Best Summer Music Festivals 2016
Summer Time: The sun is out, the weather is great, and music festivals are in full swing. The music festival experience is unlike any regular concert. While a single concert takes place at just one venue, a music festival takes up an entire outdoor park, rain or shine. A person needs much more endurance to last an entire weekend at a festival, and often needs to keep basic survival tips in mind, such as staying hydrated. But the experience is the ultimate payoff in the end; the artists you’ve waited so long to see and the friends you make along the way are part of what make a music festival so special.
Some of the best and most popular music festivals take place across America during the summer, including Coachella, Governors Ball, Bonnaroo, and Lollapalooza. Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, referred to as Coachella, starts off the spring/summer music festivals inIndio, California. The festival is known for its rock, indie, hip hop, and EDM performances. This year, the festival took place in April, in the 3rd and 4th weekends of the month. Headliners included LCD Soundsystem, Ellie Goudling, Sufjan Stevens, M83, Guns N’ Roses, Disclosure, A$AP Rocky, CHVRCHES, Calvin Harris, Sia, Major Lazer, Flume, Beach House, and The 1975. New York City’s Governors Ball Music Festival 2016 took place in Randall’s Island Park earlier this summer in June. The festival is hailed for being more rock oriented, including genres such as pop, indie, electronic, pop, folk, and dabbles in rap and R n B. This year, the festival included acts such as Kanye West, The Strokes, The Killers, Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, M83, and CHVRCHES, among others. The festival cancelled its Sunday performances due to severe weather threats in the area.
Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival was the next major music festival in America taking place June 9th-12thin Manchester, Tennessee. This year’s headliners included Pearl Jam, Dead and Company, LCD Soundsystem, J. Cole, Ellie Goulding, Tame Impala, and more. Bonnaroo is known for having one of the best atmospheres for a festival; located on a farm in Tennessee allows for the show to go on almost all night, and attendees throughout the years have made an unofficial code of conduct that promotes love and acceptance of everyone at the festival. Lollapalooza has festivals all over the world, but calls Chicago, Illinois its home. This year, it celebrated its 25 th anniversary headlining with major artists such as Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lana Del Rey, and LCD Soundsystem. What started off as a music festival with artists in the grunge-y era of the 90s has grown to celebrate more and more genres throughout the years. This year, for its 25 th anniversary, the festival added a 4th day to its traditional 3-day event, and has since announced that it will continue this 4-day tradition in the upcoming years. Music festivals are a unique experience to celebrate music, friends, art, and love. Once you experience the enticing atmosphere of a music festival for yourself, it’s hard to resist returning the following years to relive the experience once again.