Playing at Summerfest, a local perspective

In my previous post I mentioned that Summerfest trimmed off its fat, and a number of Milwaukee cover bands did not get their annual chance to perform. I say that is a good thing. Frankly, it's not a music festival if the majority of local acts are cover bands. That's a glorified church festival.

Too many talented acts that play original music get passed over for the crap-tastic cover artists if you ask me. Yea, they can perform other people's music very well, but c'mon get original.
SonicBids helped to bring talent to the various stages this year.

Meanwhile, if you read the article about how B.B. booked the Marcus Amp. shows this year, you will only get more depressed. He tried to get Coldplay, Radiohead, and other worthy bands. He was proud that he landed Stevie Wonder? Tom Petty actually wants to come here every year, so what great accomplishment is it to land an act that wants to come here?

Give me a break.

Summerfest and Milwaukee bands

A quick scan of the Summerfest line up for 2008 shows that if you are a Milwaukee Rock Band, you are relegated to the Cascio tent. Officially titled the Cascio Groove Garage, this tiny tent is located just outside the Marcus Amphitheater gates, inside the Summerfest grounds. It faces out to the food area, but other than that, you have to work your way over there. It's not a space where you will get tons of traffic. Don't get me wrong. The ususal Milwaukee based, boring cover bands are hitting the bigger stages, but if you want emerging acts, head to the Groove Garage. You have to wade through a few bands that have Cascio employees in their line up, but after that, you might be treated to some good music.

None of the bands get paid to do these shows, and a Cascio email stated that you may have to pay to play there in coming years, so do the bands a favor and buy a cd, or shirt.

Pridefest is washed out

Man O' Man did the rain fall on Pridefest. Indigo Girls were the main act this year. They were scheduled for the Miller stage. At one point, the gates were closed, and nobody could enter the Summerfest grounds. The storm raged all around, and people scrambled for shelter.

This weekend was almost a total washout for the Pridefest fans. Even if you got to the Summerfest grounds, the ride home on Saturday was nearly impossible. Major streets were blocked off.

It took some of us an hour just to drive five miles across the southern half of Milwaukee. I'm glad I'm not flooded out, but others were not so lucky. I hope Pridefest can take the hit, but come back strong for 2009. See you there?

Riversplash and the future

I went down to Riversplash on Friday night to see Independent Idols at the Rosie's stage. As the sun set, the crowd got bigger. The Rosie's tent had plenty of room for the fans, but along Water street, the mass of humans was almost too much. Still, I thought it was a nice enough gathering of people.

It was the first festival of the summer, and the weather was perfect. Sadly, there were crowd control issues on Saturday night. Someone got shot; perhaps it was the owner of the gun himself. Some bottles were thrown at the cops. It got ugly.

The hammer came down on Monday night when city officials declared that the future of the festival is up in the air. If 60,000 people attended the festival like they say, and 7 of those folks got arrested, wouldn't that seem like a low number of arrests? What if the idiot who fired a bullet into his foot managed to keep the gun in his pants and didn't fire the shot? Would we be having this situation? I wasn't there on Saturday night, but a friend who was there on both nights said it was a mob scene. Give the Riversplash sponsors a chance to do some crowd control for 2009. Don't pull the plug just yet. Heck, it usually rains that weekend.