It’s that time of the year again….
. . . the season before festival season when line-up announcements are the biggest music news. Among the fests that revealed their 2014 rosters within the past few days are:
- Hangout Festival – May 16-18 in Gulf Shores, Alabama – OutKast, The Black Keys, The Killers, Jack Johnson, The Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse, Portugal The Man, Queens of the Stone Age
- Wakarusa Festival – June 5-8 in Mulberry Mountain, Arkansas – The String Cheese Incident, Bassnectar, The Flaming Lips, STS9, Umphrey’s McGee, Dr. Dog, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
- Governors Ball Music Festival – June 6-8 on Randall’s Island, New York – OutKast, Jack White, Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, Phoenix, Broken Bells, Spoon, Kurt Vile, Interpol
- Firefly Music Festival – June 19-22 in Dover, Delaware – OutKast, Foo Fighters, Jack Johnson, Arctic Monkeys, Weezer, Courtney Barnett, White Denim, Washed Out, tUnE-yArDs, Portugal The Man, Phantogram.
- Compare and keep track of these and many other festival line-ups, locations and dates (with links to buy tickets) with The Future Heart 2014 Festival Guide.
These follow last week’s announcement that Beck, The Replacements, MGMT, Neutral Milk Hotel, Foxygen, Broken Bells, Queens of the Stone Age and Mogwai are among those playing this year’s Coachella – to be headlined by OutKast, Muse and Arcade Fire. And this week’s other big news: OutKast is making a comeback to commemorate their 20th anniversary in 2014, including 40 appearances at music festivals around the world in the coming months.
Hangout had the most elaborate announcement so far – they took over Palladia for all of Wednesday showing blocks of music videos by the artists performing at their fest this year. That meant a lot of The Killers (“Runaways,” “All These Things That I’ve Done,” “Read My Mind,” “When You Were Young”), with a bit of The Black Keys (“Gold On The Ceiling,” “Little Black Submarines”) and Queens of the Stone Age (“The Vampyre of Time and Memory,” “No One Knows”) interspersed with Andrew WK (“Party Hard”), Tegan and Sara (“Closer”), Fitz and The Tantrums (“MoneyGrabber”), Modest Mouse (“Ocean Breathes Salty”), The Avett Brothers (“Live And Die”), Jack Johnson (“From The Clouds”) and, of course, OutKast (“Ms. Jackson”). They also rebroadcasted The Killers Live from the Royal Albert Hall and The Flaming Lips Hangout 2012 performance of Dark Side of the Moon, along with ads for the festival featuring exclusive interviews with Portugal The Man, Fitz and the Tantrums and Andrew W.K.
Wakarusa went the YouTube route, releasing their line-up in three installments over the past two weeks, each accompanied by part of a silly saga staring Sasquatch (and a headlining artist):
Finally, Bonnaroo’s official line-up announcement isn’t due until February 19th, but several acts booked for 2014 have leaked on Inforoo including The Flaming Lips (allegedly direct from Wayne Coyne’s mouth), Andrew Bird, and Cage the Elephant.
UPDATE – February 7th There’s now rumors Vampire Weekend, White Denim, DARKSIDE and Phoenix are booked for Bonnaroo. A recap of this year’s Roo Clues and leaked artists “confirmations” is here, along with details on The Flaming Lips and Ben Folds BLAM Superjam taped February 7th (…and in case you’re wondering, here’s the official answers to last year’s Roo Clues, along with their explanations).
UPDATE – February 20th The Flaming Lips, Andrew Bird, Cage the Elephant, Vampire Weekend, White Denim, DARKSIDE and Phoenix are indeed playing Bonnaroo – all these rumors were correct! A recap of the Bonnaroo Lineup Announcement Megathon – with streams of the Flips/Folds superjams – and the full 2014 Bonnaroo roster is here.
Click here to read more recent festival news, including Bonnaroo’s plans to broadcast this year’s festival as “an exclusive, interactive television event that will be streaming in high-definition.”