I’ve got a set of festival announcements that I wanted to post and comment on a bit, as the festivals that have been announced this year are all looking pretty amazing from where I’m sitting. There’s so much uniqueness in the way festivals are occurring these days, with Carrie’s post called Festival Fever fully summarizing the sentiment I’ve long tried to express through the content on the blog overall.
In deciding to see a festival these days, aside from the line-up, a big part of the draw is the festival setting. Castle, pirate ship, barn, or mountaintop equals yes. Expo Center, mini-mall, or dusty-field-with-faint-smell-of-manure is probably a no. The setting cannot be underestimated. After all, you are basically trapped in one location for 10 to 12 hours.
I think the boys putting on Wakarusa were especially aware of this consideration, especially given the police troubles in the past when the festival was still being held in Lawrence, KS. But this year, they’ve moved locations and they’re setting up shop at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Arkansas. The festival is set for June 4th-7th, and the lineup features The Black Crowes, Gov’t Mule, and STS9 as the top of the bill. Read on for the full lineup.
Wakarusa 2009 Lineup
The Black Crowes
Gov’t Mule
STS9 (2 huge sets!)
Yonder Mountain String Band (2 huge sets!)
Les Claypool
G Love & Special Sauce
Matisyahu
Gomez
Cross Canadian Ragweed
Galactic (2 sets including a special late night set)
Shpongle
Buckethead (special late night set)
Sly & Robbie
Railroad Earth (2 big sets)
Steve Kimock Crazy Engine featuring Melvin Seals
Perpetual Groove (2 big sets)
Porter Batiste & Stoltz (2 sets)
JJ Grey & MOFRO
Jimmy Herring Band
The Egg
20/20 Soundsystem
Lucero
Split Lip Rayfield (2 sets)
The New Mastersounds (2 sets)
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit
EOTO
Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue
Secret Chiefs 3
Boombox (2 sets)
New Monsoon (2 sets)
Moonalice (2 sets)
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
Ott
Ganga Giri
Telepath
Cornmeal (2 sets)
Joe Purdy (2 sets)
Jessie Baylin (2 sets)
Langhorne Slim
Dusty Rhodes and the River Band
Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm (2 sets)
Big Smith (2 sets)
Josh Phillips Folk Festival
Elmwood
Dirtfoot (2 sets)
Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad
Pretty Lights
Heavyweight Dub Champion
Underground Orchestra (2 sets)
Mishka
Jonathan Tyler & the Northern Lights
DJ Rekha
Chuck Love
Wax Fang
Madahoochi
Scythian
Old School Freight Train
My Dear Disco
Radiohiro
The Hood Internet
Blue Mountain
Hoots and Hellmouth
Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers
Burnin’ Smyrnans
Public Property
Elephant Revival
Euforquestra
Hana Pestle
Turbine
Mayola
Charliehorse
Tom Foolery
Jason Sterling
My-Tea Kind
Gem
Funkotron
Uncle Lucius
GreenSugar
Damn Bullets
LFDC Funk
David Hasselhoff on Acid
The Corduroy
Mountain Standard Time
Copesetic
The Moai Broadcast
Uniphonics
Reelfoot
Gum
Blue Martian Tribe
Runnin’ Wild Band
Spotting Waldo
LFDC Funk
JamBase has their customizable schedules up with the set times for the weekend posted.
In terms of success or not, Wakarusa has definitely been hanging in there over many of the other festivals that have already decided to shutter their windows and stop operating for a bit until the economy improves. But I hardly ever find the reason to get out and travel for this festival. It seems that it’s great for the regional heads that want to see some live music and camp in the middle of the field at the beginning of summer, a rite of passage so popular in the Midwest that even the chicks cruising up in their Cherokees partake in the festivities. And this is fantastic, but for me they never seem to stray past the obvious lineup choices for this festival. I think in some ways they’ve done the opposite of what Bonnaroo has done for mixing up the notion of genres and headliners at music festivals to offer up more diversity in the crowd that may be attending year to year, and I hope it keeps working for them.
