ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ CIRCLING THE DATES]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ CIRCLING THE DATES]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Heads up: this is a rerun from Paste. But have no fear: I rewrote a lot of the unnecessary indie rock clues that originally ran in the magazine. FWIW: I decided to go with this one because I think this audience will appreciate the “stunt construction” in the grid.
Share the puzzle. New one on Wednesday.
Hey! I’m in this picture! I’m the guy 12 rows in, 393rd from the left, in the blue shirt.
Still debating whether I’m gonna go THIS year…
Wait – that wasn’t me after all. This had to be the OTHER festival they have at this venue (just noticed all the hats).
At 5 flat, super easy. Still, enjoyable, but LHO!?!?! Whoa.
Love THE ROOTS next to NEKOCASE. Would pay to see that. SXSW (“South by Southwest”) should f- some people up today, but I just learned it in the past month bec. All Songs Considered is hyping it like mad. Had MONTROSE for the festival site instead of MONTEREY. Why? MONTROSE is a local PA city. Don’t think they have a music festival.
I figure there’s going to be those people who’ve never heard of any of the festivals (I’ve already received at least one e-mail questioning whether BONNAROO and COACHELLA are something), and that’s why it’s a Medium.
that would be me. i’ve never heard of BONNAROO or COACHELLA, or for that matter SXSW, NEKOCASE, or T-REX (the glam band). for all that, i pretty well flew through the grid, though i was fairly surprised when i got mr. happy pencil at the end.
cute having VH-ONE and MTV both in the grid, although if you’re going to have MAROON 5, why not VH-1?
and you misspelled LOLLAPUZZOOLA :p.
I am amazed that I can fake so many answers in a BEQ puzzle even though I have never heard of most of the bands. I am not having as much luck with a puzzle constructed in 1942. It seems like half the clues refer to WW2 and the other half are crosswordese(e.g. Burma demon, North African Wildebeest, etc.). Maybe BEQ could give us a steampunk puzzle where he writes a puzzle for hip Victorians.
Had to laugh out loud at T REX. We were at a Chinese banquet last night, and before each of the ten courses, they had to bang a gong to announce it. That naturally had us wondering “What was that band? Oh, yeah – T-Rex.” And there it was this morning.
Lollapalooza, I knew, the others, no. With my kids several years ago it was all about Warped Tour(daughter) and Ozzfest (son). I just mis-typed that as Ozzpest – freudian?
After I got the first set of circles, I went ahead and filled in BONNAROO and (erroneously and, in retrospect, stupidly) WOODSTOCK, but was like, “What, no SXSW?” And then, ah, there we go.
Anyway, pleasant solve and fun fill. 14:35 is fast for me, though laughable compared to the rest of you.
Even though it wasn’t easy in the conventional sense, in the unconventional BEQ Zone finishing in under 20 minutes qualifies—this despite a substantial number of “learning opportunities”:
“Celebreality”, how to say “volare” in Italian (the Gypsy Kings’ cover is really good), MAROON 5 (cute device with a good cross), EMF, THE ROOTS, and NEKO CASE. Knew T-Rex (aren’t they extinct?) but not the album (and there’s never been a moment in my life when I didn’t cringe at the sound of “Bang a Gong”). And people whine about Simpsons clues?!
@BEQ, why wasn’t SXSW circled? What, ours isn’t long enough?
Only two significant re-keys were ALTAMONT for MONTEREY (till the crosses kick-started my “dude, that was like post-Woodstock” synapse), and KIMMEL before FALLON, no surprise.
And I thought it was the vorpal blade that opened up the Jabberwock.
@Rex, does LHO not = “laughing head off”? I’ve gotta be missing something.
Regular reader, 1st time poster. So first off, love your work BEQ.
Found this one enjoyable, but very easy. My demographic seems to help me a lot on these puzzles, but never more than this one. Unlike Joon, I was surprised when I didn’t get Mr. Happy Pencil at the end. I had V for 5, took awhile to fix that because I *knew* that V was right.
I really liked The Roots directly under Fallon, and that The Roots, Neko Case, T-Rex corner in general. I envision Neko as future crosswordese.
This must have been a fun one to construct.
Thanks Betski. Hope to see you in the comments a bit more.
Again, like I said to Rex, it’s probably an Easy one if you’re on the same wavelength shows-wise as I am. For others, it might as well be in Swahili.
Okay, count me as one of the ones that did the puzzle in Swahili. Actually, I’m used to BEQ Mondays being themeless (or “Freeform” if that is now the preferred terminology) so this was nothing out of the ordinary.
So what if the circles didn’t mean anything at all to me? It matters not that I’m a dinosaur because I broke the ten-minute mark, an accomplishment. I’m happy! Everything was gettable without arcane music knowledge so the puzzle was extremely fair and that’s what makes it so good.
I’d also call this an Easy, even though I didn’t know a lot of thee bands and festivals. I also didn’t get Mr. Happy Pencil, but then again, I was doing it on paper…
I didn’t look at the circled squares until I had finished the grid. All the music hints were familiar to me even though I didn’t parse T REX for a while. I was a little concerned when I saw 36D and 37D but EXCISE opened that section.
NE tasted ugli with ATH, LHO, and the ONEs meeting up. I think I winced when I sae ENES crossing OSE. Definitely liked the theme.
Beauty! For the record, I knew all the festivals and music references, and I’m 57. Stereotypes be damned.
There’s an upscale restaurant in my neighborhood that is run by hipsters. Nothing’s so jarring as eating expensive “cuisine” while “Metal Guru” is coming outta the speakers.
I had no problem getting the events from the crosses and I’m an old fart. That’s not to say I haven’t been stymied before by you young constructors what with the hair and the clothes…
Thought it was a relatively easy BEQ.