Why Previously Festival-Shy Artists Are Now Willing To Play

Last summer, on a steamy night in Tennessee, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed a three hour show for tens of thousands of fans. The set list reflected the extraordinary length and breadth of the Boss's career: "Working On A Dream" and other new numbers sat neatly alongside early, time-tested favorites like "Born To Run" and "Badlands" before giving way to mid-period barnburners like "Dancing In The Dark." Bruce took the time to tell a quick story or two, to jump into the crowd, to ham it up for the sidescreen cameras with screaming fans. He cavorted with guitarist and foil Steven Van Zandt and offered respect and smiles to his long time friend and saxophonist Clarence Clemons.

In other words, it was a typical Springsteen show.

Except it wasn't a Bruce Springsteen show—it was the 2009 Bonnaroo Music Festival.

Over the course of a thirty-five year career, Bruce has played countless shows across North America and Europe. He's played ten night stands at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. He's played Saturday Night Live. He's toured small theaters, playing solo. But in all of those years of myriad live appearances, he'd never played a festival. Not until 2009.

Bonnaroo, wasn't Springsteen's first festival; Denmark's Roskilde, a week earlier, had been. But the appearance was notable all the same—after so many years, after having turned down surely numerous offers, why start playing festivals now?

The answer, as is nearly always the case in today's chaotic and confused industry, had to do with economics.

Springsteen's fans are ceaselessly loyal, often purchasing tickets to multiple shows a tour. They're notable for accepting Bruce's new material. But they're not getting younger. And with rock radio concentrating more and more on a select, small playlist of "classic" songs, and MTV having long exiled music videos to an archival purgatory online, established artists like Bruce Springsteen need to adapt in order to reach new fans.

One way to do that is to headline festivals, where audiences numbering in the high five figures assemble for three or so days of music ingestion. The captive audience contributes to a symbiotic relationship: household name artists play to audiences younger than their usual fan base, and fans who would not otherwise plunk down a hundred bucks to see an artist they're only casually interested get to see and hear a legend in person.

So why did it take Bruce Springsteen so long to come around to the benefits of a festival appearance? Because before, he could afford to politely decline.

If an artist is capable of selling out stadiums, why give up the control, the personal stage set, and the prestige?

U2 has also long avoided festivals. Beginning with 1992's Zoo TV Tour, the quartet has performed unique shows on custom stages, where the production is as much a part of the concert experience as the music is. On Zoo TV, it was a wall of TVs and screens, telephones and communications linkups. On 1997 Pop Mart tour, a gigantic lemon held court each night. Of course, the band are in the midst of a two year tour that features an in-the-round stage beneath a giant, wraparound screen-equipped claw. So it's been awhile since U2 have played on a relatively spare stage. But that's about to change.

The band, accurately called the 'biggest in the world' by Glastonbury chief Michael Eavis, has been confirmed as a headliner for that festival in 2010. It will be the band's first festival appearance in their thirty year career. The closest they've come to such a gig was 1986's Conspiracy Of Hope tour, an Amnesty International-benefiting series of six shows that featured U2, Peter Gabriel (then riding the success of So), Lou Reed, the Neville Brothers, Sting, and at the final three shows, The Police.

But U2, who were then two years removed from The Unforgettable Fire and were in the midst of recording The Joshua Tree, did not play a normal set. Rather, they filled their slot with politically-charged original material (admittedly almost anything in their catalog at that point) as well as covers like Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" and the Beatles' "Help." It wasn't a normal U2 show by any stretch.

So Glastonbury, the king of the English summer concert scene and probably the world's most beloved festival, will host U2's first festival appearance. What's in it for U2? The opportunity to command the attention of a nation, for one thing. There's also the matter of reminding the world that they have a recent album—No Line On The Horizon—that is available for purchase. Adding to the aura is the fact that Glastonbury will be celebrating its 40th anniversary next year, and the appearance will mark U2's only date in Britain or Ireland for 2010.

And of course, there's the matter of simply doing it, of saying you've 'done' Glastonbury. When future rock historians and music nerds look back on our age, it will have made sense that the world's biggest band played the world's most prestigious festival. How could they not have, they'll ask. And as sales of 'product' have diminished greatly, and as live performance has been hailed as the music industry's revenue savior, and as the concept of the festival as annual 'tentpole' gatherings have become accepted, it makes sense for the Springsteens and U2s to play them; it's a natural convergence.

Of course, U2 will only be headlining one night (Friday, June 25, 2010)—Saturday and Sunday are still open. Might another long-running, previously festival-averse act step in? There's been no further information regarding those slots, but Ronnie Wood's been making some noise about some summer shows for his band—the Rolling Stones.