I’m not one of the five million hippies that claim they went to Woodstock in 1969, nor did I assault anyone in line for the porta-John at Woodstock 1999. These giant music festivals first take shape in the mind of a shaggy idealist who knows we all love good music and that we can’t stop ourselves from a massive group hug if we can just get together and chill. There’s another shaggy pessimist out there too who knows we’re dumber together as a mob. So many “free spirits” out in the open together will probably get messy. Woodstock, Lollapalooza, and now Coachella formed annual Dream Team(tm), Perfect Storm(tm), or Shameless Promotion(c) events with unbelievable line-ups. Since I’m not immune to the schocking and astounding announcements every Spring, I boggle at the surprise appearances and reunions. I keep this deep foundation of impossible fantasy shows like My Bloody valentine, Love and Rockets, Cat Power, and “unicorns parading along Center Street.” Imagine how bonkers I get when I see that My Bloody Valentine will be blowing out amps at Coachella in a few weeks, and Love and Rockets will be reminding kids they used to be Bauhaus to the clueless mall-goth kids at Lollapalooza in Chicago this August. Unicorns close behind?

This is where I tell you about how I went to some of these ginormous shows years ago. Going way back, let’s say some time after the molten, igneous crust of the earth cooled and began to form smoldering contintal shelves, my first big concert was at Park City, UT, to see Tears for Fears and that was my first encounter with thousands of “unregulated” people around me. The waters gathered to form oceans and I saw U2 in Denver inside an enclosed space where thousands of people were on the verge of stampeding if Bono made any more political sermons. The first organic compounds formed life in the soupy side-pools of the stagnant waters, and about that time I went to Lollopalooza 3 in Phoenix, yes in the middle of Summer. I’m kicking myself now looking at the list of bands I DIDN’T see while I was there. How could I space going to see Tool, Rage Against the Machine, and Luscious Jackson? duh. I was with a bunch of flakes I guess, and I was probably preoccupied with dodging the beefy security guys who disapproved of my full-size SLR camera I snuck in.

Anyway, sulk, the the flocks of flying things gathered to fill the skies and I was living in San Diego, close enough for a drive out to Indio, CA for Coachella 2002. I saw Bjork and Siouxsie & the Banshees, except I was wedged awkwardly into the butt-crack of some giant Samoan guy due to everyone wanting to squeeze up to front. Normally a snooty polo field, the grounds are so vast that there’s a barren, deserted tundra away from the stages but still in the gates where you can wander aimlessly for 40 years and return to civilization with a long beard, knotted with twigs and clumps of dried wild boar flesh, and squeeze in to see the headline acts at midnight. My life story of music festivals is just at the fringes of ancient history and the hairy beasts are reportedly standing erect and wielding tools, and I’m now just as frantic as ever about getting away to the shows, though to be honest I have stopped watching for the unicorn parades here. Every year Coachella slips by while I ponder sleeping in an open field surrounded by thousands of weirdos like me, and now Lollopalooza doesn’t even tour around and it’s stuck in Chicago. One day I’ll find myself at the mega-plex theater watching a live broadcast 3-D of a Hannah Montana “concert” or the Jonas Brothers at the Stadium of Fire and my laziness will hit bottom.