arts & culture
foo fest: providence, ri
a comprehensive list of summer music festivals
tales of the foo
ANNY LI contributing writer A strange creature descends upon Empire Street each year on the second Saturday of August. Year after year, this beast—the Foo—unleashes mad ruckus and revelry as it lumbers through our city’s downtown streets. For the people of Providence, acquaintance with the Foo is a rite of passage. For me—a summer intern at AS220, the nonprofit responsible for putting on the festival—it was the culmination of a summer spent learning about Providence’s thriving underground arts scene. On Foo day, I arrived downtown at the chipper break of dawn. One o’clock arrived before we knew it, and immediately Foo-ers began to stream inside the festival gates. It’s a marvel how Foo manages to squeeze into one block, but it’s larger than it appears, snaking in and out the surrounding premises. The Mini Maker Faire, for example, is held in the Pell Chafee building. As the festival began, I snuck away from my duties to explore this madcap community of makers, hackers, and scientists. From there, I wandered to the flea market housed within
AS220’s Black Box theater, where I examined old VHS tapes and handmade prints. Nearby, at the Anarchist Bookfair, I paged through wares peddled by local bookstores, small presses, and radical collectives. Soon, however, a reverberating bass drew me back out to the street, where ZuKrewe, AS220’s Youth hip-hop performance troupe, performed on the Outdoor Stage. Throughout the afternoon, Foo delivered carnivalesque, family-friendly fun. But when night visited Empire Street, it morphed into a whole different beast. Rockers and drag queens, freaks and fools united beneath orange street lamps. Xander Marro, Foo 2013’s artist-in-residence, watched from the sidelines as her designs came to life. Her wooden bird puppets took flight through the smoky haze and hypnotic lights. Crushed cans of ‘Gansett littered the sidewalks—when in Rhode Island, do as the Rhodies do. I retreated to the Indoor Stage, where a crowd yelled alongside political punk/ sax-rockers Downtown Boys. I had never
considered myself a punk appreciator, but something in their unapologetic insistence made the blood roil in my veins. I took a breather and returned outside to catch the final set of the night: SSION, queer pop punk artist and the 2013 headliner. Although the whole day had been packed with local acts, audience members didn’t seem to mind SSION’s out-of-towner status—his beats tapped into our primal urge to dance. People flung their bodies against one another, and SSION invited the crowd to join him onstage. The audience happily obliged until security announced that the platform was breaking under their collective weight. At 1 a.m., Bert Crenca, founder and artistic director of AS220, bid the crowd a brief but emphatic good night. The stragglers trailed out, and staff started cleaning. The streets were empty, but a sense of community lingered, distinctively Providence. Foo Fest retreated back into the recesses of Empire Street, hibernating until August 2014.
governor’s ball: randall’s island, ny mudfest 2013
CAROLINE BOLOGNA managing editor of lifestyle
At the beginning of my first official summer in New York City, I bought a Saturday ticket to Governor’s Ball, or what I will forever remember as Mudfest 2013. On Friday night, the first day of the festival, the city was struck by a terrifying monsoon (read: a big loud scary thunderstorm that made me want my mommy). The Kings of Leon and Pretty Lights shows were canceled, and the rainsoaked festival goers were forced to leave early. Luckily, the next day’s forecast predicted clear and sunny skies, so I didn’t need to break out my $3 poncho from Duane Reade. Still, I knew that Randall’s Island was bound to be muddy, and I opted to wear my old pair of Rainbows, figuring I wouldn’t care if they were ruined. Big mistake. While it’s true that it was a good idea
to wear shoes I didn’t care about, my flipflops were entirely unsuited for the festival’s treacherously muddy terrain. The island was full-blown mud city. With every step I attempted to take, my shoes got stuck, and the force that was necessary to free myself from the muddy death grip also caused me to lose my balance, so I almost toppled over several times. Put simply, my mobility was severely limited. It didn’t take me long to realize that the shoes had to go. Taking them off was so liberating—I could move again! But what was I going to do with my old muddy Rainbows? They wouldn’t fit in my tiny bag, and ditching them completely meant I would have to take the subway home barefoot, which was not an option. So, I hid them in a bush and hoped for the best. The hours that followed were a
fantastically muddy mess, but I had an amazing time seeing Azealia Banks, Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, Kendrick Lamar, Kings of Leon (rescheduled for Saturday, yay!), Alt-J, Icona Pop (for the obligatory “I Don’t Care” dance freakout), and a little bit of Guns N’ Roses and Nas. At the end of the night, I located the bush where I had stashed my Rainbows and was pleased to find them still there. That night, millions of New Yorkers were perplexed to see droves of twentysomethings, myself among them, dragging their mud-caked legs into subways all over the city. When I finally made it back to my apartment, I threw my shoes away and headed straight for the shower. Mud can be liberating. But it’s also very dirty.
lollapalooza: chicago, il
losing my music festival virginity
new england
July Newport Folk Festival: Newport, RI (Folk) Gathering of the Vibes: Bridgeport, CT (Grateful Dead-themed) August Foo Fest: Providence, RI
mid-atlantic
June Governor’s Ball: Randall’s Island, NYC The Roots Picnic: Philadelphia, PA Firefly Music Festival: Dover, DE July Camp Bisco: Mariaville, NY (Electronic) Fingerlakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance: Trumansburg, NY August Electric Zoo: Randall’s Island, NYC
south
May Austin City Psych Fest: Austin, TX Savage Weekend Fest: Chapel Hill, NC (Noise) June Wakarusa: Ozark, AR Bonnaroo: Manchester, TN Free Press Summer Festival: Houston, TX July Forecastle Festival: Louisville, KY MusicFest ‘N Sugar Grove: Sugar Grove, NC (Bluegrass) August Satchmo Summer Fest: New Orleans, LA (Jazz)
midwest
May Movement Electronic Music Festival: Rochester Hills, MI Soundset: Shakopee, MN (Hip-hop) Summer Camp: Chillicothe, IL June Electric Forest: Rothbury, MI Lollapalooza: Chicago, IL Pitchfork Music Festival: Chicago, IL Summerfest: Milwaukee, WI August WE Fest: Detroit Lakes, MN (Country)
west
JOSÉ SAMUEL CLAIR contributing writer When I bought my tickets for Lollapalooza, I never imagined I would come out of my first music festival with so many bruises. Yet there I was, getting slammed repeatedly into the metal frames at the front of a Cage the Elephant concert. This was not the way I had envisioned losing my festival virginity, particularly because I had fought my way to the front of that specific stage to have my soul melted by the croonings of City and Colour—not to have my limbs bruised by a crowd-surfing Matthew Shultz. As the music grew louder and the crowd more violent, I thought about my journey to the festival: driving to LAX, landing at
Midway three days before the festival (because my Southwest flight was cheaper that way), and crashing at a friend’s condo (because hotels cost money). Lolla was a hot, sweaty mess—and if I’d known that ahead of time, my introverted self might not have attended, which would have been a huge mistake. If you’ve never attended a music festival before, I highly recommend that Lolla be your first. You will get bruised and stepped on; you will become intimately acquainted with the body odor of your fellow festival goers and the scent of your own sweat; you will spend more money than you ever in-
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tended. On your tenth trip to the water station, however, you’ll ask the hot, intellectual guy behind you what he’s reading. Standing around an empty stage, waiting for the next performer, the two of you will have interesting conversations with a group of strangers. As the Chicago skies dim and rain begins to pour, you will bond over shared physical discomfort and a love for Dallas Green. Maybe you will exchange numbers and strike up a friendship outside of the festival. Maybe you will never see each other again. Either way, you will be very glad to have lost your festival virginity.
May Sasquatch: Quincy, WA June Electric Daisy Carnival: Las Vegas, NV Telluride Bluegrass Festival: Telluride, CO July High Sierra Music Festival: Quincy, CA August Pickathon: Portland, OR Outside Lands: San Francisco, CA Bumbershoot: Seattle, WA Burning Man: Black Rock Desert, NV Rock the Bells: Los Angeles, CA as well as other cities (Hip-hop)