If you've never been to one, the words "American music festival" have a variety of associations. Probably the first that come to mind are Bonnaroo, Coachella or Lollapalooza, the heavy-hitting, big names that have rightly become poster children for this powerful trend in contemporary music.
Next, you probably think sunshine, bands and cold beer. Soon come images of scantily clad people wearing little more than their smiles, sharing and gallivanting around grassy fields, followed by wild romantic visions of some kind of hippie Valhalla where the music is the only law and people communicate in Phish and Radiohead lyrics.
Even if your conceptions aren't as generous as these, when you think about outdoor music festivals, you almost definitely don't think of a torturous hell unlike any seen during peace time. You don't think of sweltering heat or ruthless rainstorms. Teeming hosts of stinking, sweating people, some of them uncontrollably depraved and dangerous, probably don't enter into your fantasies.
Although your imagination may leave out the myriad filth, abattoir-like crowding and general sense of repulsiveness that is part-and-parcel of America's biggest music festivals, rest assured that these are fundamental aspects of apparently magical weekends of sun and music.
Slightly removed from the renown and name recognition of this trinity of American music extravaganzas but miles away from their inhumane living conditions is Langerado, the best music festival you've never heard of. While the past five years have seen other events of its ilk attract unthinkably large crowds, Florida's biggest music extravaganza, which will be held in Markham Park, has managed to keep itself relatively anonymous. Its comparative obscurity has kept the gargantuan crowds away and made Langerado one of the most hospitable and pleasant music festivals in the country.
If crowds, heat waves, floods and filth seem unappealing, Langerado's for you
In 2003, the festival quietly debuted as a spring break destination for approximately 3,500 people. The lineup featured typical jam-band fare and lasted only one day. The second Langerado in 2004 followed the same format, but in 2005 the festival turned a corner.
Nodding to the part jam-band, part indie-cred mentality that Bonnaroo proved effective, South Florida Jams Production put together a lineup that, though jam-heavy, appealed to people of slightly different crowds. Hip-hop legends De La Soul, Canadian livetronica pioneers The New Deal and experimental two-piece Benevento/Russo Duo represented Langerado's attempt to shirk the "heady jam festival" pigeonhole, and it worked. Roughly 10,000 people, many of them college kids on spring break, turned up in 2005 for Langerado's first multi-day, genre-hopping incarnation. That same year, 75,000 people swarmed to Bonnaroo.
The appeal of 2005's lineup did not go unnoticed by Ethan Schwartz, president of South Florida Jams and chief booker for the festival, who put together an even broader, better palette of performers for 2006's Langerado. Joining crunchy festival mainstays like Umphrey's McGee and Robert Randolph & the Family Band were bands with unassailable indie cred, like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, The Secret Machines and Kid Koala, as well as venerable acts Wilco and The Flaming Lips.
The unimpeachable lineup brought a record 12,000 attendees, but more impressive than the fact that the festival nearly quadrupled its attendance in four years is that, despite boasting a lineup featuring some of the biggest and most respected names in live music, Langerado still maintained the relatively intimate, hospitable ambiance of its beginnings as a one-day blip on the outdoor festival radar.
Lauded by the state's music critics as Florida's best festival last year, writers and fans praised Langerado's friendly, comfortable environment. Nowhere, not even in the darkest corners of the most twisted mind, has it been written that Bonnaroo, Coachella or Lollapalooza have comfortable environments.
At Langerado you can listen to music without standing in snow banks
Part of Langerado's idyllic feel is the weather. As Schwartz told the Daily in an e-mail, "Our location and time of year really set us apart. While we might not be full scale camping, we are in perfect weather while the rest of the country is still digging out of winter. There were 100 inches of snow in the [Northeast] ... it was 76 degrees in South Florida. If you love music, and are freezing your ass off, it's an easy choice to come to Florida for three days of live music."
Add to the utopian conditions a lineup that by far outdoes its predecessors, and the fifth year of the festival figures to be its best.
For Langerado's inaugural three-day incarnation, the promoters have again adhered to the jam-plus-indie-cred model, but changed the proportions to include performers from the poles of the indie super-genre. Confirmed artists like Widespread Panic, Tea Leaf Green and day one headliner Trey Anastasio, the former Phish front man considered by many as a father-figure to the jam scene, represent the quintessence of contemporary jam band music.
This unmistakable nod to the jam world, however, is balanced by appearances from some of indie-rock's hippest, most adored talents, including instrumental post-rock quartet Explosions in the Sky, cinematic guitar-driven duo Band of Horses and boisterous bar-rock poets The Hold Steady.
The electro-jamming of Philadelphia's Disco Biscuits is matched by the mash-ups of Pitchfork-approved Girl Talk. Power-pop icons The New Pornographers and livetronica veterans STS9 offset the boundless, improvised guitar melodies of Galactic, Perpetual Groove and New Monsoon. O.A.R.'s carefree earthiness is matched by My Morning Jacket's loud blend of southern and psychedelic rock. Other notables rounding out the lineup include Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, and internationally acclaimed guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela.
In addition to the festival appearances from these bands, a number of Langerado artists, including Anastasio, STS9 and the Disco Biscuits, have been scheduled to perform 10 p.m.-to-12 a.m. sets at local Fort Lauderdale venues as part of the Langerado Late Nite series. Mid-size club The Culture Room and The Revolution, a larger outdoor theater, will host shows from a variety of Langerado artists in an attempt to extend the festivities past Markham Park's 10 p.m. curfew.
The diversity of the lineup has led some to suggest that festivals like Langerado that so widely span genres suffer from a lack of focus, but Schwartz ignores these concerns. "I think we go first and foremost for artists that we feel put on a great live show," the promoter said in an e-mail regarding his company's booking decisions. "I think that every band that performs, whether they say it in four minutes or 40 minutes, is capable of putting on a kick ass show."
He also shrugged off concerns that some might label Langerado just another of several jam, indie festivals, suggesting that the festival offers attendees an opportunity to branch out. "I'm a fan of music first and foremost, so labels really don't have any effect on me," said Schwartz, a former Phish devotee. "I think most people who are coming to Langerado are open-minded and want to discover new music."
He added, "I think there is a small vocal group of people who you can never satisfy. I could put a supergroup of Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia and Keith Moon on the stage and people will complain, 'How come John Lennon isn't there?' You just have to go with the flow and do what feels right."
With Florida's beautiful weather come spring-breakers
But heavenly climate, comfortable atmosphere and killer lineup notwithstanding, there are a handful of problems that plague Langerado. Intentionally scheduled smack-dab in the heart of college spring break season, there is the distinct possibility of having to enjoy one of Explosions in the Sky's blissful crescendos while surrounded by more dudes than is healthy. The number of hats with frayed bills and Auburn University T-shirts bearing Greek letters may prove annoying to some.
More importantly though is the feeling of scale. One of the most exciting parts of Bonnaroo, Coachella and Lollapalooza is that amongst the inconceivable amount of people, you feel like you are a part of something special - an event so grandiose as to entice the largest throng you've ever seen to travel, often great distances, and spend substantial amounts of money.
Though Langerado's relative anonymity over the past five years has made it one of the most hospitable festivals in the country, a hint of forbidden longing for the crowds of the festival big dogs tends to linger over Southern Florida.
With an offering of bands as ambitious as this year's, this problem is even more pronounced. Top to bottom, the lineup contains over a dozen bands who are capable of delivering unforgettable, large-scale, truly epic live performances in the outdoors, but for attendees, it will be difficult for this potential to be realized if hardly anyone else is there to see it. If My Morning Jacket blows your socks off, and there's no one with whom to share it, does anyone remember? The promoters have raised the amount of available tickets to 15,000, but it remains to be seen if this number will sufficiently add to the grandiosity of Langerado.
Langerado might not have massive crowds, but its intimate feel is worth it
Ultimately, though, when the chief complaint about a music festival that takes place in a mainland paradise with a lineup as impressive as Langerado's is that there aren't enough people there, it is time to buy a ticket. With its fifth installment, Langerado has taken the idealized notions of American music festivals (bands, sunshine, the great outdoors, more bands) but left out virtually all of the grim realities that plague its larger competitors. It is unclear whether 2007 will be looked back upon as the year that Langerado perfected its mid-sized-festival-that-could status, or the year that it outgrew that identity. What is clear is that it is worth the price of admission to find out.
