Sonic Boom or Bust?

I've needed a bit of time to cool down, but now I hope you're ready for my post about last Sunday's Sonic Boom round III. It's one of Edmonton's up and coming music festivals and in this case 3rd time was most definitely not the charm. The "festival" is a full day (usually 11am-11pm) of modern and alternative rock, and tends to include a good mix of local Canadian music along with big headlining names to round out the night. This year wasn't all too different when it comes to line-up with names like Hollerado, Cee-Lo Green, The Joy Formidable, Cake, Metric and the final act of the night Jane's Addiction. There is quite a bit written below, so if you need to take it in two doses I wouldn't blame you.

To be honest I agree with a lot of Sonic listeners out there that say to be a headliner for a festival like this you should be able to sell-out an entire statdium. Don't get me wrong, Jane's Addiction is a legenary band, who's lead singer, Perry Farrell, is responsible for one of North America's biggest music festivals, Lollapalooza. However, I am also 99% sure that they would never be able to fill a venue like the Shaw Conferance Centre (let alone Rexall Place). There just isn't the same audience for them that previous headliners like Rise Against/Weezer or Franz Ferdinand. "Loyal" Sonic listeners had been causing a fuss on social media websites all summer about the less-than-stellar line up, and many were talking about boycotting the fest to try to teach the radio station a lesson about booking bands. But really I wasn't all to worried about the line-up, I was still more than willing to pay the $90 for General Admission ticket (or the $145 that I ended up paying for VIP tickets, that came with a few "extra perks"); there were still amazing artists and a full day of outdoor fun to look forward to.



But during the summer and all the way until the week that was the festival there was a constant parade of bad news and rumours surrounding Sonic Boom. Tickets went on sale early in the summer soon after the line-up was released. About a month later the radio station started having "Sonic Boom weekends", where they would put general admission tix on sale for $60 instead of the original price of $90, likely to drive up declining sales (from all those stubborn "boycotters"). But soon these special deals on tickets became an every-weekend occurance...eventually G.A tickets were even being sold on a coupon-website for $35. Many tickets were also being given away for free as I learned from all the people at the event asking me if I got mine free as well... It started to actually make me angry when I learned, the week before the show, that if you were to buy a Blink 182 ticket for their upcoming show, you would recieve a FREE Boom ticket. I mean, really? It just felt like a slap in the face for being a loyal fan and buying my ticket early. I understand the need to drive sales up and try to fill their event with people, but it just didn't make sense to leave the rest of us with empty pockets. No refunds or extra-anything was even remotely talked about. I felt extremely cheated, as I'm sure many others did as well.

I was out of the country for a month at the end of summer, so was completely out of date with any news about Boom, but my brother was able to fill me in on everything once I got home. It was interesting to hear that the festival, which was supposed to take place outdoors at the Northlands Expo Grounds, had now been moved indoors to the Expo Centre. The Centre is on the same property as the grounds, but the move made little sense to me. I had it in my head that it was supposed to be the last festival of the summer event...being the last long weekend (and usually the last good-weathered weekend) of the year. The reason that Sonic gave for the venue change was because of the recent stage collapses that had happened around the world, such as in Indianapolis and Brussels. My opinion was that they wanted to move the shows indoors to make the festival look more crowded than it already was. If it was really all weather related issues then why was the move not made a few days or even the week before...? Maybe that way it would have been easier to tell that Sept 04 was a calm, sunny day with absolutely no wind and not a drop of rain.

I mentioned that for my brother and myself I purchased VIP tickets. There were 3 different levels of tickets: general admission , betweeon $0-90; VIP tickets, $144.50; and Platinum VIP tickets, about $215.00 (I'm not sure exactly how much they were). And let me give you an idea of what we as VIP's were *supposed* to recieve for our extra money (from the Sonic Boom website): "VIP tickets are 18+ and give you exclusive grassy area near the stage, with improved food and beverage service area, as well as express entrance and souvenir laminate (located stage left if you’re facing the stage)".  So let me catch you up on what we actually got out of our higher priced "VIP" tickets: an 18+ area, about halfway back in the hall where the event was moved to. This meant that general admission ticket holders were able to just stand directly in front of you to block any view you had. There were no chairs/stools and only 4 long and skinny bar tables; obviously there was no grassy or shaded area available or needed, since again the venue changed; there were beverages, but were the same ones being sold in the G.A licensed beer gardens; there was no food AT ALL in the VIP section, and I had to wait over an hour in line for food in the food court of the venuel; the express entrance was useless since it was just an entrance further down the hall from the G.A entrance. And to be honest, as a personal choice I was in the VIP section for only about 10 minutes for the entire 12 hours, because there was nothing worth my money there. Again, felt totally cheated and lied to about the tickets.

It was also rumoured  that Jane's Addiction might not have been able to play the festival, due to an illness with singer, Perry Farrell. The band had to pull out of the Leeds/Reading festival in the U.K the week before Sonic Boom. It would have been a much bigger mess if the headliner was to pull out, which thank gosh they didn't. BUT bad news did hit again when 4 days before the show it was annouced that Cee-Lo Green would not be performing due to a herniated disc. It was a good thing that local band Christian Hansen & the Autistics was able to step play instead.

For the first three bands (Christian Hansen & the Autistics, Hollerado, The Joy Formidable), I had a perfect spot at the front of the stage. Well it was perfect for viewing, but the sound was absolutely terrible. I couldn't believe that an event that has such planning behind it has such poor audio engineering. Even songs by the bands that I knew by heart were hardly recognizable. I gave the hall the benefit of the doubt and thought that maybe it was just because I was so close to the stage that the sound was deafening (in a bad way), but even when I went to the VIP section, or even at the entrance doors, the sound was still worse than I'd heard in almost any other venue I've ever been to.

It was awesome that two of the bands from the day, The Joy Formidable from Wales, and Middle Class Rut from California, actually came outside to the picnic-table area to sign autographs and take pictures with fans. It was one of the few redeeming moments of the day.

I briefly mentioned before the line-up for food was almost unbearable. Even though they thankfully have more food vendors open than at Freezing Man Festival in January (only 2 vendors for the whole venue), it was still over an hour wait just to get a hamburger and fries. This was no fault of the organizers, but could have been avoided by VIP ticket holders if we were able to get the food promised to us in our designated section.This hour long wait for food meant missing the majority of Cake's set except for 4 songs at the end; it was upsetting to miss one of the more important bands I had paid to see.

After Cake came Social Distortion who played an amazing set, and next came Metric. Unfortunately I was feeling a bit under-the-weather about 3 songs into the Metric set. The only reason I mention this is because when I wanted to buy water in either of the 2 VIP sections they had told me that they had run out, but to go to the G.A beer gardens and they would have some. When I tried to get into the beer gardens with my wristband+VIP lanyard I was told that I needed to show I.D. WIthout I.D I wasn't able to get into the area. Even though VIP tickets can only be sold to people 18+. I thought this was pretty riduclous seeing as how I would be able to drink my face off if I wanted in the VIP area, but being allowed into the beer gardens is a no-no... That just doesn't make too much sense to me.

So I did end up missing most of the Metric set, and the entire Jane's Addiction set. But I did hear that J.A put on an amazing show including non-PG burlesque dancers to cap it off. I wish I could've seen them, if only because they don't come around these parts all too often.

To summarize: seriously wondering if buying tickets early or at all is worth it for next year's festival. Sonic's Al Ford said during the day that (not positive of exact wording): they realized that the festival had taken a step backwards but would take a giant step forwards for next years event. Hm. I dont want to sound like a skeptic, but after everything that happened this year they'd really have to learn to brush up all their rough edges. And gosh there were a lot of rough edges.

It was most surprising to me that there were all these issues coming up this year, when (even though I didn't attned), previous years didn't seem at chaotic. Even during the festivals 1st year there didn't seem to be any snags. I hope that for the festivals sake,for the audiences sake and for the city's sake the problems aren't as widepspread, because we really do deserve to have nice things! I'm hoping that Sonic will listen to its audience and take into account some of the more well thought out and reasonable
NB. If you were able to sit and read through this entire post, you're my new favourite person. I appreciate you listening to my rant, and I'll be here if you ever need a shoulder to vent on ;)