Monday, June 22, 2015
By David Bauder
Associated Press
NEW YORK
Jim James and his band My Morning Jacket enjoy playing music festivals, but he’s starting to wonder if they are too much of a good thing.
Festival gigs litter My Morning Jacket’s touring itinerary this summer, including Bonnaroo in Tennessee, Lollapalooza in Berlin, the Electric Picnic Festival in Ireland, the XPonential Music Festival in New Jersey and Field Trip Fest in Toronto. The group is headlining many of its own gigs, too.
James likes seeing old friends and meeting new ones at festivals, and interesting collaborations often come as a result. The band’s nearly four-hour, middle-of-the-night show at Bonnaroo in 2008 was a career high point, and they’ve even curated a festival of their own in Mexico a couple of times.
That doesn’t stop him from worrying about whether the megashows are part of a broader trend that devalues music and makes it more of a commodity.
“There’s just so much stuff now that it’s difficult for things to register for people,” James said. “Why would you go see such-and-such band that you don’t really know that much but you see is coming through town? You can see them in a club, or you can go see them in a festival where there might be 30 other bands that you like.”
Festivals are important exposure for up-and-coming acts.
Artists aren’t paid as much as they are for their own gigs, said Gary Bongiovanni, CEO of the concert trade publication Pollstar.
The distinction is important for an act like My Morning Jacket, whose popularity and hard-won reputation as a live act exceeds its ability to sell recordings.
That oversaturation makes it harder for a band to support itself on its own shows, James said.