Kanye West is playing Summerfest this year. That's an impressive concert for any festival under any circumstances, but West's June 30 Summerfest date is even more remarkable considering that it's his only announced show of the entire summer. Let's appreciate what an incredible aggressive booking this was. This wasn't a case of a tour date conveniently lining up with the festival. Summerfest sought out and landed a marquee headliner, even though his hefty performance fee likely makes the concert a bigger gamble than many of the festival's amphitheater bookings, and even though the concert could spark another scare campaign from conservative talk-show hosts convincing their audience to avoid the grounds during rap shows. It would have been far easier to just book another country singer.
For the most part, the rest of this year's Summerfeat schedule is similarly inspired, cannily addressing all of the major complaints typically lobbed at the festival. There's no hip-hop? Sure there is: Wiz Khalifa and De La Soul are also playing. Where are all the local bands? They have their own stage. The amphitheater headliners are old and washed up? That's not the case with Top 40 queens Katy Perry and Britney Spears. The amphitheater headliners are too safe? Booking The Black Keys to a 23,000-person venue is pretty bold in my book.
And overall, the Summerfest lineup just feels fresher this year. A festival of Summerfest's size can't completely avoid repeat bookings, but this year the ground stages are filled with acts that either haven't played the event in years or are playing it for the first time: Girl Talk, The Flaming Lips, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Loretta Lynn, George Clinton, The Bravery, Maroon 5 and Raphael Saadiq.
That relatively youthful lineup signals a course reversal for the festival, which had become a sort of Baby Boomerpalooza after executive director Don Smiley took the helm in 2004, reshaping the festival in his own demographic image. Never mind what a backward, short-sighted business decision it was to court middle-age crowds to the exclusion of expendable-income-rich students and twentysomethings; it was also a selfish one. For decades Summerfest has been Milwaukee's flagship event, a point of pride for the city at the center of its marketing efforts to lure young, skilled workers and fresh business. The stale, classic-rock-heavy schedules of recent years, however, had turned the World's Largest Music Festival into a glorified state fair. Those willfully out-of-touch lineups reflected poorly on the entire city, but this year's revitalized schedule is cause for Milwaukee to again take pride in its signature festival.
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