Bonnaroo Located on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, TN, the annual Bonnaroo festival brings together some of the most talented acts across genres for a four-day bacchanalia of live music, arts and crafts, dance tents and booze. The festival organizers have also recently stepped up efforts to promote environmentalism and donate money to local organizations. This year’s festival is set for June 10-13, with performances from Kings of Leon, Jay-Z, Conan O’Brien, Phoenix, Damian Marley and Nas, LCD Soundsystem, The xx, The Flaming Lips and Kid Cudi — and that’s just naming a few. Check out details at bonnaroo.com.
Pitchfork Music Festival Created by the cooler-than-thou hipsters at Pitchfork.com, the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park has remained one of the premier indie concerts in the nation. Distinct from larger festivals due to it’s cozier, less commercial atmosphere, the festival has featured a pretty impressive laundry list of alternative music royalty since its inception in 2006: The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective, Sonic Youth, Public Enemy and Yoko Ono have all rocked Union Park. This year’s festival, which runs from July 16-18, has a particularly impressive line-up, featuring the newly-reunited Pavement as well as LCD Soundsystem, Modest Mouse, Animal Collective mastermind Panda Bear, Raekwon, Broken Social Scene, and others. Three-day-passes are sold out, but single-day tickets are still available. Get them while you can at pitchforkmusicfestival.com.
Rock the Bells If you need to get your hip hop fix, Rock the Bells is the perfect destination. Part of Guerilla Union’s International Festival Series, the tour usually hits just over 10 spots in the U.S. and Canada, stopping in the Midwest, California and on the East Coast with some of today’s premier hip hop acts. Though news has yet to leak about this year’s schedule or lineup, the last few festivals have started at the end of June and continued through August, showcasing acts like The Wu-Tang Clan, Erykah Badu, A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Public Enemy, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, The Pharcyde and more independent groups. Keeps your ears open for updates on guerillaunion.com/rockthebells.
Lollapalooza Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell created Lollapalooza as a traveling festival in 1991, and for its first several years the festival was a forum for early-'90s rock groups such as Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Smashing Pumpkins. Reconceived in 2005 as a location festival in Chicago’s Grant Park, Lollapalooza is now known for assembling an eclectic mix of popular and indie artists under the gorgeous skyscrapers of downtown Chicago. While this year’s line-up has not been released yet, rumor has it that headliners will include Lady GaGa, Green Day, The Strokes, Arcade Fire, MGMT and the recently-reunited Soundgarden. Three-Day-Passes are for sale on lollapalooza.com for the August 6 – 8 festival.
Glastonbury Festivals If you’re itching to get out of this country this summer, skip across the pond to kick it with hundreds of thousands of people in a giant field in England. Between the 23rd and 27th of June, hordes will be flocking to Pilton to participate in the largest music festival on earth. If these crowds and a little English country air aren’t reason enough, the star-studded line-up includes: Neil Young, N*E*R*D, Regina Spektor, Bruce Springsteen, Blur, Bloc Party, Amadou and Mariam, Animal Collective and more – glastonburyfestivals.co.uk.
Coachella So April 16 comes around and you decide to skip Spring Fling. Your friends look at you like you’re insane and tell you you’re about to make the worst mistake in the history of FOMO-ing. But then you tell them you will be heading out to a desert valley in Indio, CA for a weekend of music, and not just any music. This year’s Coachella line-up might be the most worthy of a fling-skip ever — Jay-Z, Them Crooked Vultures, Muse, Faith No More, MGMT, Hot Chip, Gorillaz, Pavement, Thom Yorke, Phoenix, Benny Benassi, Dirty Projectors, De La Soul and it goes on and on. And on. Just check out the damn website, already – coachella.com – and start booking your tickets.
