Locations famous as destinations for transformative musical tourism/travel/pilgrimage

Berlin

Travel to the Triangle Tavern in South Philadelphia famously has the tendency to deeply transform how people experience Frank Sinatra's music (and maybe pop music in general. I actually get a little tired of hearing how you just can't understand Dean Martin's music until you've seen South Philly residents dancing to it, gone to hear swing bands perform live at the Five Spot, attended candlelight vigils at Frank Rizzo's grave , or listened to Bobby Vee on the Al Alberts show. However, I have never been there, so maybe I would be as changed by the experience as so many others have been. I can think of other obvious sites of musical pilgrimage, but I can't of others that have the same reputation for causing such a radical transformation in a person's appreciation of music (or at least some types of music). Are there other places with that kind of reputation?

People visiting Cuba and coming back changed! Musical tourism around the world!! Philadelphia even!!! Invasion by Martians bearing DAT recorders!!!!

did i mention that i'm a little drunk?

head to the plateau on a hot summer night and you will see jazzy jeff giving turntable benedictions by charcoal light.

I imagine New Orleans was like this for a lot of people.

Berlin for raves specifically?

berlin for art rockers like eno, bowie, iggy & reed

head to the plateau on a hot summer night and you will see jazzy jeff giving turntable benedictions by charcoal light.

Hopefully I'm not ennabling anything by saying this, but Scott, you should be drunk more often.

I have to imagine that Berlin as a transformative experience is... well, naive. So much of what made that experience was the whole east/west divide, the city-island, etc. You neither have that environment, nor, frankly, much physical remnant of it.

a transformative experience can be had at any time in any place. for real. you never know where.

I once went to Te Awamutu in New Zealand and found the "road hedged with roses", as described by Tim Finn in "Walking Down A Road". It was a transformative experience for me.

xpost-ish

Well, then shouldn't Glastonbury and Woodstock be listed as well?

I don't think that the east/west divide is necessarily the crux of what made time spent in Berlin a so called "transformative experience" for musicians/artists. Or perhaps more accurately, the 'removal' of this divide, ie. the fall of the wall, hasn't had such a drastic effect on the atmosphere of Berlin as an extremely liberal city, a place where difference seems to be embraced rather than shunned. The history of a place can't be erased by physical changes in the landscape. I've only been there twice myself, and maybe I've been lucky, but I've had some amazing, eye-opening times in the short periods I spent there. I recommend time spent in Berlin to any artist who feels stifled by their home environment or who simply longs for fresh experience. As for music in particular, the east-side especially has a pretty astonishing diversity of clubs and live music venues. There are a LOT of interesting people to be met and places to be seen.