Nature’s song For me, nothing says summer like outdoor music festivals BY ALAN OLIFSON

SUMMER DOESN’T officially begin until the summer solstice on June 21 — the longest day of the year. This singular cosmic event will, I’m sure, be welcomed with the usual assortment of drum circles and guys with hacky sacks. But who can wait until the end of June? And who has a hacky sack anymore? So most of us will mark the beginning of summer this Memorial Day Weekend by sitting in traffic, trying to get out of town.

With the unofficial start of summer upon us, so begins one of my favorite seasonal pleasures: the outdoor music festival.

Listen, I’m not going to say there’s a right or wrong way to appreciate a beautiful summer day. Maybe you like a good hike, or sitting on the grass and quietly contemplating the clouds, or throwing on some rollerblades and skating along the river. All these are valid pursuits. (Except maybe the rollerblades. That’s actually not okay. Let ’em go. It’s 2005, for God’s sake.) But for me, there’s no better way to soak up the sun than by drinking beer in a public area. Oh yeah, and music.

Starting in 1954 with the Newport Jazz Festival, the outdoor music festival has been an evolving beast. In the ’60s, Woodstock and the Grateful Dead firmly entrenched the hippie aesthetic into the form, forever associating the sound of outdoor music with the smell of pot and patchouli oil. In the ’90s, Lollapalooza came along and dragged mosh pits, piercing tents, and the Butthole Surfers into the fold. Nowadays, outdoor music festivals are a multi-million-dollar industry, catering to any musical genre whose fans are amenable to corporate advertising.

Of course, not all festivals are created equal. For example, I prefer festivals that encourage squatting — bringing in chairs, coolers, umbrellas, and blankets, and taking up as much space as humanly possible. But try this stunt at Lollapalooza or the Anger Management Tour, and you’ll probably end up a footnote in the day’s police blotter: "Man found confused and dehydrated, duct-taped to a beach chair."

So these days, I stick to festivals that are squat-friendly. This is partly because I’m just drawn to pastimes involving gear. And festival squatting can involve all kinds of great gear: folding chairs, backpack coolers, little around-the-neck beer cozies emblazoned with HOW YOU GONNA CLAP? But I also like squatting because when in large crowds, I find it very comforting to have a home base — a safe haven from which to launch all the necessary festival sorties.

And trust me: there are many sorties that need running.

After all, these events aren’t just called "outdoor music." They are "outdoor music festivals." And "festival" is primarily defined as "an occasion for feasting." Any outdoor music festival worth its salt will have at least one dedicated food area packed with vendors selling the kind of cuisine — preferably something involving a deep fryer — you could justify eating only in a place that does not allow you to bring in your own sustenance.

There is something strangely soothing about watching fat men with sunburned bellies eat cracklin’s — deep-fried pork skins seasoned with salt — in 80-degree heat. It may also be criminally negligent. Buy, hey, it’s a festival: anything goes.

That beer is involved at these events goes without saying, though policies differ. Many festivals allow you to purchase only two beers at a time. I find this policy incredibly shortsighted for an all-day event. The better policy is best summed up by what a vendor at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival once said to me: "How many can you carry, sweetie?" I’d even consider going to a "Power of Real Estate" seminar if it had that kind of alcohol-vending policy.

There is nary a more satisfying feeling than gorging on something deep-fried and settling down in your folding chair, full cooler at your side, letting the music wash over you, and watching the people. Man, look at all the people. As far as the eye can see, people. Holy crap, where did all these people come from? How the hell am I going to get to the bathroom?

Yes, nothing in life is free, and the cost of festival-going is paid in large part by your bladder. At crowded outdoor events you must be vigilant, continually scanning the shifting traffic patterns for clear paths through the concert detritus — chairs, beer cans, passed-out 40-year-old men in NO FEAR T-shirts — to the port-a-potties. And nowhere but at a music festival have I ever battled so hard and so long to get somewhere so incredibly grim. The sordid squalor of a festival port-a-potty stands in stark contrast to the surrounding joy. Waiting in line to get into something I’ve been watching people run out of whimpering, with their hands over their mouths, makes me curse my own biology. And if I were a woman, I would seriously consider a catheter instead.

In the end, though, a little fiberglass-enclosed hell is a small price to pay for a full day of basking. And so I look forward to the start of another music-festival season: the beer, the food, the people-watching. And, oh yeah, the music.

Send port-a-potty survival tips to Alan Olifson at www.olifson.com