Let others reminisce about the Riverbend Festival's good old days. My favorite Riverbend moment (ever) was last year.
Serious talk.
Last year's side-stage performance by Tower of Power, a classic funk band that probably peaked in popularity in the 1970s, was just the best. I danced (as much as you can with sciatica) and sang myself hoarse to the chorus "What is hip?" ... Tell me, tell me, if you think you know-oh-oh.
Mark KennedyThe music transported me back to my Middle Tennessee college dorm room in the 1970s when I played funk and soul records as counter-programming to some of my roommates, who insisted on listening to Peter Frampton's "Frampton Comes Alive" album on a continuous loop. ... Stoners.
I also discovered I could drown out almost anything - and win souls for soul - with Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" album.
The recent announcements that a shorter, cooler, better Riverbend is coming in May has set me to thinking about Chattanooga's signature entertainment event. For the first 30 years of the festival (roughly 1982 to 2012), I either covered - or helped coordinate coverage of - the festival. So I've been there, done that a lot.
The news that the festival is going to a four-night format (down from nine nights) May 29-June 1, raising admission prices and moving to the weekend after Memorial Day seems long overdue, and completely in tune with the times.
The Moon River Festival (Coolidge Park, Sept. 7-8) may sound like an Andy Williams tribute, but it's actually a hip weekend festival that sold out in hours last year. The same promoters that book Moon River and co-produce the nearby Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival (AC Entertainment) are helping to gather the talent for Riverbend 2.0. One Riverbend headliner, Keith Urban, has already been announced.
Here's the thing. My magic night with Tower of Power is representative of the previous Riverbend festivals' Achilles heel - a tenacious loyalty to, and dependence on, baby boomers - the people who were young adults when the festival cranked up back in the 1980s but now are ages 55 to 73. In recent years, a modest talent budget and act unavailability aligned to make Riverbend a midway for nostalgia acts - let's give it up for Huey Lewis and the (Possibly Fake) News.
Meanwhile the nearby Bonnaroo Festival reminded people what a real, world-class music festival really looked like. And the burgeoning Moon River festival showed Chattanooga was actually ready to answer the question, "What is hip?" Riverbend doesn't need to be ultra-hip, but it does need a refresh.
Watching people of my generation get their groove on to Tower of Power is analogous to a bunch of senior citizens tossing themselves around a mosh pit while listening to big-band music in 1982, the year the festival started. Imagine a granny in 1982 head-banging her way through Glenn Miller's "String of Pearls."
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Eeeew, is right.
So perhaps we can agree that the all-you-can-eat buffet, music-festival model that seemed so fresh and wonderful in the 1980s has grown stale for modern tastes.
There is a reason a lot of those all-you-can-eat buffet places went out of business. Turns out, all-you-can-eat prime rib and shrimp isn't that good. To be really, really good, it would need to be fresher, and it would cost at least $60 a plate.
Which is exactly what Riverbend is going for here.
Praise be.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.