This one tastes bland, too: Sweetlife and the decline of the American music festival

There's an old, prophetic Pulp song that applies to the uselessness of today's music festivals -- a song older than the kids who now attend music festivals -- that asks: "Is this the way they say the future's meant to feel? Or just 20,000 people standing in a field?" ¶ Twenty years later, the future is here, and we're all still standing around. Nowadays, every town in the United States gets its very own sad Coachella echo, and ours is called Sweetlife, an annual spring fling that has grown from...