Music Festivals and Memories

I’m sitting here in my apartment listening and watching one of the first great music festivals, the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967, and feeling absolutely ebullient thanks to some of the greatest live music news I’ve read in quite a long time. It’s been over a year since the last music festival I’ve attended (Bonnaroo ’06, my 5th and, somewhat sadly, final ‘Roo). Ever since the summer of 2002, music festivals and multi-night concert runs have been significant time markers in my life. I remember amazing friends, Once In A Lifetime experiences, wonderful romances, recovering from heartache, life-altering and eye-opening moments all connected to music events from Miami to Tennessee to Las Vegas. And now, I’m ecstatic for the chance for one more, in my very own backyard (although I guess we’ve kind of done the backyard thing before, too...if you want to hear that show, let me know, I've got a decent recording from a taper I once knew).

The Echo Project, featuring some of the greatest live music acts currently touring, is coming to Fairburn, Georgia this October. And I can’t wait. Phil Lesh & Friends, The Killers, The Roots, moe., Umphrey's McGee, Cat Power & the Dirty Blues Band, the Disco Biscuits, Cypress Hill, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Polyphonic Spree, ALO, the Avett Brothers, Stephen cMarley, Brazilian Girls, Lyrics Born, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Perpetual Groove, Spam All-Stars, RJD2, The Flaming Lips, Thievery Corporation, Les Claypool, The Bravery, Secret Machines, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, MSTRKRFT, JJ Grey & MOFRO, Son Volt, The Egg, The Album Leaf, MAN MAN, Tea Leaf Green, Benevento/Russo Duo, Lazaro Casanova, and Telepath. What a list. What a weekend it's going to be.

I decided to move back to Atlanta last winter when I found myself at the Atlanta airport making friendly conversation. A simple moment in a generally complicated life. I said to myself, I didn’t make small talk at the airport in Boston or Vegas or LA or New York or DC. Atlanta has a certain comfortable appeal that I know I’ve always needed, whether or not I’ve always appreciated that fact. One of the more interesting aspects of all the concert experiences I’ve had is that every part of the country has a unique flavor. Each music scene, while generally appreciating similar styles of music and identical bands, is very different. And of all the scenes I’ve found myself in the middle of, none have felt quite like home the same way Atlanta’s does. And sure, I grew up in Atlanta, so it kind of is home. But I didn’t want it to be home. I wanted to find home somewhere different. Anywhere, really. But I knew that when I found it, I would know. And a couple of friendly moments in the World’s busiest airport made me know.
I couldn’t pick a better location for a music festival. I’d be hard pressed to pick a better line-up for a music festival. I couldn’t pick a better time to spend a weekend outside in the South then the middle of October.

And I can already tell, this is gonna be a good one.