It’s all about war bonnets, tank tops and scruffy man intensively strumming their banjos! Get ready for quirky flags fluttering above tent complexes, sleepless nights, and, of course, lots and lots of music. We present you with 10 absolutely awesome photos from music festivals!
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So, the first entry and we're already ditching the Olympics? Well, first of all, boxing, with a couple of exceptions, has been a regularly sport since the first modern Olympic gathering in 1904. Secondly, this is Muhammad Ali, and the picture itself is a textbook example of iconic sports photography. Against all the odds, and despite some divisive pre-fight buzz, Ali, (then going by his birth name of Cassius Clay), had just knocked out Sonny Liston in a boxing match that would go down in history as the fourth-greatest sports event of the 20th century. It’s not about how hard can you hit, but about how fast and how well. Liston learned that the hard way.
image source: www.met.grandlyon.com
Okay, we get it, the title clearly states “Music” festivals, so the annual gathering of wonderful weirdos, otherwise known as the “Burning Man” festival, technically does not count. However, the format and general aesthetics have so much in common with the otherworldly vibe of the contemporary music festivals taking place around the world, that it simply has to be acknowledged. If there’s any gathering that celebrates the freedom and self-expression more than the 9-day long Burning Man does, than it’s to be found on another planet... in another galaxy. Nothing is more “out there” than this increasingly popular extravaganza in the Black Rock Desert.
image source: torontolife.com
Here is another of those scenes that unveils the true beauty of these massive happenings. The post production values are striking, providing a sense psychedelia to crave for. None of the chaps there knew what Sarah Anne Johnson was going to do with their faces. However, they should have suspected something since the Canadian-born photographer/artiste has a well-documented penchant for spattering music fest photos with glitter and all kinds of other substances. She simply enhances the magic; that's what it is. It’s a portfolio worth a check since it really does elevate the media to another dimension. This one comes from “Field Trip”. Warning - do not watch if you consider your routine already lacking any interesting features.
image source: theberry.com
You do not discard things like this; it’s a 3 foot-long, saxophone-blasting Doge festival totem for Christ’s sake. Down in the endless maze of the web, you’ll be able to find hundreds of amazing and boundary-breaking festival totems celebrating headlining acts with a creativity that could put to shame any modern art museum exhibition, but this one takes the cake, for it brings the most awkward Shiba Inu in the world to the masses. Such pomp, very festival.
image source: hypetrak.com
Well, what about this photo you’ll say? There’s actually something very pleasant about the way a monochrome, toned down photo like this can comfortably find itself between all the explosive colors and energetically loaded sceneries. It’s about that rather obscure act you discover far away from the hysteria of the main stage- the artist that lullabies you off at the end of the second day as one of the rare bands you’ll most likely keep listening to a considerable amount of time after the event is over. The band is Daughter, the song is Youth. The sad note is also an important part of it all.
image source: thewildmagazine.com
So, about the previously mentioned awesome music festival people. There’s also a sister type of these folks, the guru-like festival veterans, who seem to disappear every time the last note echoes in the early-morning sky. They’ve been through it all. Their music taste is so off beat yet totally worth copying, and they naturally attract everybody within the distance of 6 feet. Just like the first entry, this also is a photo by John Killar, the man who sure knows how to capture the weird, the bad and the shocking.
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This is the Glastonbury army of love proudly protruding their “spears” and made of people that come together to co-exist as a fully functional (sort of) mini-society for four days. Oh, and to enjoy music, of course. For a brief moment, those hackneyed, loud and overused words like “peace”, “love” and “friendship” do meet their true meanings whilst our lives simply become more interesting and acquire a soundtrack to envy!
image source: thaflynation.com
And another sunset, this time over the hotheads of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The Californian counterpart of the above-mentioned Glastonbury is known to boast headliners worth the annual budget of NASA, fashionistas that attract more crowds than the band on the stage and all kinds of other attractions that redefine the phrase “over the top”. However, it’s one of the greatest things out there despite being somewhat of a junior since it was founded in the relatively recent 1999. It’s also one of the highest grossing festivals in the market (the last one hit it huge with 84.3 million bucks) and also the one that truly ignites the festival season since it’s being held in April. It is a festival poster boy of sorts.
image source: www.travelgrom.com
Since we already touched the topic of the Coachella festival, it would be rather unfair to leave it in peace so quickly. After all, much of the contemporary music festival format, or let’s say, the music festival archetype engraved in our common subconscious, owes a lot to the general aesthetics of this particular event (sorry Woodstock, you’re great and we know it). So, 2016 saw the biggest Major Tom ever floating above the flabbergasted festival crowds. By the nighttime, a projection of an artist's face was visible on its helmet whilst the puffy giant was drifting through the endless sea of people. It’s a colossal installation by the kinetic art studio Poetic Kinetics. Had to be included, since it’s a 36 feet tall and 57 feet long megaloid!
image source: katrinabarberphotos.com
This is it, it’s the afternoon of the third day, the magical period when the time seems to be on a prolonged standstill and your brain simply rejects even the slightest attempts to re-enact the lifetime of adventures experienced during the previous two days. It’s the point of no return, the moment you question the reality and already are coming to terms with how excruciatingly hard it will be to step back into the usual routine. Maybe you could hide in the stage equipment truck and wait till the next year? Highly unlikely, but dreaming is free.
