I cannot believe it, but I have something nice to say about the Aerosmith-Kiss tour taking place later this summer.\nIt's a double bill and not a festival tour. Along with opening act Saliva, that may be a long night of music, but thankfully, it's not a long day and long night of music.\nThat's not to say I would like to attend. This Tour for Teenage 'Tang means that these hoary men have no time for flirtatious small talk. They just want girls to admire Steven Tyler's comically full lips and Gene Simmons' capacious tongue. Musically, they have both been on the downhill slide since about 1975.\nThe long days and nights are what the festival tours are for, and four uninspiring mega-jaunts will begin within the next month: the resurrected Lollapalooza, the Metallica-plus-nu-metal Summer Sanitarium Tour, the Osbourne-fueled Ozzfest and the punky Warped Tour. All feature multiple bands that require the ticket buyer to forfeit their day in order to see the whole thing and get their money's worth.\nThese festival tours are musical sampler platters featuring bands that are similar but distinct nonetheless. For example, those going to the Summer Sanitarium Tour to see Mudvayne might discover the Deftones. Those going to Lollapalooza for Incubus could leave as fans of The Donnas as well.\nHere's a brief overview and a listing of some associated festival tour problems:
Ozzfest\nOzzfest only proves that Jack Osbourne's musical taste in heavy metal suffers from increased substance abuse. While Jack's father and tour namesake/ringleader Ozzy plans on performing, the rest of the tour is a mishmash of bands in need of reworking their live sound and others that just do not belong in front of such a large crowd.
Lollapalooza\nI have been to a few festival shows including the last Lollapalooza at the then-Deer Creek Music Center in 1996. While ideally, those there for Metallica would also be introduced to the Ramones -- and hypthetically speaking, vice versa -- that just doesn't happen. While rock fans like to portray themselves as having a wide musical range, they really don't. \nIn this case, the show was dominated by Metallica fans who couldn't care less about the punk forefathers even though the Ramones had announced they would be breaking up the following tour. The Ramones' set was a nightmare as a muddy sound mix buried their sound to the point of incomprehensibility -- don't want to show up Metallica now, do we? -- while many sat and stared at each other wondering what the heck they were seeing.\nSadly, this year's Lollapalooza looks to continue the transformation the tour underwent in '96, from a diverse array of sounds to just another hard rock fest. While complaints about the now-defunct, all-female Lilith Tour centered around tour honcho Sarah McLachlan's pigeonholing of female musicians as folksy guitar strummers, the bottom line was that the tour gave the audience what it wanted.\nSo maybe that's what tour organizer/Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell wanted.
Summer Sanitarium Tour\nAnother problem is that bands often have to abbreviate their sets in order to allow for everybody to play. Anybody who went to the last Lollapalooza had to realize that a 90-minute show from Metallica was far too skimpy to enjoy them. Yet I'm guessing their paychecks were fully sized.\nI plan on seeing Metallica again some day but only if I can be guaranteed they will play a full set. Since Metallica plans to headline the Summer Sanitarium Tour, I can cross it off my "Things to Do This Summer List."
Warped Tour\nIn a lot of ways, that makes the Warped Tour the most enjoyable tour because punk bands naturlly abbreviate their sets. After all, how long can they be if their songs are only two minutes long? On the other hand, the Warped Tour has embraced rampant commercialism to its detriment. They've reduced punk from a sound -- a very tuneful, well-organized sound, mind you -- to an attitude. The tour misses out on few punk stalwarts -- Rancid is not to be missed -- but the decision to suffer through all the dot-com ads and t-shirt stands for an inexpensive $25.25 ticket is up to you.\nFinally, as for the communal feeling that one is supposed to feel at these festival shows, let me say that I feel guilty as a grad student trampling over a 14-year-old kid with a nose ring and a purple mohawk in the mosh pit.
It's hard to feel communal when it's so corporate.
