Creativity Quote by Thurston Moore

There’s a sly shrug baked into “weird festivals,” the kind that tells you more about the state of live music than any industry panel ever will. Thurston Moore isn’t selling you the romance of the road; he’s sketching a landscape where bands like his end up: not in the tidy ecosystem of clubs and curated tours, but in sprawling, mismatched lineups that feel half carnival, half algorithm. “Weird” is a polite word for disorienting - genre soup, brand activations, daylight soundchecks, a crowd that might be there for the headliner, the craft beer, or simply because it’s Saturday.

The “usually outdoors” detail is doing heavy lifting. Outdoors means less control: sound drifting, weather threats, a stage built for spectacle rather than nuance. For an artist associated with loud, tactile, room-shaking music, it hints at compromise. You can still be loud, but you’re loud into open air, competing with wind and chatter and distance. It’s a subtle lament about intimacy lost.

The intent feels practical - tour talk, schedule reality - but the subtext is adaptation. The festival circuit is where the money and attention concentrate, especially as venues struggle and touring economics get harsher. Moore’s line captures a veteran musician’s double vision: grateful to keep playing, mildly alienated by the settings. It’s not bitterness so much as a clear-eyed acknowledgment that the cultural infrastructure around rock has shifted, and the gigs have gotten… weird.