SEARCH for #Coachella2016 on Instagram and the hashtag pulls up 276,766 pictures, few of which have anything to do with music. Launched in 1999 as a European-style festival, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Annual Festival has produced some incredible must-see moments: in 2005, Bauhaus’s Peter Murphy suspended himself upside-down like a bat to sing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. In 2012, Tupac Shakur, a rapper who died in 1996, appeared on stage in CGI form. Historically, Coachella has booked critically-lauded artists rather than chart-toppers, but this is not what it is remarkable for. An influx of beautiful people baring skin has made the desert festival synonymous with fashionable visions of bohemia.
This young generation, which can access music whenever and wherever they choose, is pursuing experiences over products. Before its line-up was even announced, all four days of the 25th anniversary edition of Lollapalooza 2016 were sold out—roughly 400,000 tickets. Perhaps festival-goers were confident that Lollapalooza would organise a musical extravaganza in this anniversary year. More likely they probably felt that, whoever played, the festival would provide an opportunity to capture moments and share them with their friends and followers. Music festivals have become our new promenade: a public showcase of our tastes, lifestyles and bodies. Music performance, in this context, is secondary.
After flourishing in the 1960s and 70s, American music festivals thinned out in the 1980s, before exploding once more in the 2000s. Outside Lands, Bonnaroo, Coachella, Osheaga, Neon Desert and others are all part of this North American boom. Nielsen estimates that the American festival market draws 32m fans a year from around the world. The market may be saturated—around 23 major festivals, such as Counterpoint in Atlanta, were cancelled this year—but the big names continue to draw crowds.
Big festivals have been quick to embrace change by booking breakout groups and cult act reunions: Lollapalooza or Coachella could be time capsules for music trends in any given year. This often drives them to the same well of artists. With both Radiohead and a reunited LCD Soundsystem on its bill this summer, Lollapalooza would appear to have huge pull with 30 to 40-somethings, but both acts were using festivals to promote their work across the country. LCD Soundsystem would go on to play Coachella, Bonnaroo, Outside Lands and many more. Major Lazer, Ellie Goulding, Haim, Lana Del Rey, ASAP Rocky and Sufjan Stevens were also booked by multiple festivals. Bonnaroo, once a celebration of jam bands and Southern rock, has only hints of that flavour today—a Grateful Dead spin-off Dead & Company headlined alongside Pearl Jam and LCD Soundsystem.
In the context of Instagram, however, the specific musical texture of each festival is beside the point. The festival-goer is the star: the pop groups merely a prop. Posting festival images on Instagram is a way of saying “I’m in the coolest place, I’m trendy too”. Massive festivals, drawing tens to hundreds of thousands, are much like sprawling temporary cities and the instinct to document them is not so different to recording one’s exploits in Cancun or Ibiza.
Instagram-loving youth are big festivals’ present and its future. Some acts in the EDM (electronic dance music) field have embraced this change, blurring DJ sets with digital media installations. Flosstradamus, a Chicago-bred DJ duo, played Lollapalooza dressed in desert camouflage and body armour. Fans engage with them and other members of the “hoodie nation” via the Instagram hashtag #HDYnation whether they’re in the crowd or just getting dressed for it.
It is not surprising, then, that three New York Times music critics decided not to cover Coachella and Bonnaroo this year; they cited that they had run out of intelligent ways to cover festivals “which look increasingly alike in their vision of a codified, consensual, safe and purchasable bohemia”. But music—both popular and subcultural—often wins its fans by offering dreams of an ideal life away from the mundane nine to five. It’s no real surprise that fans want to show themselves living a boho-style life rather than toiling at the office. Expect body paint and flower crowns for years to come.
