In case you missed it, the lineup for this year’s Wakarusa Music Festival was finalized late last week. Topping the bill is a solid eclectic mix with Pretty Lights, The Avett Brothers and Primus all set to headline the festival, with LMB favorites Umphrey’s Mcgee, Girl Talk, Ghostland Observatory, Big Gigantic, EOTO, Orgone, Blitzen Trapper and tons more joining them to round out the festival’s ninth year in operation.
The festival returns to the Ozarks on May 31-June 3, 2012 and tickets are still on sale. READ MORE
It looks like one of our favorite seasons of the year — “Festival Lineup Announcement Season” — is officially upon us. Wakarusa has come out of the gate nice and early with their initial 2012 lineup, including Pretty Lights, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, G. Love & Special Sauce, and an acoustic trio featuring Bob Weir, Chris Robinson, and Jackie Greene. This year’s Wakarusa festival is set for May 31 – June 3 at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Arkansas. READ MORE
mountainjam.com
The lineup for the 7th Annual Mountain Jam festival was just announced this morning, 1/11/11 at 11am EST. CLEVER!
Radio Woodstock and acclaimed guitarist Warren Haynes present the seventh annual Mountain Jam Music Festival at Hunter Mountain, in Hunter, NY from Thursday, June 2, to Sunday, June 5, 2011. For the first time, Mountain Jam will expand to include four days of music and camping. Early bird tickets are now available at MountainJam.com.
Gov’t Mule will headline Mountain Jam for the seventh consecutive year on Saturday, June 4. Gov’t Mule’s two-set performance at Mountain Jam VII will be one of only a few select appearances for the group in 2011. Modern rock heroes My Morning Jacket will return to the festival after five years to headline on Sunday, June 5. The newly formed Warren Haynes Band, a soul-infused ensemble, will make its debut northeast festival appearance, headlining on Friday, June 3.
Read on for the full lineup, including blog favorites Lotus, The New Deal, Soulive, Edward Sharpe, Toubab Krewe … and more…
The Budos Band
Bumbershoot 2010, Day One….
First stop for the day was the KEXP in-studio session with The Budos Band, playing a number of tracks from their new Budos Band III album. The band is self-described as Afro-soul, and pretty much every song the band plays makes you feel like you’re Indiana Jones running from the enormous rolling boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Seriously. If that’s not enough to get you to take a listen then nothing else I say could do the trick. Thanks to KEXP’s website, you can hear the entire session at http://kexp.org/streamarchive/streamarchive.asp. Enter “Saturday, September 4th” for the date, and “2:29 PM” for the time, and you can stream the entire 30-minute performance in a number of formats.
Next we headed over to catch Wheedle’s Groove, a collection of Seattle funk and soul musicians from the 60′s and 70′s who got together in 2004. They were welcomed onto the stage by Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, who proclaimed September 4th, 2010 as “Wheedle’s Groove Day” in the city of Seattle. They had about 20+ different musicians on the stage over the course of their set and played songs from a huge range of Seattle artists, and even threw in a soulful cover of “Hey Jude” for a crowd singalong. READ MORE
bumbershoot.org
Who doesn’t love Labor Day Weekend? One last three-day weekend to close out the summer months and music to see across the country: the inaugural North Coast Music Festival in Chicago, Jazz Aspen Snowmass in Aspen, FYF Fest in Los Angeles, plenty of East Coast stuff that I’m not even aware of, and last but not least, Bumbershoot Festival here in Seattle (which I’ll be covering all weekend here at LMB). If you’re in the Seattle area the forecast is 70° and not a cloud in the sky for most of the weekend, and last-minute day passes are about $50 and cheaper if you opt for the non-mainstage ticket option. Regardless, here’s 10 bands acts I’ll be checking out this weekend and be sure to stop here at in the next few days for some photo coverage of the festival. Also, I’ll be tweeting occasionally at @burning_oak so follow along there if you’re interested in following along… READ MORE
Photos by Eric Tsurumoto
One of our newest contributors, Eric Tsurumoto, got some amazing stuff at this year’s Newport Folk Festival just a few weeks back. Here are his notes and his amazing set of photos from the two-day festival. –Justin
Newport Folk 2010: Day One (Saturday, July 31st)
I didn’t even make it into the festival grounds before I was greeted by a familiar voice. Just over a hill, was a bluegrass prodigy by the name of Sarah Jarosz performing one of Saturday’s opening sets. It was short but sweet, paying homage to the historic festival. She even covered “Ring Them Bells” by Bob Dylan. After her set, I caught a very familiar band by the name of Blitzen Trapper. Their set was just as good this time around as it was the first time I saw them at Bonnaroo.
Then after a short interview with Sarah Jarosz and bit of time looking around the festival grounds. I was drawn to a loud tent that at first didn’t seem fitting. But after further investigation I found myself in front of a enthusiastic crowd, dancing to the tune of a Celtic folk metal band (yeah I’m sure you never heard that musical description before) by the name of O’Death. O’ Death quickly reminded me of the historical relevance of Newport Folk. The festival didn’t gain their reputation for being traditional; they have continued to reinvent the genre year after year. READ MORE
