Rock And Roll Crowds

Last week Chicago police evacuated fans from the Lollapalooza music festival because of advancing thunderstorms.

I do not like music festivals. You may say how can I say that since I’ve never been to one? I’ve never been to one because I don’t like them. I have attended stadium shows and I didn’t like those at all either so I assume if I’m uncomfortable with my own chair and with relatively easy access to a snack bar and a restroom for three of four hours then having to sit in the dirt, or mud, squeezed next to 100,000 other people on the ground with the stage a half mile away and the restrooms a half mile away in another direction and the snack bar a half mile away in still another direction, I’m guessing I’m not going to be a happy camper. Which by the way, I’m not. That is to say I don’t enjoy camping either.

My thing is comfort. It feels good to me to feel good. Clean, uncrowded, something soft in which to sit and something cold on which to sip while I enjoy a show I can actually see that sounds not too loud or too soft is what I’m willing to pay money for.

Add to the outdoor festivities an extremely dangerous thunderstorm and as far as I’m concerned all that’s missing are fire ants. Do we, music fans, really want a rock and roll mall where we can see a dozen of our favorite bands all at one time? Do we really want to just get it all over with at one sitting? Or are we simply being spoon fed our entertainment this way because that is the best way for the promoters to optimize their profit?

What might be nice is to build a Rock & Roll Vegas, or maybe a Rock & Roll Branson, or at least a Rock & Roll Laughlin where there are rock music venues on every street with big name stars passing through for two weeks each year and other acts retired there as permanent fixtures. Vegas has tried that to some extend and it’s been successful, to some extend, but Vegas is Vegas, it has its own style and that is not Rock & Roll.

The Sunset Strip in Hollywood from the 60s through the 80s came pretty close but greed killed that scene dead and the various music scenes that break out from time to time in places like Seattle or Austin or Minneapolis get diluted within those cities own particular personalities, histories and culture. The great thing about Las Vegas is that it really didn’t exist before it became “Sin City”. That’s what Rock & Roll needs, a mecca that rises out of the desert to exist for the sole purpose of attracting rock fans to great live shows (and maybe some gambling and prostitution).

What’s that you say? Too little too late? Rock is dead? Well then, maybe what I’m proposing is the building of a great Rock & Roll SENIOR RETIREMENT COMMUNITY! Investors please inquire within. Thank you.

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