I just want to see the one act I want to see get my moment, my selfie, my moment, my 10 seconds of

my favorite song and then go home. Yeah, I don't want to do all the everything else.

Like you said, I don't want to sit through bands that I've not heard of because they're

not on my algorithm or on my playlist or whatever. That's the struggle. That's the challenge.

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the What Podcast. I'm Barry. That's Russ. That's Brian.

We are basically, when you're hearing this less than a week away from South Star,

as we've mentioned before, Russ, unfortunately for us and for us in some ways, won't make it.

He's got a family obligation out of state, not just out of town, but out of state.

Yep. I will not be able to attend, unfortunately. That's all right. You need to go to that.

But Brian, you and I are going and I, as we have said before, you and I are,

we're bad about saying yes to something three months ago and being sincerely excited.

And then as it approaches wishing we had said no, but I don't feel that way about this. I'm excited.

Well, I'm going to be honest. I do feel that way a little bit, but I feel that way about everything,

man. This middle-aged thing, Barry, you were not joking 10 years ago, sitting around,

sitting around, camp nut butter, telling me and whoever else wouldn't listen about how this goes.

Well, yeah, I get it now. I get it. But no, I mean, I'm joking, but not. This is kind of a thing in

my life all the time, even if it's just a show here locally. Oh, God, I did say I'd go to that

on Saturday, didn't I? Well, hell. And I'm pretty good about holding to my obligations. And then

once I do them, boy, am I happy that I did it. 100%. I don't think this is unique to any of us.

I don't think it's unique. But so yeah, it's getaway day for all intents. I mean, we got to

get going here in the next couple of days. Right. And since we last talked to you, unfortunately,

we've had some news. We dropped in right there in the middle of a news cycle and there's nothing

really we could do about it. But we spent, I don't know, 15 minutes on Jane's addiction and how we

can't wait to go see him. Five seconds later. Well, OK. Yeah. See you later. Literally that night.

Yeah, it was pretty close. Yeah, it was. Yeah. That night was the the incident, the fight, I guess,

Dave Navarro and Perry Perif. Yeah. You said fair. Is it Feral or Feral? Why have I not known this

for 30 years? I know, Taco. I think it's Feral. I think that's all I've ever heard. Feral is the

other guy. I know. I get confused anyway. Yeah. So as soon as we talk about that, they're out. And

I didn't know if they were a fighting kind of band. I don't think they are. Did you guys end up hearing

what this was about? The in-ear monitors were all messed up. That's what I did here. Yeah. And yeah,

it's it's actually wild. You don't really think about that kind of thing.

I saw like a tick to watch a tick tock video, a couple of different things in other places, too,

where they would play the audio that goes into the ears as opposed to what you're hearing. Right. It's

wild what they do and don't hear on stage. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You remember, was it several years ago?

Was it several years ago? Adele's PA, like the entire PA went bad. I guess. But her in-ears,

her in-ears were still working. So she kept singing and like one looking at the audience,

you know, freaking out. Like what's going on? Yeah. Everything was fine to her. Those things

are pretty cool. I don't know if I ever even told you guys when we were at at Bonnaroo this year,

early on, it's a friend of a friend's band, the Foxys, played on Thursday. And and I went to that

show because of the friend of the friend kind of thing. And the music's good. And she had the exact

thing. She had her in-ears. It's the first time it's ever happened to me as a patron at a show.

And she could hear the mix perfect. Right. And we couldn't hear anything. And it's this little small

stage, but it's still a nice stage. And it's still enough people there. Yeah. My heart was breaking

for her. And I was texting the friend of the friend. I was like, oh my God, tell Julie. I was like,

she did a great job. But this is, oh my God, I feel so bad. And they eventually fixed it and all

that. But that's apparently what that was about with James Addiction. But anyway, they're out,

they're done. And we have replaced or they have, I should say, I'm sorry. I don't mean to take

ownership of the festival, but South Stars replaced it with, which Taco broke the news to us.

Rage Against the Machine's Own, Tom Morello. Holy. That's pretty good. Jesus. That's pretty good.

Even more jealous. Tell us about your weekend now, Russ. Yeah.

You were excited when you saw that, right? Yeah, I was excited. Like I said, I'm even more jealous

that I can't go now. It's like they just keep making it more and more enticing. That's pretty

strong. It is really strong. And I'm just going to say, I won't, I'm just going to flash it. You

can't see it. This is his set list. All right. I know don't ruin a show with a set list, except

if you want to go take a look, holy, that is going to be a treat of the weekend. Cause that's

basically, if you want to know what he's going to do at the festival this weekend, just Google around

and you can make an educated guess. It's going to be good. It's going to be real good. We've talked,

a couple of times at Bonnaroo, they've had to do that, right? Where they've had to replace

Mumford and they went and got Jack Johnson, right? I love that story. And it's basically

because he answers the phone and they knew that he would. And he was coming anyway. Yeah. And he,

you know, it was a good, it was a great, just to hang out. I mean, he was coming as like a, as a guest patron

and they're like, yeah, that was about 2012 or 14 or something like that. I remember that. Wow. That was,

that was a fun, well, obviously not fun for Tom. What do you think? Is Tom Morello just sitting

around waiting on a phone call and he answered. And so he said, sure. I mean, how do you think that

worked? I mean, that didn't, Steven and Brian, the guys who sort of book or the organizers, they kind

of have a short list, you know, in a hip pocket of, you know, people who are touring, who are going

to be in the area and who are amenable to taking a phone call like that. But I mean,

you can't plan for it. You can't hope for it. No, Barry, tell me if I'm right on this or if you've

ever heard this, cause I don't have the super insight on this, but we, there was some kind of

late addition to our local festival, Riverbend. They had to add one year. It's not, it's not even

name worthy. And, but the people I was talking to were saying there's, there's like this little

list national, almost database of the bands that will drop what they're doing. Cause they're not

really touring. I'm trying to think who it was like sister Hazel or something, something from the

nineties. It'd be like a gym, Hazel sounds right. Something like that. And so they're almost like,

they had to fill it and they just, you call or you whatever, get a hold. And there's like a database

of bands that are willing to jump off the couch and come play show. I think that's a real thing.

Right. Yeah. No, I think it is. That's what I'm saying is, uh, and it may be, I don't know if it's

the band or management or, I mean, we could find out, we could ask, we will ask, uh, how does that

sort of thing happen? Yeah. Yeah. We'll get deep into that one if we need to, you know, cause like,

as we've said, it's not a matter of, uh, you know, a guy and his guitar showing up. You got,

you got a whole crew, you got a setup, you got all kinds of logistics. So, um, good for them for

getting a Tom Morello. That's like I said, that's pretty strong. Yeah. And if I'm going to get to

just be totally honest here, the Jane's addiction thing, I just needed, or to me, I felt when I saw

the lineup that I just needed to get that out of, you know, that box checked from my list in my head.

I don't really like them that much, or I would have already seen them by now. Yeah. Tom Morello

and Rage Against the Machine are legends in my, in my personal anecdotal mind in life.

And I've never seen them outside of Rage. I can't wait, man. That just made the day for me.

I would, I would have been happy with either. I think the beginning of Ben's Caught Stealing

is one of the great opening bits. It is a classic open. Yeah. It's a great open and I love it. And,

you know, Jane Says is a great song. We all know it. And then I was listening to some of their

stuff last week when we were talking about it, right after we got off recording and I was excited,

but yeah, you know, this is good. I'm happy. I'm, like I said, I'm really looking forward to next

weekend. The closer it gets that anxiety that we typically have, or I typically have, I really

don't want to make all this effort and I really don't want to go. And why did I say no, I'm excited.

I'm looking forward to it for a lot of reasons. Partly because it's going to be a, you know,

not to steal their thunder, but kind of a mini-roo because of so many people that we know that are

going to be there. Not just listeners to the podcast, but people we've met through Bonnaroo

as well as industry people. Yeah. I've talked to several that have nothing to do with anything that

just here locally that are headed down. So it's going to be, it's going to be a lot of fun. And

Huntsville is a great city. So just, I don't know, you know, we're, it's a scorcher in Tennessee.

I was going to bring that up. I mean, my goodness, we're back to night. I mean, I'm a summer guy,

Barry, you know this, I go, I go on to annoying levels on how much I love the summer and hate

the winter, but 95 at the end of September. So I don't know. I've even looked at that far ahead.

It'll be fine. But that'll bother some people. It won't, it won't. I'm looking now. I meant to do

that. Okay. It's going to cool off some. It looks like, uh, I think 10 day and keep talking while

I'm looking, but for, yeah, for those of you who are not in this area today, we're recording on a

Sunday morning. Uh, I just had to run to the store. It feels like walking into a blast furnace. Yeah.

So if you're coming from far away and you think, Oh, it's fall, it's late September. It ain't fall.

It ain't fall. And it was, and we fall. I don't fall for it, but people around here do. It cooled

off a couple of weeks ago and everybody got excited. Oh my God. I'm so excited. It's like,

no, man, not yet. Not yet. It's 86 degrees right now. We're recording in the morning,

late morning. Okay. That was our fake. That was our fake fall. Yeah. But it'll be 95.

Yeah. Yeah. And then summer, whatever you want to call it. The 22nd is the actual official first

day of fall, but it's still going to be a while before it gets a little cooler. Oh wow. That's

right. Okay. Well, 95 today on the first day of fall. On the first day of fall, 95 degrees. Yeah.

We might catch a break though. It looks like low eighties next weekend in Huntsville. Maybe a little

shower on Sunday. So I'll take low eighties all the time. Every day of the week, every day of the

week. And so I guess we could transition slightly into the Bourbon Beyond Festival that just wrapped

up this past weekend in those same temperatures. Before we do real quick, I just wanted, I mentioned

specifically, you know, we're going to see some people. One of the people that we're going to see

that I'm really looking forward to is Sue Marcus. And I want to give her a shout out. You guys both

know her from Moon River. She's been so helpful. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you out of the show,

Sue. That wasn't my bad. That's all right. That's all right. No, no, I'm reading. We'll move on. But

I wanted to say, looking forward to seeing her and thanks to her for all the things that she helps us

with. Not just access, but lining things up and just being super sweet and nice. Yeah. Sometimes

that's hard to find. And I've told you why I'm so fond of her, right? In particular, years ago,

when I was still working for the newspaper, like with Bonnaroo and other things, you know, we would

get the line up a little early so that we could record and know what we were talking about. And

Sue was kind enough to get it to me early and it was supposed to release at 10. And I got it all

ramped up and ready to go at 10. And then I went away to another interview and she sent an email

saying, please wait till noon. And you didn't get that email. So I scooped the rest of the city. And

anyway, I was so apologetic and she was really cool and we've been pretty good since. So I just,

yeah, that was one of those, there was probably an initial Zoom meeting, like what the hell happened

here? And then, oh yeah, she was cool about it and professional, but I'm going to imagine there was

some yelling and screaming and name calling and I deserved every bit of it. And then 10 minutes

later when they were on the, you know, the next single they need to push, they forgot about it.

But as we've said, it's not Watergate. No, no, it's not. But anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing

her and so many other people. Yeah. So Bourbon and Beyond is going on this weekend and that's one

that we got all hyped up about. Oh, we were going. Yeah, we were for sure going. And then

pretty much in atypical form by about a week later, we were not going. Yeah, that one did fade a lot

quicker than normal. And part of that is, it's just, it's a little bit further of a drive. And

then our, but our September and all of our years had their own, you know, left and right turns. And

my September got too loaded to do, to do any more. Pilgrimage Festival just is going on this weekend

as well. We haven't talked about that much, but that's up in Franklin near Nashville. That's a

really fun one. There's still plenty to do. Summer, forget the calendar. Summer's not over yet. And

yeah, but boy, what a great lineup still. And we got a couple of people on the ground. Wouldn't

call them necessarily. I mean, I know we've got a little bit of correspondence over the, over the

timeframe with Trevin and some others, but. Oh yeah. He's, he's, he's a, he's an unofficial,

official part of the show. I didn't mean to throw him out, but like a few others, I know that are

there too, that are not official correspondence. A roving correspondent, Trevin Bernarding is,

is there. And, but, but you've been following sort of the Reddit threads and it's kind of a tale of

two festivals. Yeah. Which typical stuff. But I, it's predictable stuff. This city festival kind of

set up and it's not in the city. It's on the outside, Kevin and Expo center outside of Louisville,

which was another reason I wasn't super excited to go. Forecastle was right in town on the river.

Pretty set up things. Awesome. Things were awesome. You've talked about it, Barry. I've

unfortunately never went, but it's, it's this typical downtown on the river backdrop of a

festival. And just in theory, right. We all love that idea, whether they all work out as another

story, but this is not that. And the pictures of it that I see, it's not an aesthetically pleasing

place. This Expo center with fairground. Yeah. Whatever you terminology want to use to call it,

they, you know, horse track over there and that kind of stuff. So it's not a real pretty place.

It doesn't need to be, you know, it doesn't mean you need to, the stage is amazing looking, but

yeah, I got, I'm just using Reddit and X Twitter as a, as a, as a barometer, which I always do that

understanding that you're getting the extremes. But Saturday, from what I can tell, boy, it was

Pat. I mean, it was a sold out day. Right. And because of Zach Brian, the guy fills football

stadiums without even trying. I mean, they just barely put them on sale and let you know. And

boom, he sells out Mercedes Benz Falcon stadium in Atlanta in two seconds. So that, that was a

predictable kind of crowd. And I saw some people talking about how they, they released some

additional Saturday onlys recently. And so they're like, well, here we go. You know, they're just

trying to squeeze every little bit out of that, out of that lemon, which, you know, they, they,

they would, if they can, if they can legally fire, Marshal Lee get away with it, they will. And they

did getting water, getting to bathrooms, getting in and out, trying to get a spot where you can see

the stage, a lot of, a lot of VIP at this festival, a lot of different levels of accelerated admission

outside of, for lack of a better way of putting it quickly in my head than just regular general

mission. And that sounded horrible to me. And I can, you know, I've been in that, I've been there.

I've been in, not there, there, but I've been in that situation. That's miserable. So

if they've made it to where just being a regular old GA is that difficult, I don't know, you know,

I wasn't there, but we've, we're hearing from other people. I'm also seeing texts. You can speak to

that Barry a little bit, what you've seen from Trevin and others. That's not true for everybody.

Yeah. So just as we were going, starting to hit record, I reached out to our roving correspondent

in the field, Trevin, and he is there. He's there with a mutual friend. And I, you know,

how's the festival is my question. He said, it's really good. I like the improvements from last year

with the additional two stages. And then of course we ask and, and he has reported,

he said on here, Trevin is, goes to all kinds of festivals. He travels the, you know, they went to

Canada as a family. You remember earlier this summer. So he's pretty experienced. And what I,

what I like and the reason in all seriousness that I, I like to reach out and get his opinion is

because he sees it from different ways. Sometimes he likes going VIP.

Sometimes he likes going GA. Sometimes he likes camping. Sometimes he doesn't,

you know, so he's, he's, he does them all kinds of ways. And for Burb and beyond, he's,

he said he's meant VIP, which I'm assuming is probably platinum or whatever you want to,

it's the ultimate you can get. But then his comment is, it's almost a necessity at this

festival. If you want to see the headliners. Well, that's a good point.

If you want to see the headliners. Well, that kind of, that kind of solidifies the stuff I was seeing

from the, from the GA types that kind of gives that some credibility from, that they're, that

they're actually are having, that it's not just a couple of one-offs on, on social that we're

having some issues. Yeah. We, we had heard that member. We had some several people on and even

some comments, you know, it, it depends. He said he was pretty close for Zach Brian last night.

Had to see what all the hype was about. I don't, I don't know this name and I'm going to butcher it.

Is it Koi or K-O-E Wetzel? Don't know that. You got me. But he said that's been the highlight

so far. Played the same time as Sting. And that was his, that's been his highlight. So

going to have to look that one up. Well, that's, that's the problem with, with city festivals.

They're their own little potentially magical or a disastrous will of one-offs and you know,

Midtown, the old Midtown music, Midtown in Atlanta, like 20 years ago, old Midtown was just like that

city downtown. And I've, I've been there when it was dangerous feeling, you know, and like this,

there's just too many people because you're, you can't sprawl, you know, you can't, they're,

the footprint is the footprint. And especially when you're in now this expo center might be

different, but when you're in the city, that's even more so like, yeah, you can leave the gates, but

where are you going to go? That's what I've always, and I'm, I have not been, but like Jazz Fest in

New Orleans. Boy, that looks like a total nightmare, but logistically, but it, it,

you know, it bottlenecks so many different, I've heard people who've gone and you think, oh, I'm

going to pop over from this stage to that. And you can't because you can't get, you know, across.

And that's, I'm kind of with you. That's a, that's a nightmare. That's what I loved about Moon River,

our festival here. When Act was in, you literally could pick your chair up and turn or do a 180,

you know, and you're watching the other one if you wanted to, or you could walk a few,

you know, or just get away from the mess. And you could still hear the music from almost anywhere

you were at. I think that's what we're looking at here with South Star next week. Agree. That's

what I loved about Forecastle. Yeah. Getting around is really, so I mean, some of them work

really well. Some of them work sometimes and others they don't like Sunday here as we record

on the final day of Bourbon and Beyond. Hopefully we don't miss something going on today, but

I bet today's a lot different. I mean, and real quick, my God, before I forget from founder of

Soberoo and Harmonium, Patrick Whalen got ahold of me. He's there with all his crew, like they

always were unsolicited. He hit me up the other day. Thank you so much, Patrick, with a, with a,

he said, I got a guest pass for you on Sunday, Sunday only. And I was like, man, oh my God,

let me sleep on it. Can I sleep on it? And he said, sure. It didn't take me long to realize

we're leaving in a few days. I don't need to be driving to Louisville, but, um, dinosaurs. Have you ever been to Louisville? No.

It's too late now. I mean, you've missed it, but that's about as easy a five hour drive as you'll

ever make. I didn't think of things existed as an easy five hour drive. I'm not, I'm not big on the

roads as far as traffic. I get, I get real anxious real quick, but I hear you, but that is, that is maybe the

easiest five hour drive that I know of anyway. I'm sure there's others, but you know, by comparison, my daughter

lives down in St. Simon's hence the hat and it can be a five and a half hour drive and it's the worst. No,

all five and six hour drives are not created equally. They are not. You're a hundred percent correct. It is the

worst five and a half to six hour drive. I get that. I've made, somebody gave me like this back door way, which

you wouldn't think would exist still in America now with how much our phones just tell us what to do, but to

get to Miramar and Destin in Florida. And it was this right on the nose six hour drive, which is like, saves

like 45 minutes or something, but it was like the most valuable 45 minutes to an hour of my life. Yeah.

And I was like, wow, that was a great six hour drive. And I never thought I would say that. So I totally understand.

That's funny because we used to go down to golf shores, not every year, but on the Atlas that I kept in the car.

Rand McNally. When you hit the, what is it, Alabama line or you're almost and you start, you know, doing those,

you think you're there. I've written and circled it on that map. We're still not close. Yeah. That panhandle can get tricky.

Don't be fooled. That panhandle can get tricky. Again, is still another two hours or something or an hour.

When Patrick first got a hold of me and I, and I'll throw it up here also to the, the, the sober, they go around all over the country.

We've talked to them before and by now you're pretty much aware of what they do, but they have the sober and beyond set up there.

And so they're doing it like they always do. And boy, thank you so much, Patrick. That was a really cool thing.

That's really cool. He reached out because we've said it and mean it sincerely. That was one of my favorite interviews.

Yeah. Patrick knows what Patrick brings it like he, he gets, he gets everything. He understands media.

He understands the music industry. He understands sobriety and addiction. And, and I mean, dude's kind of got that kind of stuff cornered.

But thank you so much for that. And it was a meaningful episode, but he's very good too. So I mean, that's, it was, it hit all the, all the boxes that showed.

Yeah. He's had to talk in front of a lot of people many, many, many times. But when I started to look at it, I talked myself out of it pretty quick.

But I had a, I had a day to think about it and I was like, okay, we'll record the show early and then I'll go to Nashville first and then I'll head on up.

Just couldn't talk myself into it mainly because soul asylum, one of my favorite bands from the nineties, one of these random bands playing at bourbon and beyond.

One of the many that just littered all over that, that, that list to make it so desirable to so many different people. They were on Saturday.

If they were on Sunday, guys, we would have done this show several days ago and I would have gone up there because they, soul asylum never plays.

They never tour. It's really just Dave Perner. The one lead singer that you have the dreads in the nineties.

You would recognize that picture if you saw them. They were on Saturday because of that damn Zach Brian mess.

He couldn't get me in on a Saturday, but it's still nice of him to think of you.

This NPR piece, which sometimes it's hit or miss from NPR. It can be pretty in depth reporting or fluff stuff.

I put this closer to the fluff stuff, but it was and I don't do I have it. What was it? So give it proper.

Of course I don't have the writer on it, but so many music festivals have been canceled this year. What's going on?

That's the headline. And it, it started at first. I think I always, you know, I'm always going to read a piece like this and it's really long.

And it's all the same stuff for a few minutes. It's dollars. It's production costs. It's all the things we've already spent all the time on here.

And that many people already know. But what it started to get into in this, I thought was interesting with the bourbon and beyond happening this weekend,

which is one of the most diverse festival lineups since any, you know, think of your best Bonnaroo or the most or the most curated Bonnaroo you can think of.

Bourbon and beyond is right up there. If not one of the better ones over the last 10 years or so.

And there were and some of this is projecting on the back end, which I'm fine with projections and a little prediction predictive kind of

storytelling, if you will, rather than just say, well, festivals are so expensive. That's why no one goes. All right. Great piece, man.

Well, as it got further in, it's talking about how algorithms are starting to dominate all of our lives and more so the younger,

the more the algorithm dominates your life. And I've found them to become terribly annoying that everything you do from TV to music,

from Spotify, everybody's paying for Netflix, everybody's pay or for insert, whatever it is you pay for here.

And it's all telling you what you want to watch to a certain degree.

I mean, it's kind of an episode of Black Mirror a little bit like here's here's this, here's this.

It's it's almost it's it's all the words. It's it's a little annoying.

It could be a little maddening, a little scary. It's it's it's A.I. in its own way.

It's machine learning. And they're the point of this was is that especially the younger people who need to fuel the admission,

the attendance of these festivals is that these diverse festivals that have so many different acts that all of us have always embraced festival types,

the algorithms are putting people into their own echo chamber bubble of entertainment that they're not they're not reaching out.

They don't care that dinosaur junior now nobody young is going to care that's that's a bad example.

But they don't care that the ex ambassadors and my morning jacket are on the same day.

And war on drugs was the day before.

And then Chapel Rowan was on Friday because their algorithm has not allowed them to get outside of that space.

And it also goes back to a reference with what we're near and dear to our heart, Barry,

and to yours as at least as a consumer of nothing if not more taco is traditional media,

all the traditional ways of consuming from MTV radio, television, all the traditional dying old dinosaurs,

whether you liked them or not, they gave you they didn't give you you what you wanted.

They gave what they thought a more broad audience wanted.

So I thought that was an interesting kind of projection going forward the next however long.

Will people value a diverse deep lineup?

And then more importantly, will they pay for it?

Right.

Was kind of the main thought on on this piece.

I know that was worth listening to.

And then I think I think that's interesting.

I also and I've I've heard and we'll get into it kind of to tease.

We're going to have a couple of episodes or an episode coming up in a while several weeks from now with with industry.

And this is industry professionals.

And this is what we want to talk about.

But one of the things that was sort of hinted at to me is, again, with the younger and is the I don't want to say the attention span.

That sounds like such a, you know, oh, man.

But it's true. But go ahead. I get you.

And yeah, it's not it. It's more of I just want to see the one act I want to see.

Get my moment, you know, my selfie, my moment, my 10 seconds of my favorite song.

Yeah, my tick tock. Yeah.

I don't I don't want to do all the everything else.

You know what I mean? Like you said, I don't want to sit through bands that I've not heard of because they're not on my algorithm or on my playlist or whatever.

And that's the struggle that challenge.

That's almost a different segment than even what this is even referencing over here.

Right. That's a whole nother wrinkle and dynamic to the exact same problem in question and discussion from this piece.

But you're 100 percent you've got also the come with me videos are called come with me.

Come with me while I get ready for the thing.

Whatever. And they're not actually doing it.

They're not really actually doing anything.

They're going to just enough time to make a minute video.

And then they're out of there.

And there was some chatter on Reddit right around festival time, Bonnaroo Festival time, where somebody was one in particular.

It doesn't matter. It's just an example of kind of what we're talking about.

Somebody did a food review. It was real clear this person didn't go to Bonnaroo before, didn't go to Bonnaroo again, wasn't there for any length of time.

They were there on an influencer kind of connection of whatever it was to do.

It was ridiculous. But if you didn't know any better, it was fine. It was a finely produced piece along this guy or gals or organizations content creation.

I hate that word content, but content creation.

But it wasn't representative of what Bonnaroo was.

It wasn't true. And so that was the argument of all that.

That's not what we're talking about today.

But no, but isn't that interesting because the thing that we and again, Brian has been to every Bonnaroo since the first one I've missed for.

But the thing that was great that we loved about Bonnaroo when it first started and over the years is the fact that it was more than just the schedule.

It was this whole thing. And they've worked very, very hard to create extra things with the camping and the VIP and what you do around the clock.

And now it's almost it's like it's gone too far.

That has become more important to some people that they go do their food review and do their own influencer thing than the event.

So that's kind of it's a pretty wild dynamic all the way around. And there's all of it matters to the equation.

I don't know. I don't know who's involved on these conversations, but every people way more powerful us in this in this power structure.

But it's all relevant to the discussion.

And another portion of this, I thought was interesting is that this is something I really looked at.

I don't know where this initial thought came from once upon a time, but it turned out to be pretty true that millennials once upon a time,

there was a lot of reports, research showing that that the materialistic America had faded and the experience America had kind of taken over with that generation to give them all a grief.

You want people consider me a millennial. My math puts me right in the middle.

Whatever you call yourself, whatever you want to call yourself.

But I always thought that was real and true. And and a very good quality of the of that generation is that the experiences meant a lot.

Well, eventually turned into fake experiences and make the one minute video look at my experience.

Not really. Then it turned that that's kind of where that's that's rolled into more projections and predictive nature of this piece is with with.

Now we're to the point where young people have been connected since birth.

Yeah. You know, and that millennials didn't you know, they didn't have this stuff when they were 10.

So this is changing a whole dynamic of it's bringing more social anxiety.

Social interactions are becoming less important to younger people.

Quick quote from the from the piece, but it says not to sound all kids these days, but kids these days research finds that members of Gen Z drink less alcohol, do fewer drugs.

Sounds good so far, right. They have less sex and fewer partners and are lonelier.

And his best selling book, dude, goes on and on from there.

All that is just little pieces of information that can go along with the they're socializing less.

They're not not drinking alcohol and and doing drugs and doing all these things because they're smarter or healthier than us or other people.

They're less social. Yeah, that's a good point.

Festivals. Yeah, they're not drinking because they're not at the bar because they're home on their phone or whatever.

They don't have a righteous plight against alcoholism.

I gotcha. They just don't. They're not in the positions to do it.

So there's there's good and bad to come from this.

Yeah. And the ultimate socializing event of all time, maybe, is the is the festival.

Yeah. Whatever the go back to Renaissance days in the Roman Empire, whatever the big get together chariot race.

You know, this is the ultimate socializing event.

And if they're not socializing. Yeah, they're not going.

That's what we get. Yeah.

So I did a you did for again, for listeners who maybe knew Brian also does a podcast, Stone On Air.

And you did an episode years ago that about beer and craft beer and how craft beer was impacting the traditional beers.

And I just I think it's kind of relevant, though it may be a little too niche.

But the idea was and taco is the perfect example.

As we know, Russ is a PBR guy through and through craft beer from Milwaukee, right.

Or from Wisconsin anyway. Yeah.

It's craft beer from PBR.

But your point, Brian, and not to put words in your mouth, was that what the craft beer industry or world had done was

the drinkers were only interested in the next.

What's the next craft beer? What's the next?

You know, it wasn't like they were discovering, you know, whatever an old classic brand or something or something.

And sticking with it. Yeah.

They were two months later is like, what's what else are you doing?

And I, you know, it's almost like, yeah, I don't remember specifically, but I've certainly I work in that industry as well.

So I know a lot about it.

It's almost like that took the form of technology.

Old is bad. Good.

Or new is good.

Only new is good. All old is bad, which is an infuriating place to live when you're a vintage retro kind of guy like all of us.

Yeah. On this call on this on this podcast anyway.

And so the point was for the craft, the brewer, you know, who makes let's say he makes a really good strawberry, whatever IPA.

Well, he can't bank that.

I know I'm with you. I'm with you.

I don't want a strawberry IPA either.

I'm just pulling that out.

Citrusy. Yeah.

So that only it's not like, you know, he says, OK, this one did really well.

Let's brew. So let's make more of it.

More and more and more. No, the crowd is ready for the next one.

You better whatever the next one is.

It better be better to next time.

Better have more alcohol in it.

Better have a cooler label, better get a good review from somebody.

And yeah, all this is relevant.

Man, that's a tough business model.

It is. It is.

And it's destroyed itself.

By the way, that was years ago.

It's destroyed itself as well as as well as seltzers and everything else.

We could do that for a while, but we won't.

So, yeah, to bring that back to the festival world, I mean, as you said, it's not just one thing.

There's no way it's not just cost.

It's not just ticket prices, though those are factors.

The audience has changed.

We know there were too many of them three, four or five years ago.

Probably still too many of them.

Probably still too many.

And yet, when we left Bonnaroo this year, we all said it's a Renaissance.

It's back. Yeah.

So it's kind of interesting.

We're certainly a little bit slanted there, but I've also I've gone backwards on this.

On this show, we've talked about it and I've talked to just whoever wanted to hear for years.

Oh, this is getting too expensive.

The more I look and I'm using relative terms because you have to.

So I'm looking at everything else and how much things cost.

And I look at festivals and I actually think these aren't out.

These this is not an unreasonable price at all.

No, we're talking to sixty to fifty on the starting in for Southstar this weekend.

That's right on. That's right there where everything else costs.

And if you want to get mad at somebody for staying market level competitive,

well, then, you know, go to Reddit and talk about it.

But that's not how you know, you stay market specific on certain things or at least market rough range.

A lot of these things, I don't think are that expensive.

I went and saw a damn movie yesterday.

Probably should just led for a blur.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice 2. No spoilers.

First time I've been in a theater, Barry Taco.

I mean, yeah, probably.

I bet I'm forgetting about one decade and a half.

Yeah, two decades like that.

I can't remember the last time for me.

And luckily, nobody was in there.

I actually great time. You want to hear about it?

Listen to the next zone on your podcast.

You're bored because you'll need to be bored to listen to it.

But it was twenty eight bucks. Wow.

I mean, I got some popcorn and, you know, whatever.

I went ahead and I mean, I didn't I could have made it a little cheaper.

But I didn't walk away mad, but I just said twenty eight dollars, man.

If I want times out by four, bring a few people with it.

And you're talking about one hundred and twenty dollars a day.

That's one day a mission at Southstar.

Sounds like to be so I mean, I was going to say that.

The other thing that the festivals have done and again,

Bonnaroo included is this a la carte type of thing.

We've learned several things.

You can spend as much money as you want to spend

and you can make it your event.

And people have money.

So this idea that it's too expensive, I get it from a cost perspective.

Like some of these festivals,

the break even point, again, Moon River, we know is as they they've

hit the pause button because twelve thousand people no longer paid the bills.

Very few of them are pulling much of a profit out of any of these, Bonnaroo included.

But as a as a fan, the idea that, you know, I've got money,

I want a VIP experience back to Trevin at Berman and beyond.

He, you know, he could have not paid that money.

He chose to. You chose to get the popcorn and the Coca-Cola, you know,

and it enhanced your experience.

Yeah, and it was and it and it added to the bottom line of what I spent.

But it was and I think what and this is a, you know, off topic comment.

But I think what corporate America is realizing is that a lot of Americans,

a lot more than we might have realized, have money and have money to spend.

Exactly. That's my point.

Yeah, there's a lot of people who don't.

And there's I mean, I would put it on the on a large scale.

And again, this is a socioeconomic conversation for a podcast.

It does something different than what we do.

But there are plenty of people who don't have money,

but there are plenty of people who do.

Well, you remember when when they started with their role like a rock star.

What was it? Ten thousand dollars or something.

Yeah. And they bring in on a tour bus.

The three of us are like, who's going to pay that?

That's the dumbest idea.

And nope, somebody's got the somebody put their credit card down.

Yeah. And you did it without blinking.

Yeah. That that that idea specifically didn't hang long.

But the but it grew from there into other experience driven, dollar driven things.

And they and they and they work.

And they and they told us it was it was not a failure.

It just wasn't big enough.

You know, it was like so eight people got to experience it.

You know, we have too many ten thousand dollar takers over here.

Yeah, I guess. Or how can we do it that have more people?

So it wasn't like it was a bad idea that that sat empty.

It was just not grand. It wasn't big enough.

So anyway, yeah, we'll see.

The market always seems to adjust, right?

It does. And I don't like when people it'll correct market, correct itself.

Well, the market shifts. I don't know if it, quote unquote, corrects itself.

I'm not sure if anything ever gets corrected at all.

One more quick just thought from this and was that it was spent like one sentence on this.

It made me think about it more than this piece talked about it.

But the what's popular amongst the people who are that we're hoping they the industry to be attending these festivals.

We've talked plenty about it, but the jam band early on and then EDM is huge now.

We've talked about that so much. It's boring me.

But I forgot about this. The little blurb right for a stretch of where all the Noah Connish types were all the most popular thing going.

And Luminers, Avis, Mumford, you know, the suspenders and the stupid like, you know, Pilgrimish Pilgrim looking clothes.

You know, like Alice Cooper used to the rock bands with a banjo.

Yeah, the third annoyed him to no end.

There's so many jokes on this. It's so funny online if you want to just find some memes.

But there was a little stretch where that was that was what it was bringing in.

That was a millennial thing. More than anything. I love that stuff.

I think it's great. Yeah, sing along.

And I was the hey, hey, hi, hi, hey, ho guy.

I remember that. Yeah, everybody's hey and ho and all the way to the bank here.

Yeah, clap and clap and stomp.

And so that was going on for.

But that was a short window, but maybe five years.

And then it's blended into EDM.

So the point of that was it's bringing all this these factors in.

What are kids doing? What will they be doing?

Millennials ain't that young anymore.

And we're they're basically I mean, I might be one.

They're they're they're tired. They don't want to they don't they're they're they're not young.

We still sometimes we as a collective society say all those millennials millennials are middle age.

We got to be looking zoomers and whatever the name they've got this week.

And so it was like, well, what will take the place of EDM?

Because something will. Yeah.

EDM is not going to stay there for forever.

Now, what happens after that?

I just I thought it was really interesting to just chew my brain to chew on.

Doesn't mean anything next year.

Doesn't mean anything five years from now, potentially maybe 10.

Oh, yeah. 100 percent.

These cycles just burn and churn.

And once these 20 year olds who are doing drugs and go into EDM.

Sorry, that's what us 20 year olds are doing a jam bands.

And that's what the 20 year olds are doing at Lumen Ears.

They're going to get tired of pretty lights.

They're going to. Yeah, they're going to be 30.

Sure. You'd be like, oh, my God, I'm not doing this anymore.

Yeah, I got a three year old at home.

Yeah. Yeah.

Doesn't mean you still don't love what you love.

Right. But then what comes next?

And do we have the infrastructure of a generational infrastructure to be able to keep it up?

I thought that was one of the better thought.

Well, it's looked at in a while.

Yeah. I mean, again, I'm old enough.

I can I can remember, you know, rap, hip hop just was everything for 15 years.

What? 2000, late 1990s to 2010, 2015.

And I can remember having conversations with festival organizers, especially the ones here.

Like, who are you going to book in 10 years?

You know, because right now you still got your classic rock acts that you that they could book here.

It was hard for me to imagine a classic, you know, gangster rap doing a festival for 50 year olds.

You know what I mean? That was my jam back in the day.

Now I'm 50, I'm going to go listen to a classic version of NWA or whoever.

Yeah. Well, you know what I mean?

You got you got big boy at the start.

I know it's come around and we can see it, but it's very, very small.

Right. It's not a you know, it's just I just remember having that conversation,

trying to look into the future at, you know, where you're especially for the kind of festival we used to have here,

which was basically you either got people on their way up or way down.

And the classic classic acts were a huge part of what they would book.

So it's kind of similar to your point.

Yeah, it kind of feels like pop.

Chapel Rowan, Taylor Swift style pop is pop music is always going to be there in some form or fashion.

Pop music is always since my lifetime, you know, starting Madonna, Lady Gaga, Chapel, Taylor, whatever.

Kind of feels like that might be what the next. Rebirth explosion, maybe I'm now I'm projecting and making stuff up,

but time will tell and I'll be here for it and the no icons, you know, like you said, that's that didn't see that coming.

Maybe maybe boy bands will come back next. Boy bands.

I'm here for it. Boy bands in their 50s.

Yeah, I'm not really here for it.

I'm not really here for it, even though I could take some new kids on the block any old day.

That's fun. Man, I love a good pop song.

You know, I I don't care.

I pick on me all you want, but I think a good pop song, corny, whatever the cornier.

If as long as it's good, I don't there's a reason why it's pop is popular music is popular because it's good.

It's catchy. It's fun. Exactly.

And I, you know, back to the middle age thing.

I mean, now that I'm the biggest Chaperone fan in the world, I had to stop myself, stop myself from going to buy the one year

anniversary double LP vinyl release of the rise and fall of the Midwest Princess.

It's the peach pinkish colored vinyl.

And I saw it like that's beautiful. The cover of the album.

I'm still chapel crazy, even though it's faded and it's like 60 bucks.

And I was like, well, I just spent 30 bucks on Beetlejuice.

I don't think I'm going to go buy a record today, but I really, really wanted to.

And so I do think, you know, pop music is fun.

I wouldn't have said that 10 years ago, but it certainly can be.

I don't know why I'm saying this, because it's apropos of nothing, but you mentioned sixty dollar double vinyl.

I happened to be at Cracker Barrel last week and they have a really nice new vinyl collection.

They do really unbelievable. Everything from Led Zeppelin to Taylor Swift to Dark Side of the Moon.

The country, the old country store has new vinyl.

Yeah, you can get your pecan log and your Led Zeppelin vinyl.

Led Zeppelin Zoso, the reissued version.

All right. What any what else, guys?

Well, speaking of vinyl, I think I mentioned this.

King Crimson actually just put out a new I think it's a double record.

I haven't picked it up yet, but I listen to some of it.

It's a live show from 1982 that's I think from like South America.

But it is like, you know, the the 80s King Crimson beat era, you know, that we're going to go see.

Yeah, I saw. I only know that because of you breaking the news to me.

Yeah. The other day via text.

All right, guys. Well, we Brian, you and I,

we're hoping to have some interviews.

I know we'll have some stuff from next weekend down at South Star in Huntsville.

Hopefully we'll have some band interviews.

We'll throw Sue in front of a microphone and a camera if we have to.

We're going to do something. Exactly. So.

All right, Brian, see you next Saturday.

Russ, we'll talk soon.

We won't have another episode.

I will have to figure that out because we will be in Huntsville recording.

So sometimes it makes sense.

Yeah, we'll figure it out.

All right, guys, have a great week.

See you soon. See you guys.