Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival
This is so right, even I’m dying to attend, and I’m not that big a Wilco fan!
1. Context
Major labels will ask who you sound like, they don’t want anything unique, just something similar to what came before.
Now it’s about creating your own context. No one has done this better than Wilco. They don’t sound like anybody else, and have no desire to do so.
2. Hits
Huh?
You know that famous Wilco track, what’s it called again, it was all over Top Forty radio…
Funny thing is most acts topping the hit parade couldn’t stage a festival like this, no one would come, or certainly not past the first year.
It’s about a body of work.
3. Fans
They’re fans of the band, not the track. This is the way it used to be. And this is the way it’s got to be again in order for the business to be healthy. We’ve got to go to the show to hear what the band has to say, not to hear the one big hit. Because if that’s all you’ve got, you’d better provide plenty of production, plenty of distraction, to cover up the fact that underneath…there just isn’t much.
4. Take Your Music Seriously
I’m not saying there can be no humor, no one took his music more seriously than Frank Zappa, and his music was loaded with humor. Not that the humor has to be in the material, it’s about having a sense of humor, being able to make fun of yourself, especially in an era where everybody can make fun of you online.
Are you angling for music nirvana or fame? For cash or credibility?
Except for that misstep with product endorsement, Wilco never seems to be about the money, only the music.
5. Artist Development
Jeff Tweedy was in Uncle Tupelo. A band that wasn’t truly revered until it broke up. Wilco experimented with various sounds, switched labels after being dropped, even made a movie solely for the hard core. It took the band a while to find both its sound and its niche. And with such a rich history, old fans are satiated and new fans can be enticed. It’s about more, not less. It’s about being in it for the long haul.
6. More
That’s what fans want. Which is why this festival line-up is so great. Not only do you get Wilco, you get all the band members’ side projects. You can wallow in Wilco! You don’t trek across the country for only two hours of satiation, you get a weekend’s worth.
7. Even More Than That
They called it the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. And Wilco’s presenting comedy and art. There’s three-dimensionality. Not just stand in the dust and heat and drink overpriced beers.
You can leave with a story more than I saw the band and they were great! You can have your eyes opened to what interests Wilco beyond music.
8. Location
Aren’t festivals supposed to be held in a field, where you moo like cattle as the promoter rips you off?
To hold Solid Sound in civilized North Adams, at an art museum, not only demonstrates innovation, but respect for the band’s audience.
_____________________________
Festivals have become smorgasbords. Have you been to a buffet recently? Everything looks really good at first, then you sample and overeat and wish you went to a regular restaurant. Because what you really want is one thing really good as opposed to a plethora of stuff you don’t truly desire.
Festivals have become about the promoter, not the band. How can the promoter create a concoction of crap to the point where you want to go.
And on some level it works. But at this point, so many are tribal rites focused primarily on socializing and punching your ticket to hipdom as opposed to music. Most people who don’t go to the Wilco festival won’t care that you were there. How twenty first century. Where it’s not about the masses so much as the individual. Not so much about everybody as opposed to the like-minded. Everybody at this weekend will be a Wilco fan. What a great place begin!
