This is just something I don’t understand. How is it that one of the best bands in the world right now doesn’t draw a huge crowd? I suppose I’m more accustomed to going to shows or festivals where the musical is aligned in a similar fashion based on taste. Lollapalooza means more popular rock (Red Hot, Green Day) and lots of indie rock. The goal here is usually to draw in people for a couple bands in particular then catch drifters that are there to see someone else and expose them to something new and hopefully gain a new fan base. This does work and it’s how I learned of some of my favorite bands. Temper Trap for instance. Even Bon Iver, Mumford and Sons. I see them play a show before I had any knowledge of who they were and 5-6 years later…..yea. I was excited to see another one of these bands I first caught about 5 years ago when I heard they were coming to play a more punk-emo-rock style mini festival over the weekend. Phoenix is the band I’m referring to and they were headlining a show put on by another radio station in town. This festival tends to be-at least in my opinion-for those that shop at Hot Topic. You get what I’m saying. Young and punky right? Well the lineup this year was different.

There was still the flavor of emo rock, but sprinkled throughout was last week’s Sirius ALT Nation playlist. Robert Delong’s one man DJ show where he controls his voice with a Wii controller, Fitz and the Tantrum’s with a very oldies vibe. Oddly enough Pauly Shore introduced this band which didn’t make sense to me especially considering he was dropping Bio-Dome references.weird. Maybe Pauly is buds with the band? Wait, he wouldn’t have called them “Fritz and the Tantrums”. Okay then. Who’s next? AWOLnation is not a band I would have bought tickets to see, but I was really looking forward to catching them since they were there. The things is, I’m open to new music no matter what the genre. Country is the one thing I’ve never really gotten into, but I can appreciate it if I’m there. This is why I just don’t understand what went down at this particular festival. Phoenix is one of my favorite bands and they were the headliner. Unfortunately for them, Bush played right before them. I know that lots of Americans between 25-40 love them some Bush. Sure, Gavin Rossdale is a hottie, but in the music industry this band is considered a joke. They jumped on the grunge rock train at the tail end and had no success in Britain, but we loved them over here. Of course I had Sixteen Stone and did my fair share of rocking out to Glycerine, Comedown, Everything Zen…but something changed after they didn’t have another hit for a decade. I got wind from Phoenix’s people that they were already a little perturbed by the whole lineup. Let’s be honest, Bush may be famous, but Phoenix has had way more success in the last couple of years. Because of poor production, the show was already an hour behind and the venue turns out the lights after Bush’s set. The crowd starts filtering out and the place started to look deserted. How can you leave when you are about to have the chance to see a Grammy nominated band and it’s not even crowded? The show did go on thankfully and despite the behind the scenes drama, Phoenix did their thing. Of course there was no encore, but they did their set as good as always for maybe 1000 people. It just doesn’t make sense to me why you’d pass up the chance to see something new even if you were only there for Paramore. Open yourself up people. Though I am a sucker for that Twilight song by Paramore;)

xoxo,

fangirl