For the sixth year now, the Village Voice in New York has sponsored the Siren Music Festival, attracting headliners such as Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse and Death Cab For Cutie in years past and making a name for itself – well, sort of – in the indie rock underground.
But this year’s festival, held this past weekend in New York, was about as lame as an indie rock festival in New York City can be.
With the exception of Voxtrot, a fairly popular indie outfit from Austin, the line-up and performers were a bust to indie fans, and especially to New York Times’ snippy music critic Kelefa Sanneh:
Among other things, Sanneh wrote, the festival was missing “a hint of Brooklyn’s ethnic and musical diversity; a reminder that nonpopular [sic] music can be noisy or chaotic or dangerous; thrills. With a few exceptions the lineup felt full of second and third choices…to indie-rock fans outside the city this nit-picking probably seems crazy,” Sanneh wrote. (Editors at the NYT: The correct word is unpopular, not nonpopular. Come on folks!)
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“But this is New York, and this summer especially, fans of indie and indie-friendly music have been embarrassed by riches.”
So, I guess I won’t plan to go to the Siren Music Festival 2008; there are so many others that are worth going to, usually that cost money which can be a downside for indie rock fans who cannot afford to go to festivals or concerts.
Then again, thanks to the Internet, anyone with a computer and a connection can pretty much see any band they like perform. But it still doesn’t compare at all to actually being there.