Everybody and their brother are in full swing, blogging the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival happening in Austin, TX. SXSW is an annual 10 day overdose of audio/visual paradise for movie and music fans.

For the past several years, I’ve had the goal to go to SXSW – heck, my aunt and uncle live in Austin, so finding a place to stay is certainly not an issue.

Each year that I am not at SXSW, I spend the entire timespan reading about what I’m missing. Those huge artists that are playing small venues that they would normally never play, delivering epic arena worthy setlists inside those small venues for the lucky few that are fortunate enough to be in Austin to be witnesses.

This year, I found myself wishing I was in Austin to see R.E.M. playing at Stubb’s BBQ. It’s the type of R.E.M. gig that 10 years ago, you woulda said “Naaaaaah, that would NEVER happen!” Now, with the combination of SXSW and a new album to support, anything is possible.

Now that I’m seeing the writeups and setlist reports, I’m kind of glad that I didn’t go. A few years back, R.E.M. and Bruce Springsteen on the same bill for the Vote For Change tour seemed like a dream show too – but a lackluster setlist from R.E.M. was a total downer so bad that not even a guest appearance from “The Boss” mid-set could salvage it. For the SXSW gig, all it took to erase my regret about not being in Austin were the words “hits were in short supply” as used in the Billboard review of the show.

All of that being said, I’m still looking forward to the new disc from R.E.M., and still hoping that it will be as good as Supernatural Superserious, the first track from the new album.

In a roundabout way, R.E.M. brings me to my overall reason for this post. When will there be too many festivals? How long before some of these festivals start tanking? After getting used to Bonnaroo, Virgin Festival (which I went to last year,) the reactivated Lollapalooza, and others, 2008 suddenly feels like the year that concert goers might finally say “enough!”

It feels like daily that we are reading about ANOTHER festival that will be making its inaugural run this year. And they all look like something that you would enjoy going to. Today’s entry, the Pemberton Festival, found me on Mapquest to determine the driving distance between Cleveland, OH and Pemberton B.C. The prize for making the drive? Seeing Coldplay, Jay-Z, Nine Inch Nails, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, all in one gig. The cost: 39 hours of driving.

Okay, maybe not so fast on those plans to drive to Pemberton.

At this point, Lollapalooza is looking like a winner to me. I missed the past two years – 2006 because of work conflict, and 2007 because the idea of seeing The Police, Beastie Boys, Fountains of Wayne, and Cheap Trick (just to name a few) at Virgin Festival was too tempting to pass up. Now, with no sign yet of the Virgin Festival lineup, Lollapalooza is looking quite strong with rumors of Wilco, Nine Inch Nails, and Radiohead on the same stage. Rage Against The Machine too? I guess that would be a good time to do some sight-seeing in Chicago.

It’s great to have the opportunity to see The Police and so many other bands, for the same price that I paid to see JUST The Police here in Cleveland. Take your favorite band and insert them in place of The Police, and that is what I have come to look forward to with the rising popularity of festivals here in the U.S. I worry though that the festival formula is being spread too thin, and that attendance will suffer as a result, hurting festivals collectively. This year, it feels like the novelty is wearing off with the ability to catch Jack Johnson and Radiohead at several of the festivals that have already been announced. What once felt like a special experience, runs the risk of being cheapened and becoming merely another crappy multi-band show.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. For now, Lollapalooza is winning in my world. The Rock on the Range show here in nearby Columbus, OH looks like it will get a repeat visit from me in 2008. Last year, ROTR delivered a day’s worth of rock and roll music from many bands, including Velvet Revolver, Buckcherry, and an ace performance from ZZ Top. This year – two days worth of music, and all I really need is day one with the reunited Stone Temple Pilots, Filter, and Ashes Divide (featuring Billy Howerdel from A Perfect Circle.) And Virgin Festival? I’m still waiting….impress me!

I’ll leave you with a random thought. Did you ever think that Metallica would play Bonnaroo?

Egad.

Stone Temple Pilots on Letterman (1993)