Music Festivals

Is it just me, or are these things severely overrated? I mean, they're usually in the summer, or somewhere hot enough for an outdoor music festival, so if you're on the East Coast, you're dying in the humidity, and if you're on the West Coast, it's all dry and you're caked in desert dirt. (Yes, I know I'm ignoring the entire middle of the country. Who cares? The answer: no one. They don't count anyway.) Then there's the lines, and the crowds, and the excessively drunk people who inevitably vomit anywhere they please, or the really high people who are nauseatingly happy. There are the self-righteous speeches given by the musicians that mercilessly cut into their already-laughably-short set time , because these festivals are always for something, I think. Right? Don't they all have causes? I don't know. Then there are the porta-potties. Everything about those is horrible. The endless line, the nostril-hair-singeing stench, the lack of sinks for hand washing. Ugh. Let's also not forget the astronomically, egregiously high food and beverage prices. Good luck getting a funnel cake and a water for less than 10 bucks. And how about those wonderful occasions when it rains at these things, too? What a treat that is, the muddy mayhem that ensues...

There are so many of these things now, too: Bonnaroo, Warped Tour, Lollapalooza, All Points West, Coachella, and many more. People say, it's a great opportunity to see all the bands you love in one place. I say, it's a terrible experience in which you're exposed to the elements while listening to a lot of bands you don't like just to hear the two bands you actually do like play 20-minute sets that include only one or two of the songs you actually wanted to hear them play. Just go see those bands' shows separately and avoid the debacle that is the music festival.

Oh, and good luck getting out of the fucking parking lot.