite that setback, Sonisphere is still set to run in other European countries - including Poland, which presented a limited number of free tickets to the UK audience.
While we watch the UK festival industry contract, it makes one wonder why Vans Warped Tour is taking a limited group out to London in November.
In 2009, Kevin Watson presented the UK Music Festival Report at Live UK: The Summit and UK Festival Awards & Conference. Here he notes that from 2004 until 2008 the total licensed capacity of UK festivals rose from just under 1.2 million to over 1.8 million. 2009 saw a slight drop in those numbers, which Watson said indicates that "the market has reached saturation point." With 3 million people attending UK festivals in 2009 despite the price of tickets skyrocketing, how much is too much?
Although the UK can draw attendees from continental Europe, it is still a smaller nation which makes performers and concert goers alike wonder how many times will a big name band play there in one summer and for what price? Although the market it rife with smaller, though still talented, bands, these are not what will draw droves of fans willing to shell out top dollar for a ticket.
Cloud 9, another recently cancelled festival, stated in its cancellation letter that last year saw their attendance number reach nearly 5,000. However, that number is low when compared to major fests like Reading and Leeds. Cloud 9 stated, "The festival environment this year has been incredibly difficult for many small, independent festivals and has proved to be too challenging for us to overcome." While no major bands graced their released lineup, a fact that could contribute to their inability to create needed revenue, Sonisphere was slated to have rock idols Queen, KISS, Incubus, Marilyn Manson and more.
However, they too stated, "Putting the festival together in what is proving to be a very challenging year was more difficult than we anticipated," and pulled the show from the listings.Despite that setback, Sonisphere is still set to run in other European countries - including Poland, which presented a limited number of free tickets to the UK audience.
While we watch the UK festival industry contract, it makes one wonder why Vans Warped Tour is taking a limited group out to London in November.
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