ROCK THE BAYOU Promoter: We're Really Wanting The Festival To Celebrate The Rock Genre

Michael McGuff, the multimedia web producer at KTRK-TV Houston, recently conducted an interview with Ali Fazeli, the promoter behind the Rock The Bayou music bash, which is set to take place August 29 – September 1 on the Rock The Bayou Grounds in Houston, Texas. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

KTRK: There has been a lot of talk around this town right now about Rock The Bayou. What made you do it?

Ali: It's been a lot of years since a real rock festival has been here in Houston, about 20-25 years since the Texas Jam days in Houston and Dallas. We're really wanting it to celebrate the rock genre, and the music that represents the whole '80s and '90s rock genre, and that was the determining factor of having the rock festival here.

KTRK: Because that music has started to come back where even now kids are starting to listen to it, so the music really is having a resurgence.

Ali: That's right, and from the five- and six-year-old kids to the 15- and 16-year-olds. It's also getting their parents back to that music. Maybe they're not listening to that type of music everyday anymore, but when they go home and their kids are playing ALICE COOPER "School's Out" 15 times at home on the Rock Band game, they start just singing along and they start to get back in the groove of things again.

KTRK: This is going to be a massive amount of land to fill.

Ali: Well, it's a big festival. This is what they call in the industry as a "Mega Festival." We're going to have over 50 bands, three stages. We have a huge ferris wheel; we have a drive-in movie theater. So not only are you going to be able to come out and see some bands that you haven't seen in a very long time perform live, bands or performers such as LITA FORD who hasn't performed in 15 years, SAMMY HAGAR hasn't been here in two or three years, ALICE COOPER, but you're going to be able to have that festival feel; to have the international cuisine, to be able to watch a movie late at night on a big drive-in screen, to ride the ferris wheel, to have a lot of interaction with interactive games that we're going to have there. So we're going to fill up that 150 acres pretty quick.

KTRK: You expect people to camp out there and actually stay overnight?

Ali: Absolutely, absolutely. We've sold a lot of camping site parking already on the premises. We have people coming from 26 states now as far away as Alaska, so we plan on having some people stay on the premise. I should probably mention, we're up to seven countries now that are coming to Houston to watch this.

KTRK: You can tell that by who's bought the tickets so far?

Ali: Absolutely. Absolutely, because of the billing address on the payment on the credit cards.

KTRK: How much did Rocklahoma help make this more possible? Did that make it easier on you, or do you say this is kind of a different situation?

Ali: Yeah, it's a different situation. Our lineup is different than what Rocklahoma has had. As far as made it easier, they paved the way as a 2nd year festival. I really got to salute them for bringing the music back, because they really did pave the way in that. But our festival's a little different, probably going to be a little bit bigger and a little bit more diversified lineup probably.

KTRK: It's probably easier to get to Houston vs. Pryor, Oklahoma, right?

Ali: Correct. Nine out of ten people know where the old Astroworld used to be. So many Houstonians have so many fond memories of Astroworld, whether you were a kid, or a teenager, or even a grownup, and it's a beautiful site to have a festival at.

Read the entire interview at this location. Also available is a video report featuring snippets of the chat.