Free
music for the People, by the People:
Rosendale
Street Festival
by M.R.Smithby M.R.Smith
Music
festivals have come a long way. Entire industries have sprung up
since the early hazy freebies in Golden Gate Park during the Summer
Of Love: new businesses of big show promotion, sound amplification,
merchandising. The rise of the moving festival (a la Lollapalooza)
in the 90’s continued the expansion, creating brand name recognition
and mass marketing possibilities. Costs, as well as profits, have
been steadily rising, with ticket prices right alongside, mostly
due to skyrocketing oil prices and the burgeoning technology of
Bigger And Better Sound, not to mention the ever-growing Industry
of Large Crowd Control. Want to go to Coachella? Better be able
to save up a months worth of earnings in a rent-free environment,and
bring your own water.
That’s
not to say the bigger shows aren’t worth the money (see our
Grey Fox piece in this issue.) But, it is nice to know some folks
are taking a different approach, some with about as different an
approach as humanly possible.
The
Rosendale Street Festival is two days of solid music in the streets
of an unmistakably small New York town. Four stages. 75 bands/performers.
Up to 150 volunteers. And get this: nobody is getting paid. The
folks who organize the event spend several months making the necessary
plans, just for the fun of it. It’s one big donation of money
and time (except, of course, for the vendors) in the interest of
getting on the good foot. It’s also one heckuva good party.
The
very first Rosendale festivals happened from 1978 to 1980, and were
somewhat legendary events, bringing up to 20,000 people into the
town, prompting the town fathers to up the insurance requirements,
effectively closing them down. Fifteen years later, local residents
Brian Cafferty and Scott Cranin resurrected the festival, this time
with enormous support from the community. CONTINUE....
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