Time for a Summer Festival Update

The middle of August seems like a good time for a summer festival update as this time of the year is peak festival. Musically, there is something for everyone. You may have heard of the big events like Chicago’s Lollapalooza which featured super stars like the Killers, Muse, Arcade Fire, and Blink-182 or San Francisco’s Outside Lands with Metallica, the Who, Gorillaz. But what about more local events like MAHA in Nebraska who claim, “our vision is to push beyond the parameters of a traditional music festival and continue to attract fans from all over the country, while celebrating the local community.” If music alone is not enough how about FMMF in Ohio which is bringing together music and fashion “from places of passion, purpose and personality.” We like the look of Oregon Eclipse 2017, a week-long event beginning yesterday with 7 stages of music, multiple areas of workshops, yoga & dance classes, theatrical and circus performance, along with epic large-scale art installations which culminates in “one of the most phenomenal experiences ever to be witnessed; a Total Solar Eclipse.” For those with a sweet tooth there is even a dessert festival in New York (not a desert festival like Burning Man). What are the other big stories that made it to our Summer Festival Update? Are women being badly served by our music festivals – an interesting opinion from Variety. If you can’t get enough of Game of Thrones then look to the UK to find the King in the North at a local festival. Last week Kit Harington was seen at such an event, the Sunfall electronic music festival in London. Wonder if anyone played a Song of Ice and Fire. And if you are thinking of heading to the UK Music Festivals then you better leave your exotic fruit at home because pineapples have been banned. “Organizers were a little concerned about hundreds of pineapples turning up on site so decided to ask fans not to bring them along,” a spokesman for Reading Festival told the BBC. Pineapples have become a new festival fashion accessory thanks to a band called Glass Animals. Their song ‘Pork Soda’ includes the line ‘pineapples are in my head” so fans have started showing up at gigs with pineapples, wearing pineapple hats and shirts, and even pineapple costumes much to the amusement of the band. Time for us to design a pineapple adult onesie perhaps. And our summer festival update would not be complete without a round up of which musicians have been left behind at Walmart in their pajamas. Sure enough this week it was the drummer from Belle and Sebastian while travelling to a gig at St Paul Minnesota. Fans took to social media, “I left my heart in San Francisco, and my drummer in North Dakota” wrote one Twitter user.