Some of the best live music money can buy is performed at outdoor summer music festivals. You can often pay just a few bucks to be part of a truly singular experience. The sun is shining, the microbrew is flowing and your third-favorite band is opening for those other guys you actually hate—but, the admission is so cheap, it’s worth it regardless (or, so it seems).
Your expectations are high. The crowd is buzzing, with a soft, green carpet underfoot. It’s warm—a fresh breeze blows through, wafting the smells of food stalls, freshly mowed grass and flowers all around you. You wait in line, pay your fee and wait in line again for your unexpectedly pricey plastic solo cup of a craft brew that, while tasty, costs half what a six pack of the same beverage does at your local Food ‘N’ Stuff. Misgivings begin to brew at this point, but your spirits are still good and your friends have come along to enjoy the show. Good music and good company.
Then, the realizations begin to hammer blow your psyche. One after another, the harsh truths become apparent. Yes, there’s a beer section, but there are somehow still children— everywhere. Shrieking and wailing with varying degrees of despair, pain, boredom, joy and malice (or, some deeply sick combination of these).
The grass may have been soft at the beginning of the day, but as afternoon sets in, the Sauron-like glare of the summer sun has beaten the most ubiquitous land-based flora into a prickly, greyish-brown buzzcut of tiny spikes. Bare patches of scorched dirt and the refuse of the masses (broken glass, dog poop, etc.) hinder even the most daring fans of bare feet.
The breeze stops and as you become aware of your own pungent odor, you realize that the odors of everyone else around you are so... much...worse. The crush of people, heat, weed, food, Port-O-Poops and booze has created a vortex of smell so profound, that no matter how many times you wash that shirt, it’s still going to exude the rankness of a thousand concertgoers for time immemorial.
After all that, the music is...just okay. It’s tinny and the acoustics are really pretty terrible. You’re still trying to keep your chin up, though, so you write it all off as crappy equipment. Maybe it will get better if you get closer? Ahh, but the claustrophobic mass of humanity near the stage is more than daunting— it’s impenetrable, unless you’re a 300-pound dead lifter with a chip on his shoulder. Only the foolhardy go here my friend. It was just the opening band, though—the band you’ve come to see is up next. You’ve convinced yourself they’ll be better.
In the meantime, you look around for your friends and realize they’re nowhere in sight. You’ve been drinking for a while now and they were supposed to be your ride. You could call an Uber, but you’ve left your backpack in their car, and if you leave now, there’s no re-entry. Your stomach tightens, in a refusal to panic or get angry. They’ll turn up. There are just so many people here and now some lady is changing her baby’s diaper on the picnic table. There’s also a pretty girl in short shorts right over there—looking at you temptingly—so it’s not all bad.
With over-stimulation pushed to the side temporarily, you visit the Port-O-Poop before the band you actually came to see shows up. It’s like someone with Ebola exploded inside. How do you even get shit on the ceiling? Never mind—you manage to pee without touching anything but the door and you’re delighted to find a dispenser of hand sanitizer on a stand outside. Is that blood on the lever? You look around for the pretty girl, but she’s vanished into the sea of people. It’s a shame, but you’re here for the music and there are scantily clad folks all around. Some hairy backs and champion-level beer bellies, perhaps, should earn more modest attire—but, it’s a free country, right?
Your band finally takes the stage— the one you’ve gone to near hell and back for at this point. You’ve been here so long, you’ve finally caved and bought a burrito from a clean-adjacent food cart, set up on the periphery. You don’t realize it now, but that was a grievous miscalculation.
At this point, trying to enjoy the music is a chore in and of itself. You want to go home. This could be watched on YouTube for free anytime. The sound quality is still bad, the band is drunk, everyone is hot, dehydrated and miserable, but fixated on staying for the "headliners." People heckle, gripe and sweat. More and more children have lost their tenuous grasp on civility and descended into a Lord Of The Flies-type roving gang, which seems to be violently staking out territory wherever they see fit. When one of them runs at you with a pointed stick, you make the right choice and leave.
Heading back in the direction of the car that drove you here, you discover that either your friends have already abandoned you or you’ve forgotten where they parked in the first place. It hardly matters to you at this point. Thoughts of laying down and dying on this parking strip dance temptingly through your brain.
This is when the burrito hits. Beyond this, there’s no good end to our story. Do your friends find you and take you to the nearest gas station? Do you throw yourself into the river? Maybe you beg a ride off of a sympathetic bus driver and you make it home in time to empty your bowels into the sanctity of your own plumbing. Or, maybe not. Who can say?
What I can say, is that outdoor concerts always seem like a good idea, but are never, ever that, in practice. Every year, we think, "this time will be different" and are punished for our errors—just like an abusive relationship.
