With Desert Trip, Boomers Take Back the Music Festival

After weeks of rumours organisers finally made it official: this October Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and Pink Floyd will all headline the same bill for the first time in history, at the inaugural Desert Trip Festival. The festival comes courtesy of the same folks behind the massively popular Coachella music festival and even takes place in the same locale – Indio, California’s Empire Polo Club, from Oct. 7-9.

While Desert Trip may be geared toward music lovers of a certain age, baby boomers are hardly “a largely untapped festival audience,” as the New York Times claims. If anything, the boomers are being re-tapped. After all, it’s the boomer generation that filled the stands for everything from Woodstock to the Isle of Wight and Knebworth Festivals to the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, Live Aid in the 1980s and countless others.

Now, after a few decades away from the festival circuit, the boomer crowd is back. And, judging by the ticket prices, they’d better bring their credit cards. Single day admission begins at $199 and prices vary from there, from $399 for three-day general admission to $1,599 for three days in the standing pit (all prices are in U.S. dollars and all ticket information can be found here).

The official line-up, as of today, has the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan playing the first night, Paul McCartney and Neil Young the second night and Roger Waters and the Who closing out the festival on day three.

The Who’s Roger Daltry quipped that Desert Trip features, “the greatest remains of our era” and, while more names will likely be added to the bill in the lead-up to Desert Trip, there are a few other legendary performers from Daltry’s era that we hope to see take the stage at this once-in-a-lifetime festival. They include: Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr (to join McCartney), Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Peter Frampton, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, a reunited Simon and Garfunkel and a one-night Eagles reunion.

Who would you like to see added to the Desert Trip line-up? Let us know in the comments section.