Anyone who lives in a city with a music festival?

I'm lucky enough to have one of the biggest rock festivals in Norway right in my neighborhood, and another one, which is probably the biggest, just an hour and a half away.

The booking isn't half done yet, but so far these are some of the bands that are playing my backyard this summer:
Asobi Seksu (JP), Cobblestone Jazz (CA), Cradle of Filth (UK), The Enemy (UK), I'm From Barcelona (SE), Johnossi (SE), Kent (SE), Kool Keith (US), Saul Williams (US), Spank Rock (US) & UNKLE (UK). None of the headliners are booked yet (last year's headliners were The Who, Scissor Sister, 50 Cent, Chris Cornell, and Beastie Boys)

If I travel 90 minutes, I can see these artists: Animal Collective, Avenged Sevenfold, Babyshambles, Bullet For My Valentine, Chrome Hoof, Howlin Rain, In Flames, Les Savy Fav, The Cool Kids, The Kooks, The Wombats, Yeasayer and many more. Some of the biggest bands here last year were Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes, Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, My Chemical Romance, Queens of the Stone Age, Slayer, The Killers, and TV On the Radio.

I feel blessed.

Ottawa, BluesFest.

Let's just say last year included Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, The White Stripes, George Clinton, Steve Miller, Kanye West, Buddy Guy, Randy Newman etc. etc.

The four years I lived in Ottawa I never went to the bluesfest. I really missed some good shows.

Well, does living in Copenhagen, 25 km from the Roskilde Festival, count?? I'm sure Rune knows about Roskilde. This far, they scheduled Radiohead and Band of Horses among others. You're not hearing me complain here :-)

Yes, Roskilde is pretty amazing. I've only got Quart and Hove, which are Roskilde's leftover parties, in my neighborhood, but they are still great.

I can hear the Reading Festival from my house.

The FIB (Festival Internacional de Benicassim) takes place about 90 kilometres (57 miles) from my home. I’ve talked about it previously, it’s a great Festival and I recommend strongly to all of you. In 2008 the highlight so far could be the reunion of My Bloody Valentine (sadly it’s confirmed that Radiohead won’t play this year). You can look the official page of the festival.

Yeah, Denver used to have shite for festivals, but last year they had the first year of the Monolith Festival which was a decent indie-rock festival with The Flaming Lips, Spoon, the Decembersits, Cake, CYHSY, Art Brut and a bunch of locals. I'm hoping that comes back again this year.

They're also starting a geezer-rock festival this year which is going to have Tom Petty headline one day and Steve Winwood the other day, but that's all that's anounced so far.

I'm looking forward to both of those.

We've also had festivals in Aspen (about 3 hours away) for a few years, but I could never afford a night in Aspen so those have been off limits for me.

And Rune, for the love of G-d, if you're in Norway go to Oya and see My Bloody Valentine for me.

Austin - TWO, count 'em, two!

South by Southwest and the Austin City Limits Music Festival

A total of 8 days of sweat, beer, music, and more sweat

Honorio, Benicassim is usually all over the Danish music press. Really sounds like something.

Shame on me for not remembering that My Bloody Valentine too are scheduled for Roskilde.

Howlin' Andrew, what's the weather usually like for ACL? I've always wanted to go down to Austin for that.

Damn...somebody lives in the coolest city in Texas. I live in only the fifth-coolest (Houston comes after Austin, Marfa, Kerrville and Gruene).

In Houston, live music in clubs--let alone festivals--has become disgracefully bad. If I need live music, I go to Austin.

Marfa, Kerrville, and Gruen?

What's the deal with those places? Anything signficant with them musically?

When I was a teenager I lived in Oklahoma so i took a few trips to Texas and never heard of those places as key stops.

Thanks to Bumbershoot and Endfest, I've been able to see some pretty good acts.

What with England being so pokey, even the other end of the country's only a couple of hours away, so yeah, pretty good choice here.

Kerrville, in the hill country, is home of the Kerrville Folk Festival.

Gruene (pron. "green"), which is just outside New Braunfels, is home of (allegedly) the oldest dance hall in Texas...anyone who finds himself in central Texas, and has even a passing interest in country music, should check it out some night.

Marfa has no musical significance I'm aware of, but, for a variety of reasons, it's just the coolest little town in west Texas.

South Florida only has Bang Music Festival (Modest Mouse, Daft Punk, Common) and Langerado (REM, Beastie Boys, Of Montreal).

Not much for festivals here in Minneapolis unless you like hard rock, jam bands or country. You still have to drive at least 3 hours to see them because they are all held in outstate Minnesota or the border of Wisconsin. I stay far away.

Sorry for the lateness of my reply

Regarding the weather at the ACL Festival:
The first couple of years were kind of rough at the festival. There was the year of Hurricane Katrina, where the temperature hit 110 on the second day, and kicked up a HUGE dust storm that left my friends with terrible coughs and red eyes for about a week. A year later, it rained for the first time, and the festival was ill-prepared to handle a sudden rainstorm

However, they've made great strides every year in trying to perfect the festival. And after lowering the number of tickets they sell to the festival, there is ample space for everyone to have a fun festival.

I highly recommend it if you ever get a chance, provided you have broad musical tastes, because Lord knows they put all the buzz bands up against each other every year (i.e. M.I.A. playing at the same time as LCD Soundsystem; Arcade Fire (scheduled) to play against the White Stripes; etc.), so hopefully you enjoy some Americana music every now and then