20 notes &

The rock festival can be taken to stand symbolically for the state of the contemporary music industry. Here we have a gathering of fans and musicians hoping for the unexpected, and the proximate threat of drugs and drink and anarchy, but all, in fact, tightly controlled. Festivals depend on interminable negotiations as to who will appear where and in what size type on the posters, who will perform when and for how long on what stage; on detailed arrangements with local fire and police services; on carefully calculated logistics of sewage, food and first aid. The only real threat of chaos is the weather. The festival is symbolic, then, because the industry is also essentially concerned with the rational organisation of irrational forces—talent, taste—while celebrating itself as buccaneering.