Festival Spotlight ::: Music Midtown 2014

If there is one thing that seems to be recession proof, it's the music festival. It feels like more and more new ones pop up every year. There is so much money to be made and spotlight to be had that the city of Atlanta decided a few years back to revive one of it's longstanding traditions: Music Midtown. The festival had a very good run from 1994-2005. There were a few locations before the festival settled in a 42 acre plot close to the Atlanta Civic Center and the now closed SciTrek (Readers from Georgia will remember those elementary school field trips fondly). In its old format, each stage was represented by an Atlanta radio station and would stick to a certain genre (the 99X stage would have Rock/Alternative music and the V103 stage would have rap). In 2006, the promoters announced that the festival would not return due to increased costs. Fast forward to 2011 and the festival was brought back, albeit in a new location: Piedmont Park. Piedmont Park is a great location for a festival because of the sprawling green space and scenic views of Downtown and Midtown Atlanta. The festival's first year back in 2011 was only one day and featured headlining acts The Black Keys and Coldplay. The event proved successful and they decided to expand in 2012, adding another day. The headliners that year were the Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam, and they had a very solid undercard including: Ludacris, The Avett Brothers, Florence + the Machine, Girl Talk, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and T.I. This was even more successful and they decided to expand again in 2013, adding a third stage. The 2013 edition saw another very impressive lineup headlined by Journey and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with an undercard including: Phoenix, Imagine Dragons, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jane's Addiction, 2 Chainz, Cake, Capital Cities, Queens of the Stone Age, Kendrick Lamar, and Arctic Monkeys. This leads us to the 2014 edition of the festival where, for some reason, they tried to mess with a good thing.

When the lineup was announced for Music Midtown 2014, it was very polarizing. According to interviews done by the festival's organizers, they paid twice the amount on talents in 2014 than the previous year. One theory behind that is because they got two very popular names (John Mayer and Eminem) that were not currently on tour. It probably costs a little bit more money to get someone "off the couch" so to speak. It's also hard to give credit to the organizers Live Nation when each night, you had two headlining acts going right up against each other. In the past, they staggered the lineup so the main headliners did not have any opposition. The supposed idea behind this is to be able to sell more tickets and be able to, at the height of the night, have two very large crowds. Other festivals attempt this such as Lollapolooza. This year, Friday night saw Jack White and John Mayer at the same time (which probably caused some fighting between a few couples...) and Saturday saw Eminem and Zac Brown Band at the same time. You can't boast about having such a great lineup and then make it where fans had to choose between the big time acts, unless you are a festival the size of Lollapalooza, which Music Midtown is not though the total attendance is creeping that way. Another reason for the mixed reaction to the lineup was because they went with a lot more pop music (radio friendly) than in years past. This isn't the worst thing, but with Atlanta's history and gravitation towards the indie scene, it's a little disappointing. They also added a country act in the Zac Brown Band, which is something they had not done previously. The lineup was just all over the place. On Friday night, you had Iggy Azalea before Jack White on the same stage. It's hard to picture those two fan bases having a lot in common. All that being said, there wasn't a time either day where there wasn't an act on that didn't at least intrigue us to go see them, and a lot of the acts were very, very good.

(Hit the jump for our take on Music Midtown 2014)

Upon getting to the entrance gate and standing in line to get in on Friday, the sound of Run DMC's "Tricky" was blaring and people around us were mumbling a bunch of incoherent nonsense that they thought were lyrics (but to be fair, does anyone know the lyrics to that song?). Anyway, upon entrance, it was decided that we would forgo these rap legends and try and get a good spot for British pop sensation Lorde. She hit the stage just as the sun went down and her set was absolutely perfect for that dusk time of day. Her entrancing voice and confidence fit the sunset perfectly set the scene for the nighttime. One thing that was a surprise was the amount of bass her show had. She ended things with her smash hit "Royals" and then it was time for Jack White.

Now prior to Music Midtown, there was a divide amongst members of this blog about Jack White. His lackluster performance as a headliner at Lollapalooza 2012 left a couple of us with a bad taste in our mouths, so much so that among the trio from this blog that went to Bonnaroo this year, two of us skipped his set altogether. This writer is willing to admit that that was probably a mistake. The former White Stripes and Raconteurs front man was nothing short of spectacular on this night in midtown Atlanta. He started his set with the White Stripes classic "Icky Thump" and went right into the title track off his latest album "Lazaretto." White's guitar work is truly something to behold. His ability to switch things up from song to song without missing a beat is pretty incredible. A few songs in, he played The Raconteurs' biggest hit "Steady As She Goes" and that really got the crowd going. The only thing that was missing from this show (well, at least for this writer) was the song that put The White Stripes on the map: "Fell in Love with a Girl" (and a quick look at setlist.fm shows that he has played it at every show since Music Midtown... sigh). White closed with "Seven Nation Army" which got an incredible response from the crowd in which basically the whole audience was singing/humming the main guitar riff that has become oh so popular at sporting events around the globe. All in all, Music Midtown Friday was a good time and set the table nicely for Saturday.

The first thing that happened on Saturday at Music Midtown was being turned away due to having backpacks. For some reason, this was easily remedied by sticking one of the straps on the back of the backpack inside of the bag, turning it into a one-strap backpack. So, in plain view of security, all one had to do was turn their two strap backpack into one strap and they were allowed in, even though it was still the same bag... What a world we live in. Anyway, first up on Saturday was Third Eye Blind. The 90's Alt-Rockers put on a really good show that was worth seeing for the 2nd time this summer after Firefly in Delaware. They played most of their hits, including "Semi-Charmed Life",  "Jumper", and "Never Let You Go" while also playing some tracks that they will be releasing soon on a new album. 

After 3EB, up next was Atlanta's own Bobby Ray, aka B.o.B. First off, he played right into the Atlanta crowds' hands by coming out in a Matt Ryan Falcons jersey. The crowd for this show was really hyped up as B.o.B went through a set of hits including: "Magic",  "Nothin' On You", "Haterz Everywhere", "I'll Be in the Sky", and "Airplanes" (and it wouldn't be the last time on the day where that song was heard, but more on that later).  He did a fantastic job of constantly interacting with the crowd and it was really just a fun set.

From B.o.B, it was time to head to the Honda stage and check out Fitz and the Tantrums. We saw them in passing at Bonnaroo, but it was really nice to see a whole set from this six piece out of L.A. Their whole set was really high energy and they interacted with the crowd at all times, constantly getting the crowd to dance, clap hands, and any other thing they could do to keep the energy up. The biggest pops came when they played "Spark", "Out of My League" and "The Walker", three of their most popular singles off their most recent album More Than Just a Dream.

From Fitz and the Tantrums, we waltzed over to see Gregg Allman. You can definitely hear the years in Allman's voice, but the man can definitely still pick a tune, belting out Allman Brothers hits such as: "Melissa", "Midnight Rider", and "Whipping Post". We would have loved to see more of his set, but the desire to get close for Bastille proved too strong.

For this writer, there were two highlights of the festival: Jack White's headlining set on Friday and Bastille's set at dusk on Saturday.  The British Indie Rockers absolutely brought their A-game to Piedmont Park. As was said with Lorde earlier, these guys were put in the perfect spot, as their music fits in with the transition from day to night. They only have one album, and they basically played the entire thing. They started with the title track "Bad Blood" and went seamlessly into "Weight of Living, Pt. II". The highlight of the set (and maybe the entire festival) was when they mentioned being in Atlanta and that, since they were here, were going to try a song that they'd covered on a mixtape in the past. The anticipation was bubbling over as to what song it would be while they played a mysterious intro only for the lyrics "A scrub is a guy that thinks he's fly, and is also known as a busta" to be sung by lead man Dan Smith. That's right, Bastille covered TLC's "No Scrubs." It was really, really awesome. They also played another cover later on in their set, the 90's dance smash "Rhythm of the Night." They ended, of course, with their chart topper "Pompeii". We had been waiting to see these guys for a while, and they did not disappoint and we'll definitely be checking them out again when they roll back through town.

              

Last but not least on the docket for Music Midtown 2014 was Eminem. Undoubtedly the most expensive act on Music Midtown's books this year, the Detroit rapper was, well... there was good and there was bad. Don't get us wrong, the show was very fun. The nostalgia aspect was definitely present, as many of these songs were what helped shape our tastes in music from our formative years. When the Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady LP's came out they were stuck in our CD players for months at a time, but having a rapper mostly rapping over a backing track that is too loud for 2 hours can get a little old. This is why the show was somewhat disappointing to this writer. The expectations were a good bit higher than what the performance delivered. One of the highlights of the show was when he brought out B.o.B. and they did "Airplanes" together, mainly because this was pretty much the only song where the backing track didn't overpower the performance. Unfortunately, Eminem's laissez faire attitude didn't really help things either. He seemed content to go through the motions for 2 hours and get out of there with check in hand. The biggest response he got out of the crowd was during the last 4 songs before the encore and the encore itself. Those last 4 songs were "My Name Is", "The Real Slim Shady", "Without Me", and "Not Afraid".  Every once in a while, you would see an instrument come from out of nowhere like a guitar or some drums. During "Not Afraid", the band outro'd with some nice guitar riffs and such. When Eminem came back out, he encored with "Lose Yourself" and the place did essentially that. Like we said, it's not that this show wasn't fun, it just wasn't really what he had hoped for. For all the money we're sure Music Midtown had to pay Slim Shady to come grace us with his presence, they probably could have gotten two or three acts that would have probably played better sets. Here's to hoping that for Music Midtown 2015, Live Nation goes back to the formula that made the festival such a success in 2012 and 2013 and doesn't schedule headlining acts up against each other because, to be honest, seeing John Mayer might have been kind of cool (but let's keep that between you and us).