Summer Music Festival Roundup

I’ll never forget all the festivals I was fortunate enough to attend last summer. Rock the Bells, for one, where I saw a reunited Rage Against the Machine, Live Earth where I witnessed Smashing Pumpkins for the first of three times that summer and the Virgin Music Festival in Baltimore where I sweated off about 15 pounds over two days in a cramped dance tent.

You may have just gotten over the tryptohan slumber, are spending money you don’t have on presents people are probably going to toss in the bottom of their closet all while deciding where to watch the ball drop on New Years, but, screw all of that, you should really be getting the ball rolling on the upcoming summer festival season.

The first big bit to come across the wire this week is that the Coachella Music Festival is set for April 25-27 in Indio, Calif. where rumors are swirling My Bloody Valentine are going to grace this bill along with whatever amazingly awesome act the festival is known for bringing together (See: Daft Punk, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Depeche Mode) Let’s hope I will finally (God willing, I better) make my first appearance in the desert.

From the producers of Chicago’s Lollapalooza and London’s Glastonbury comes the largest festival set for the tomato state. The Vineland Music Festival will be taking place August 8-10 on a 500-acre camp-friendly farm in the marshlands of South Jersey. Originally slated to be in Philadelphia before those plans fell apart, the festival promises about 100 bands. Look for the real Lollapalooza a week earlier on August 1-3.

And now onto Europe, who never fails to outdo the U.S. festival circuit both in number and gradure. You’ve got the Hurricane and Southside Festivals, which will include an appearance by Radiohead June 20 and 22 respectively. Adding to the bands newly announced Europe dates is a gig at Rosklide in Denmark whose date has yet to be announced.

The UK dazzles with Glastonbury June 27-29 and the Leeds festival August 22-24, whose tickets are already scarcely available on the festival website. The Virgin Music Festival makes a Canadian comeback, this time out west in Calgary June 21-22.

Can this year’s reunited bands top last years festival lineups? Perhaps, considering Oasis, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails all have albums due early next year. But can it top Smashing Pumpkins, 311 and M.I.A all in the same final hour of a two-day VFest set on a sweaty Baltimore summer evening?