Highfield in August

Summer 2012 wasn’t shaping up to be anything special. The kind of season where the heat doesn’t feel good, just relentless, and there’s this background disappointment to everything. But somewhere around August, if you had the timing and the money and a friend willing to drive, Highfield was happening out near Leipzig—three days in the middle of nowhere with the kind of lineup that made the rest of the summer feel less stupid by comparison.

Beatsteaks were headlining, which made sense. Placebo, The Black Keys, Casper, Kraftklub, The Shins, The Gaslight Anthem, Social Distortion. A mix of everything—bands that were already established and bands that still felt like they had something to prove. Nothing obscure, nothing you had to justify to anyone. Just good rock and punk and indie rock, the kind of bands that show up and do the work and don’t apologize for it.

Festival season in Germany is its own thing. The grounds, the crowds, the temporary cities of tents. Everyone’s drunk and sweaty and trying to position themselves to see something across a field. The amenities are shit, the music is loud, and there’s something about all of it that gets under your skin. You show up to be uncomfortable on purpose.

I never made it that year, though at the time I remember thinking I should. Not because Highfield was some legendary thing you had to experience—it was just a solid regional festival with a good lineup. But because the summer was the kind of blank, disappointing thing that might’ve felt better from inside a crowd of people there for the same reason you were.

Some summers stick with you. This one didn’t, except for moments like this: the idea of Highfield, the lineup on a flyer somewhere, the possibility of escape that didn’t quite materialize. That’s usually all festivals are anyway—the promise that something worth doing is still possible.