Milwaukee's Best

A somewhat yearly pilgrimage takes place for all of us Milwaukee hometowners. One event pulls us back like a Mecca magnet. The week and a half long conference for all things Midwestern debauchery.

Summerfest.

It's the largest music festival in the world and you've never heard of it. There are a couple of reasons.

It's a beer fest for beer no one likes outside of Milwaukee (it's a Miller orgy, I happen to like Miller, myself, but that's probably because I was born and raised in Mil-town).

It's a music fest for has-been music stars. Milwaukee's music scene is about as novel as a new AC/DC album. It probably doesn't change much from what they've done since the 70's. You've got boring beer, Harley Davidson, and a gung-ho for nothin' but sports mentality coalescing into one location along Lake Michigan, you've got Classic Rockers mixing with Clear Channel Nu-Metal mixing with Country Rock Blahdom.

Occasionally, you'll get the rare Roots event, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, but they all play at the pristine Marcus Amphitheater, which costs extra. Otherwise you're left to the whims of the secondary artists at eleven or so other stages. Most of the big acts that play the Marcus are country stars and classic rock artists, though. Bon Jovi makes a stop every year. Kenny Chesney, KISS, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tom Petty. There's nothing new going on here. This ain't Bonnaroo, Sasquatch, Coachella. Huge festivals, those are. Summerfest is even bigger. But you don't hear about it, do you? That's because NOBODY CARES.

Millions of people go to it (sometimes a million people per day go through the Summerfest gates), people from all over the world flock to it. But it's not talked about in the music world. The people who are content with the same ol' same ol' go to it. And that is EVERYONE. Yet NOBODY CARES. Do you see my point?

It's hard for me to go to Summerfest to see music. I go to drink and be with old friends. But I can only take so much. No matter the number of things to do in the Summerfest grounds, I'm bored to tears after hour three. It's all standing around, like a huge bar with your standard bar bands along an open shore. Seriously, that's all it is. An open aired dive bar that happens to have awesome specials. But in fact those specials happen to not be specials at all, but more expensive prices for cheaply made drinks set to music that makes you too comfortable to care.

It is what it is. That's all it is. And every year I seem to find myself traveling back there along the highway of forced nostalgia.

In other words, Milwaukee is my version of Hell.

AC/DC -- "Highway to Hell"