Riverbend draws local, big-name artists
Commentary
Erica Tuggle
Issue date: 4/16/09 Section: Editorial
Every summer downtown Chattanooga is transformed into an outdoor concert extravaganza for nine nights for the music festival known as Riverbend.
Students have scoffed at previous attempts for Riverbend to provide entertainment students can relate to.
Past notable attempts include Kid Rock, American idol winner Chris Daughtry and Everclear.
Once can wonder if the planners of Riverbend have been purposefully clueless or they really do not know what college kids want to hear.
Yet this year for whatever reason the Riverbend line-up has announced gem after gem of bands that I am personally very excited about. The nineties favorite Train will appear along with, the Wailers, the B52's, the Commadores, Three Dog Night, Steven Curtis Chapman, Little Richard, Willie Nelson, Montgomery Gentry and Adrian Belew, who has played with King Crimson, Nine Inch Nails, Peter Gabriel and David Bowie.
The Riverbend team known as, the Friends of the Festival began planning for this years line-up last August right after the previous Riverbend festival ended.
Susan Baker, director of public relations at Friends of the Festival, said this year the considerations for picking the acts were driven by the budget, the touring schedule of artists and if the artists were routed in this area of their tour.
Attendance at the Riverbend festival is 85 percent local. Baker said the exciting part of this year's festival for her was the new up-and-coming artist Jake Owen who was booked before he gained notoriety.
One thing that can not be said about this lineup is a lack of variety. The appeal for me for the Riverbend festival is the diversity all jam-packed into one night and how vastly different the next night of the festival will be.
Joe "Dixie" Fuller, who selects and books the lineup for the Riverbend festival said this year's budget was shortened but is very glad that the pin price for the festival did not increase. "We did our job in finding unique things for the festival at a good price," Fuller said.
Students have scoffed at previous attempts for Riverbend to provide entertainment students can relate to.
Past notable attempts include Kid Rock, American idol winner Chris Daughtry and Everclear.
Once can wonder if the planners of Riverbend have been purposefully clueless or they really do not know what college kids want to hear.
Yet this year for whatever reason the Riverbend line-up has announced gem after gem of bands that I am personally very excited about. The nineties favorite Train will appear along with, the Wailers, the B52's, the Commadores, Three Dog Night, Steven Curtis Chapman, Little Richard, Willie Nelson, Montgomery Gentry and Adrian Belew, who has played with King Crimson, Nine Inch Nails, Peter Gabriel and David Bowie.
The Riverbend team known as, the Friends of the Festival began planning for this years line-up last August right after the previous Riverbend festival ended.
Susan Baker, director of public relations at Friends of the Festival, said this year the considerations for picking the acts were driven by the budget, the touring schedule of artists and if the artists were routed in this area of their tour.
Attendance at the Riverbend festival is 85 percent local. Baker said the exciting part of this year's festival for her was the new up-and-coming artist Jake Owen who was booked before he gained notoriety.
One thing that can not be said about this lineup is a lack of variety. The appeal for me for the Riverbend festival is the diversity all jam-packed into one night and how vastly different the next night of the festival will be.
Joe "Dixie" Fuller, who selects and books the lineup for the Riverbend festival said this year's budget was shortened but is very glad that the pin price for the festival did not increase. "We did our job in finding unique things for the festival at a good price," Fuller said.
