Due to the mind blowing awesomeness of the inaugural Rockaway, I am actually rather stumped as to where to begin...
Enjoying rock means a little bit of this...
As rock concerts go, Rockaway was far from the best organized nor was it the best choice of venue /setup etc etc.
A heck of a lot of that...
But as a festival..a rock festival... I felt that Rockaway actually attained that level of rock nirvana that has actually rarely been attained.
A LOT of behind the scenes stuff like this...
Rock is something beyond a mere musical genre. Rock marked the social transitions of the modern era. Rock is the expression of political, social,economic and yes, in several incarnations religious, undertones via other means. Whether its about sticking it to the man, to crying out the virtues of free love to just telling everyone to Shut the fr@ck up!, rock was at its best when rockers had something to rock about!
Listening to a lot of "hear me go raaaaaaaaaaaawwwrrrrrrrr!"
Now don't get me wrong though... Having a cause to rock about isn't a necessary pre-requisite for brilliant music. Over the years and as the world calmed down a bit from the 50's,60's and 70's and entered the strange and rather gay world of the 80's and 90's, rock was valued as melodic entertainment for the sake of melodic entertainment, and rightly so. Television and MTV of course also had a heavy hand in it, popularizing rock to the point where rock (and all other popular music for that matter) became synonymous with fashion trends and glitzy glamor.
In today's world rock is often the playing field of the middle to upper class. Coldplay, Oasis, The Killers...this stuff doesn't come cheap...at least not in this part of the world in anycase... and yea, yes the bands love, LOVE to make music... but still...musics an industry.... absolutely nothing wrong with that...
Its about a whole lot of this...
BUT then every now and then you have a sweet little gem like Rockaway. A FREE rock festival featuring some of the best indie musicians the country has ever seen! Bands like Estranged, 7 Collar T-Shirt, Car Crash Hearts and of course One Buck Short who threw the whole thing together. Throw in a crowd that's been repressed and disillusioned by the strictures imposed by our oh so wonderful society, and is just bursting to break out in sheer...Fun?! And we find ourselves with something amazing...something primal...something bigger than the moment yet drives you to appreciate the existentialism of existence... Something purely and genuinely rock.
Yea, a little bit of weird stuff...
Crazy rant this probably seems to be, fact is you just had to be there to appreciate it =P Here's to a Rockaway 2010!!!!!
Oh and of course, some wacky people to enjoy it with...
