Every 12 months, it looks like the important music festival posters get increasingly similar. Case in point for 2019: all three headliners from Coachella—Childish Gambino, Tame Impala, Ariana Grande—are also atop the Lollapalooza timetable. Gambino additionally helms one night at Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, and Austin City Limits. He is joined on the latter with the aid of Tame Impala, with whom he first overlapped at Coachella this year.
But in a sea of sameness, there are nevertheless some outposts clinging to their weirdo roots. Here are the ten festivals still well worth hitting in 2019. It commenced as a hippie getaway and converted the U.S. Competition scene following its founding; however, these days, Bonnaroo is a bona fide behemoth at the mainstream competition circuit. The Farm now frequently plays host to Top 40 stars and pinnacle tier EDM names, and even as it is modified, the demographic of who goes there a few times, the organizers remain devoted to the jam bands and out-there thoughts that made them. This year, Phish returns to the festival, playing three sets across the four days. (We have a frontman, Trey Anastasio, pop up in a few different units across the weekend.) And you’ll find names like Joe Russo’s Almost Dead and Jim James (of My Morning Jacket) dotting the poster rungs. Thursday night exists without a headliner, but the nighttime is being helmed by nearby Music City’s Grand Ole Opry while Griz is plotting the annual SuperJam. Plus, there is overdue nighttime, unannounced suggestions stoning up throughout the seven hundred-acre ground’s tenting web sites, which means the amusing, actually, by no means stops.
Find me an extra lovely town in Colorado. I dare you! There’s a magic to the one’s remote hills—it is a selected reward for people who make the trip—and it fills the scenic fest with incomparable energy. Brandi Carlile, Sam Bush Band, and Kacey Musgraves fill the top line of the occasion’s poster but, by some means, it most effective receives better as you solid your glance downwards: Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, Greensky Bluegrass, the Punch Brothers, Lake Street Dive, and more take over the principle level throughout the three days.
Essence Festival has always been extraordinary in that it is a lot more than just a music festival. The multi-day takeover of the Big Easy sees a huge variety of conferences and exhibitions on black style, enterprise, and splendor spliced between sets from the likes of this 12 months’ artists: Mary J. Blige, Pharrell, Brandy, Missy Elliott, and more. Given that 2019 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the event, count on big matters down south.
Forecastle has a stacked lineup this year. And in some way, that’s no longer precisely what sells this fest: the Killers, The Avett Brothers, and Anderson. P aak & the Free Nationals headline this event, and they are joined by buzzy acts like Maggie Rogers, Portugal. The Man, Jungle, CHVRCHES, Midland, and lots more. But the actual selling point of Forecastle remains how damn easy it’s miles. Last 12 months, at some point of its sixteenth iteration, the event noticed its biggest crowds ever. However, it is nonetheless a remarkably trouble-free occasion. Pair that would the ocean of bourbon that helps it (no, significantly, make a pit stop at the Bourbon Lodge), and the views of the Ohio River that surround it, and you have got music competition Valhalla on your arms.
