Music Midtown changes for better, worse

Over the past 12 years, Music Midtown has become a sort of early summer staple in the lives of Atlanta area residents. People travel from as far as Ohio, possibly even further, to enjoy the scores of bands that the festival has to offer. For the past six years, Music Midtown has taken up a three-day residence in the area around the Civic Center and what used to be Sci-Trek, just as the weather began to show flares of summer heat.

Until this year, Music Midtown was held at the beginning of May, but because of scheduling changes, the festival was moved this year to take place June 10-12.

It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turns out that the weekend on which Music Midtown fell this year was the same weekend that the Vibe MusicFest and the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival were taking place. Undoubtedly, some festival-goers may have opted for one of the other events over Music Midtown, a choice that some never had to make before this year.

Another change affecting those attending Music Midtown this year was a sharp increase in the price of tickets. Last year, the price of a ticket for all three days of the festival cost a mere $45. This year, anyone wanting to get through the gates had to shell out $30 more. While $75 is still a comparably good deal for a three-day concert festival featuring so many big name acts, such a spike in price was an unfortunate downside considering that as recently as 2002 a weekend pass to the festival only set attendees back $40.

The increase in ticket price might not be such an issue had the weekend's lineup been up to par with what it has been in the past. While this year's festival featured some big names and legends such as the Counting Crows, Joan Jett and Def Leppard, the selection of acts outside of the giants left something to be desired overall.

Even some of the currently popular big names like Michael Tolcher and the Killers gave less-than-stellar performances that did little to inspire excitement in the crowd beyond the 10th row.

In the past, when preparing schedules of bands I wanted to see over the course of Music Midtown, I had trouble deciding which bands I wanted to see most because there were so many that were worth seeing, often in the same time slots. I also was seeing a band in nearly every time slot.

This year, not only did I not have to make any big decisions, but I had huge chunks of time where I wandered around, not really engaged in any of the performances. Not to mention, a very large portion of the performances that I saw failed to impress me.

It was fortunate that the torrential downpour that occurred Saturday night was during the Black-Eyed Peas' performance. I might not have stuck around otherwise. One of the few bands that truly impressed me, the Peas made suffering through a cold, blowing rain an almost rewarding experience.

Their high-energy show was enough to keep the crowd energized, even through the heavy rain. Also, the Black-Eyed Peas' live performance is what shows that, unlike many other popular hip-hop groups today, they are not all flash and hype -they have real musical talent.

Another band that did not disappoint was Coheed and Cambria. The punk rock quartet gathered a relatively small crowd compared to some of the other acts of the weekend, but they made the best use possible of the audience they had.

The crowd was fully engaged in the show, dancing, singing, moshing and crowd surfing. It was the most energy I had seen in a crowd the whole weekend.

Several rock legends were scheduled to play over the weekend, including Joan Jett, Tom Petty, the Pixies and Def Leppard. I missed Joan Jett's performance, but those who saw it had nothing but good things to say. Apparently she has not lost any of her energy, talent or good looks over the years.

I was, however, so fortunate as to get to see Def Leppard. Their performance drew a crowd of die-hard fans who have followed the band since they burst onto the scene in the '80s, the children of those fans and many astute music fans of ages in between who learned to love their music on their own, if a little late in time.

Personally, I belong to the latter group, so I felt very lucky to see a band that I had long thought I was 10 years too late to ever see perform live.With all of those high expectations and my relatively dismal opinion of many of the other bands at Music Midtown, disappointment and letdown over Def Leppard's performance almost seemed imminent.

However, this is one band that got it right. In fact, the only complaints I have are about the giant man who purposefully stood in front of me, obstructing my entire view of the stage, and the woman near the front who kept exposing herself to the band.

Overall, Music Midtown was a mixed bag this year. Any event that attracts an average of 300,000 attendees is great for people watching, if nothing else. So even if there was an occasional lull in the bands worth seeing, watching festival attendees was nearly just as entertaining. Even the weather was a mixed bag. Friday night saw brief, light rain showers; all of Saturday was plagued with downpours; but Sunday was warm and sunny.

Despite the decrease in the quality of entertainment, the increase in ticket price and the generally poor weather, Music Midtown is still one of the best bangs for your buck as far as concert festivals go.

And with the addition of a country music stage and a deal signed with the city securing the area around the Civic Center for the festival until 2008, Music Midtown is not likely to see significant adverse effects stemming from my biggest complaints about this year's festival.

And despite what I didn't like about this year's Music Midtown, it doesn't mean that next year doesn't have the potential to be better. Of course, I still expect it to rain, because along with big crowds, festival poles and three days of music, rain also seems to be a Music Midtown tradition.