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In Florida, the first weekend in March is usually a Northerner’s fantasy… highs in the 70s, fat old sun shining away, birds bigger than they ought to be lazily picking critters out of serene swamps… but something significant is missing this year. It’s not the snowboards slowly playing shuffleboard in West Palm Beach, and it’s not shark attacks (although their number is down significantly). There is a very quiet ghost roaming South Florida, one whose glorious life was short but beautiful, and meaningful to many people around the world. March 6 2010 is the two-year anniversary of the death of a very good friend… In 2009, Langerado, Florida’s premier music festival, was canceled indefinitely, with little chance of ever occurring again.
Langerado’s official website is a cheery tombstone for the vacant stages not being constructed for the lack of performances of any number of amazing artists. 2008, Langerado’s last stand, had a ridiculously good lineup, featuring REM, the Beastie Boys, Gov’t Mule, of Montreal, The Roots, Pelican, Blitzen Trapper, and dozens more. Thousands of minds were blown by performances too numerous to fully attend. But according to attendees, there was an ominous presence that hung over the proceedings, taking the form of harsh, inclement weather that made some feel as if they were not welcome at the location. Tents and tarps were blown around through the night by the breath of a winter storm whose chill would nearly freeze solid the remainder of the weekend’s acts. Indeed, after 2008s event, the Big Cypress Indian Reservation no longer was willing to have Langerado on its grounds. After picking up thousands of empty NOX balloon casings, torn NOFX shirts, and soggy used condoms, dozens of crying Indians saw that Langerado had become detached from the Earth and was doomed to fade into memory.
For 2009′s event, promoters had the absolutely genius idea of uprooting an event in which tens of thousands of people would camp out, get high and enjoy dozens of rotating live acts, and placing that event in a single park in Downtown Miami. This is the equivalent of taking five monkeys (all tripping balls) and putting them into the coked-out tiger exhibit at the zoo. Second allusion option: this is the equivalent of taking all the crap in an entire Dick’s Sporting Goods and stuffing it into a Dulce and Gabbana. No parking, limited bathrooms, reggaeton sirens, militant drivers with pedestrians stuck in their grill… needless to say this never materialized, and ‘due to poor ticket sales’ Langerado 2009 was a red herring.
This means that no young men and women will get the chance to sit back on a warm Florida night and watch Arrested Development swirl into a red-toned symphony of rhythm. No one will get to wake up to the smell of a man cooking eggs on the radiator of his 1990 Toyota Camry. No carefree barefoot women will get to dance under the moon to the spaced-out grooves of STS-9. The days of an affordably priced rock mecca right in our backyards could be gone.
What does Florida have to fall back on? Ah, but there is hope, after all. The Harvest of Hope festival in St Augustine is the second weekend in March, and it features Broken Social Scene, the Mountain Goats, Dead Prez (?), Rogue Wave, and many others to soothe hungry ears. In April, there is also the Wanee Music Festival in Live Oak, with Widespread Panic, Steven Stills, the Black Keys, and the Wailers among other big names. For electronic music lovers, the Ultra Music Festival at the end of March features Passion Pit, Orbital, the Disco Biscuits, Crystal Method, and dozens more. Festivals in Florida are not dead, but they have lost a good friend. Brasky urges you all to attend one or all of these upcoming festivals, but do so with respect and candor for other attendees and the folks putting on the show. Every time you hide a sack of 200 Mollies inside a strangers tent to keep from getting arrested by the twenty foot tall three-headed cops, a Miccosukee Indian dies a little inside.
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