The Langerado Music Festival, South Florida’s answer to Bonnaroo, was cancelled last week due to slow ticket sales.  The festival, scheduled to take place March 6-8, was to feature such diverse acts as Death Cab for Cutie, Snoop Dogg, Chromeo, George Clinton, and Gym Class Heroes.

Organizers attribute the cancellation to the current economic crisis, but that is certainly only one factor of many.

The festival has had four different venues in its six-year history, and the 2009 event was to mark its fifth venue, Bicentennial Park in Miami.  Unlike last year, there was to be no on-site camping, and with Miami being such a popular destination, out-of-towners would have to drop another $500 or so just on hotels.

The lineup itself, while decent, was certainly not as impressive as previous years, or on par with rival festivals.  Last year’s headliners were REM, 311, and Beastie Boys.  This year’s Death Cab and Snoop Dogg just couldn’t hold a candle.  Granddaddy Bonnaroo, meanwhile, is set to feature Bruce Springsteen, Nine Inch Nails, and Phish.  California’s Coachella features Paul McCartney, the Killers, and The Cure.

2008 saw a record number of new festivals popping up all over the US, and whenever any market gets oversaturated, there are bound to be casualties.  Langerado is seen as something of a welcome-back party for festival season; here’s hoping it isn’t a canary in a musical coalmine.

The lineups for various upcoming music festivals are beginning to be released!

Langerado, which was supposed to have Death Cab for Cutie, Snoop Dogg, Modest Mouse, and Thievery Corporation headlining among dozens of other acts, announced this week that it is being cancelled this year due to slow ticket sales. Let’s hope that nothing else gets cancelled!

I’m personally hoping to make it to Bonnaroo this year (assuming I can swing the hefty ticket price, although they are offering a payment plan this year). Last year, I attended my FIRST major music festival — Lollapalooza, VIP style, thanks to SPIN magazine, and now it’s going to be hard to go a year without attending one. SO MUCH FUN!

Some of the country’s big ‘n’ eclectic rock/jam festivals, like Langerado in South Florida, are calling it quits this year. Or, at least, taking a break until 2010.

Bonnaroo, though, is standing strong, with a recently announced lineup that includes a huge gift to fans of a certain highly revered jamband.

Yep, Phish, reuniting in March to play three dates in Virginia, is headed to Bonnaroo, June 11-14 in Manchester, Tennessee.

Trey and Co., slated to play two shows – count ‘em – at the music-and-camping fest, are at the top of the bill, along with a long list of acts boasting serious music muscle.

The lineup includes Wilco, David Byrne, Wilco, the Rev. Al Green, Elvis Costello (solo), and the seriously over-exposed Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. More: Gov’t Mule, Erykah Badu, TV on the Radio, Band of Horses, Ben Harper, Merle Haggard, moe, Bela Fleck & Toumani Diabate, Galactic, Booker T & the Drive-by Truckers, David Grisman, Lucinda Williams, Gomez, Femi Kuti, Alejandro Escovedo, Cherryholmes, the Steeldrivers, and – yes – Nigerian juju star King Sunny Ade. More TBA.

By any measure, it’s a killer bill.

For the past couple of months there have been rumors floating around in the musical atmosphere about Phish and Bruce Springsteen playing at Bonnaroo.  I dismissed them at first, but then they lingered and grew stronger.  There was even a rumor that Zeppelin was going to play, but that was eventually extinguished by their manager.  But Springsteen and Phish were not disputed…..hmmm.  The night before the announcement was like the anticipation of a Chanukah from my younger years (yes, this squire is Jewish).

I’ve never seen Phish before and have been a big fan for the past 5 years or so.  When they announced a tour this year I almost shit my pants, yes…. some of us have an inner wookie inside of us.  I can’t help it.  My brother fucking loves Bruce Springsteen and was ready to drop $100 + on a ticket when he comes to Atlanta.  Fast forward to this Tuesday…. I call my brother.  The rumors are true (not to mention the David Byrne addition)…. we’re going to Bonnaroo this year.

You see, Bonnaroo was my introduction into music festivals and since then I have attended 4 more Bonnaroos and several other festivals in other states (FL, TX, WV, GA to name a few).  I wrote a paper in my freshman English class in college on Bonnaroo.  Bonnaroo was a holy thing to me…. that is until Metallica headlined last year.  I wasn’t even planning on going until I got a free ticket last minute.

The day of the lineup announcement several my friend’s flooded their facebook statuses with reverence for the reborn Bonnaroo:

“Tennesee, Tennessee ain’t no place I’d rather be”

“____ is going to the Roo this year!”

“____ wants to go to Bonnarooo!” etc……

So, staying with the Jewish theme here….. “What makes this year different from every other year?”  A few things:

-Great bands are touring right now… they need to make money, just like the rest of us.

-As much as I hate to say it, the headliners are a big part of the reason why people to go to these festivals.  It is why people like me can justify paying $250 a ticket…. (because you could pay that much going to one Phish show in Virginia).

-They are staying true to their fanbase.  Hardcore Metallica fans never went to Bonnaroo.  Sadly, when you don’t stay true to your roots you’ll have to cancel a festival.  RIP Langerado.

This might be a tough year for the economy, but it’s going to be a great year for live music.  Instead of attaching a photo/logo/video from the Bonnaroo website, I thought I’d post some photos from my personal collection.  See you at the Roo!

-Sir

Today the science is the top story! You can only imagine how giddy I was to hear about the French COROT satellite’s latest find- an exoplanet only twice the size of earth! That’s UNPRECEDENTED, people. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about it besides its size. COROT looks at other stars and watches for the slight dimming by a planet transiting in front of it. It’s sensitive enough to detect the miniscule dimming caused by this comparatively tiny planet, but that’s all it can do. In order to know what it’s made of, we have to know its mass, and the only way to know that is to watch how much the planet tugs on its parent star as it orbits, and since the planet is so small, the tug is also VERY small. We just don’t have anything capable of detecting such a tiny doppler shift…. yet. This planet is also orbiting so close that it’s practically touching the surface of its parent star, so it is VERY HOT, and thus completely uninhabitable. In fact, it’s very possible that if it has a rocky or metal surface (which is almost certain given its size), then its surface is molten. All this and more info can be found on the Bad Astronomy post from which this information was taken. Dr. Plait even goes so far as to say that we might find an earth twin (a planet roughly the same size as earth, in roughly the same orbit around a sun-like star) in the next few years. But again, we won’t be able to know much about it for several more years, until we get more sensitive telescopes operational.

Space Shuttle Discovery’s launch got delayed until at least Feb. 19th due to issues with a control valve that regulates the flow of hydrogen from the external tank into the orbiter’s engines during liftoff.

Credit: Jared Lazarus/Miami Herald

The economic slump has claimed its first music festival victim of 2009, the Langerado Festival, which is normally held in southern Florida. (This year it was slated to take place in Miami.) According to this Billboard.com article, artists confirmed to play included Death Cab for Cutie, Broken Social Scene, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, The Faint, The Pogues, Girl Talk, Black Kids, and many others. The promoters cited poor ticket sales as the sole cause of the cancelation. I have a sick feeling this may happen to some of the other smaller festivals that have popped up in recent years. People are much more hestiant to spend money on entertainment right now. The sticker shock of $100 or more for a ticket to your favorite yearly music festival is hard to overcome in times like these. More details can be found in this Miami Herald article.

In my last post I listed the Bonnaroo lineup for 2009. Bonnaroo is arguably the nation’s biggest outdoor music festival, and I definitely don’t think it will suffer the same fate as Langerado. It’s in a different class altogether. I also think that the inclusion of Phish in the lineup pretty much makes it recession-proof. If there’s any band out there that can bring in thousands of obsessively dedicated fans who will literally scrape the bottoms of their wallets to see them, it’s Phish. If you know me, you know that I hate jam bands and can’t stand most of their fans, but I think getting Phish to headline (along with Springsteen of course) was probably the smartest thing they could’ve done to counteract the dismal economy’s influence on ticket sales. I can hear the hippies now…. “duuuude… the economy like, totally blows… but duuuude, PHISH is rockin’ two nights at the ‘roo this year! We GOTTA find the money! Even if it means buying less weed!”

Hey everybody. I can’t believe it’s already February! The year is passing by so rapidly, I can’t even keep track of the time. On the flip side, that means that we are even closer to the release of the new MuteMath single, Spotlight. Only 6 days left until the release on February 10.

The new MuteMath website is still currently in the works, and it looks like the plan will be to launch everything up on Monday, the day prior to the release of Spotlight. Yay!!!

I also noticed some rumors going around about MuteMath performing at Bonnaroo this year. Unfortunately, this won’t be happening at all. I know, I know…I’m sad too. The band was scheduled to play at the Langerado Festival in Miami, but the festival was sadly cancelled just today.

Lastly, the band is currently working on finalizing some shows for this spring and summer. Hopefully we can get some dates out to you soon.

Sometimes problems just disappear.  The Langerado Music Festival has been cancelled for this year “due to sluggish ticket sales.“  In this case it is sad!  Especially because it seems like it is the first bigger festival that fell victim to the depression.

Unfortunatelly Bonnaroo is not during spring break.  With Phish and many other bands this festival has a killer line-up.  Concerning Langerado, now I do not have to debate whether it is worth to spend the money!  All Spring Break options are open again.

This song of the day is dedicated to my friend Jennie.

Jennie <3

We booked our Langerado tickets together and were really stoked to go…but alas, today it was cancelled. We both recently discovered the band The Egg and really wanted to see them play but now we’ll just have to wait. So Jennie, here is a song for you, in memory of what would have been Langerado:

Wall by The Egg

I have never been a fan of the month of February. Most people assume that it’s because of the “dreaded” Valentine’s Day…well it’s not. I could care less about Valentine’s Day. Every year I can rely on the fact that my mom will have sent me a card or two, and that’s more than enough for me.

thanks mom!

The real reason that I hate February is because it seems to be a month of bad luck for me. It is only February 4th and I have already burnt my hands with boiling water, broken my phone for 2 hours, found out that Langerado is canceled (I’ll blog about that later when I’m not so upset) and tonight I managed to spend three hours in a police station because a creepo did something horrifying outside my apartment. Not to mention that this year I can hardly look forward to New York Fashion Week because the majority of the shows have been canceled.

Thankfully February is the shortest month of the year…but you can imagine how much I hate leap year. MARCH!! HURRY UP AND GET HERE!

The folks behind the Miami music festival have called it quits after weak ticket sales. I can’t blame them as most “extras” like concert tickets are no longer a financial option. This kind of sucks as I had always hoped to go to see one of these festivals.  My good friend Dr. Pauly had some great stories from his time at the festival.

So long Langerado. I’m sorry I never knew you.

Damn.

http://www.langerado.com/2009/langerad09.php?sec=13&id=86

Poor ticket sales. Sad.

Phish IT: Limestone, ME

Andrew’s Photo from the Langerado 08 Stage: Big Cypress, FL

Favorite place growing up: Webber Pond, ME

Little Girl in the Crowd at Langerado: Big Cypress, FL

Deerfield Pier on top the Myxer building: Deerfield Beach, FL

Bikes and Grafitti: Amsterdam, NL

So Langerado finally announced more artists for the 2009 line up:

Modest Mouse

here’s their song “Dashboard”

Deerhunter

here’s their song “Hazel St”

Alberta Cross

I hadn’t heard of them before and I’m not sure how I feel about them. They sound a bit like My Morning Jacket…

here’s their song “Lucy Rider”

Gene Ween Band

So I guess this is basically Ween…I’m not sure how I feel about them playing either.

here’s their song “mollusk”

I think deerhunter was a great addition. Modest Mouse is alright, but they kind of died for me when they got famous and started blowing up all over MTV. Again, I’m not sure how I feel about Alberta Cross but I think it might be something I could get into. And Ween is kind of random but works for me! I hope they add more artists!

What to do over spring break?  Right now I am debating whether to work at the Langerado Music Festival during the first weekend of the break.  I could be part of the WET core team like I was at the Bear Creek Music Festival.  It should be a lot of fun, but could also get kind of expensive (not the ticket, more the expenses for getting down to Miami).  And it would be a pain of a ride (or painful plane ride).  Then again, check the line-up:  Michael Franti & Spearhead, Umphrey’s McGee, Disco Biscuits, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Cold War Kids, George Clinton & Parliament / Funkadelic, Tortoise, to name just a few.  I don’t really know what to do!

I booked my tickets! Did you!???  If you didn’t then you definitely should…just check out the line up!:

Death Cab For Cutie • Snoop Dogg • Thievery Corporation (Live) • Slightly Stoopid • Ryan Adams and the Cardinals • Dashboard Confessional • The Pogues • Matisyahu • Flogging Molly • Michael Franti & Spearhead • Broken Social Scene • Cafe Tacuba • Umphrey’s McGee • The Disco Biscuits • Robert Randolph & The Family Band • Pepper • The Faint • Cold War Kids • Steel Pulse • Public Enemy • Gym Class Heroes • Tricky • Girl Talk • Chromeo • Mute Math • Bad Brains • Ozomatli • Against Me! • George Clinton & Parliament / Funkadelic • Tortoise • DeVotchKa • Black Kids • Grupo Fantasma • Holy F*ck • Budos Band • Tokyo Police Club • Lotus • The Virgins • The Gaslight Anthem • King Khan and the Shrines • Lucero • Murs • Ra Ra Riot • Tortured Soul • Rebelution • K’Naan • The Egg • Zac Brown Band • Tigercity • The Aggrolites • Cloud Cult • Spam Allstars • Rachel Goodrich • Blue King Brown • The Heavy Pets • Awesome New Republic • The Postmarks • Suenalo Sound System • Live Painting by LEBO

There are even more artists to be added. I can’t wait to see what Coachella and Bonnaroo come up with.

My only thought is…Death Cab for Cutie? Really??  I thought they died when The O.C. did. To quote Summer from The O.C. “It’s like one guitar and a whole lot of complaining!” But to each his own.

I can’t wait for the schedule to come out so I  can make my own.  Here’s Rich Girls by The Virgins to get you excited:

hope to see you there!

http://www.langerado.com

Two popular US music festivals, Bonnaroo and Langerado, are offering a way for music lovers, who may be strapped for cash, to still make it to their shows. Langerado, which is March 6-8, in Miami, has a three month layaway plan, while Bonnaroo, which is June 11-14, in Nashville, has a five-month plan.

This year Langerado will feature Death Cab for Cutie, Snoop Dogg, and Ryan Adams, and cost you at least $120. Bonnaroo, which has yet to announce their line-up, is charging $250, and if you want to do the layaway plan you have to buy your tickets before the end of the year.

What do you think? Will you still pony up?