Festival Crazy ... Bring Them On!

Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville.

After a Winter like this one, maybe everyone will want to live outside this Summer and early Fall. I hope we have a calm weather year from now forward because the number of outdoor multi-day music festivals are in the dozens.

One of the first is underway the traditional Strawberry Festival near Tampa. It's a musical companion to baseball's spring training. A sure sign that Spring is near. Today near the Tampa airport ... a few small tornados. Like I said, the weather better calm down...

The big deal of the week was the announcement of a weekend of free shows for the masses in downtown Dallas April 4th-6th for the NCAA March Madness Music Festival. Non-ticketed, first come first serve for Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band ... Tim McGraw and Jason Aldean. Free! 30-40,000 capacity at the old Reunion Arena site. That is going to be crazy. Dallas weather is totally unpredictable. But hey, it will be an adventure for those who try.

The king of festivals this season may be Tim McGraw. Just check the list. All the A List stars have a few festivals but Lady A ... Tim ... Toby ... Brad ... heck all of them have several to a lot.

The festival called Runaway in Melbourne, FL had an interesting addition ... you can rent your own personal porta-potty! Big one, just yours. I guess you pool the cost with your closest potty pals.

Big crowds ... long lines ... the porta potty concession may be a real profit winner.

Just saw a Wounded Warrior commercial with Trace Adkins. I hope he is doing okay.

Countdown to the ACM is underway ... less than a month. Award show overdose for me, but they do a great job and it's always an ambitious show. CBS in the middle of the final four ... Sunday night April 6th.

Spring is the sign of rebirth. Winter was insane for all of North America, minus this and minus that. It's almost hard to close your eyes and imagine the warmth at Country USA in Oshkosh or Craven and Camrose in Canada.

It can't come soon enough I hope the gambler/promoters are lucky with the weather ... The huge festival over Memorial Weekend in Baton Rouge ... Louisiana weather ... oh boy ... great location at. LSU stadium ... Big names like King George ... all eyes on that one this year.

Houston Rodeo underway ... 27 degrees colder than normal for the kick off show with. Brad Paisley this week. Right at freezing for the 56,000-plus Country music faithful. Biggest lineup for the year. Close as anything gets to a sure thing every year.

Country music is on fire in the concert world with Classic Rock right behind. Amazing that fame doesn't transition to more late-night bookings. One Country artist in two weeks of Fallon. One for Seth Meyers ... none for Jimmy Kimmel ... Hmm And did I read it right that Country programmers are now thrilled and working hard to get men 18-34? Whose idea was that? Yes, rock is dead ... but the guys will follow the girls. My prediction on this trend ... short-term gain and long-term pain. Better stay with the girls, guys..

You think teen girls are picky ... they are really rather predictable musically ... (father of three daughters). The guys ... no way. Danger, danger? And all-girl singers are not viewed equally.

Some are very polarizing ... others not at all. Country is an on-fire format, but the music may be at its most unpredictable. Despite the truck and beer songs ... girls are coming back. Watch out!