Monday, April 4, 2016

Opening the Golden Gate

4/5 Update: Lana has been announced as the headliner of that new California festival we forecast, and Sigur Ros has announced tourdates leading up to a probable headlining slot at Treasure Island. We therefore downgrade the probability of both acts, but rule out neither. Our we-think-final forecast for the lineup to be announced tomorrow is:
Radiohead
Arcade Fire (or Lana del Rey) and/or Neil Young & Promise of the Real
LCD Soundsystem
J. Cole and/or Future
Duran Duran
Bassnectar
one or two of Ryan Adams, Broken Social Scene, Sufjan Stevens, and Ween

---

Outside Lands will reveal its lineup early this week. Here are our fairly-heavy final (?) predictions for top-billed acts:

We are most confident that the headliners will include Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, probably Lana del Rey (who may instead headline another California festival TBA), and at least one rapper, we believe J. Cole and/or Future.

That would be enough for most 3-day festivals, but we believe Outside Lands may, as it has in some past years, again overstuff its lineup with big-name acts. For instance, we believe that there is a serious possibility that one or both of indubitable headliner Arcade Fire and somewhat smaller-time Sigur Ros may join the lineup as well.

Moreover, while our earlier-predicted Dead & Company will likely instead return to San Francisco circa New Year's Eve as part of a string of shows at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and LA's Forum, we would not be surprised if Neil Young & Promise of the Real takes their place at Outside Lands as this year's living legend act.

As for subheadliners, our predictions are more intuitive and not as probable. If LCD is joined by another large-drawing electronic act rather than slightly smaller ones like M83, we believe Bassnectar may be the likeliest name in the mix. Duran Duran similarly may be the likeliest of a number of fun ('70s-)'80s acts to join the bill. And we expect at least one of notable indie reunions Broken Social Scene and Ween to appear at either this festival or SF's Treasure Island in the Fall; Ween may be the likelier of the two to appear on its own.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Round up the usual suspects

We believe the Lollapalooza lineup will be announced imminently, perhaps in just a few hours, as tickets go on sale today. Here are our possibly-final predictions for top-line acts at that festival and the forthcoming Outside Lands, and a few more Big Gigs...

Lollapalooza
Radiohead
Red Hot Chili Peppers
LCD Soundsystem
J. Cole
Lana del Rey
Future or Kendrick Lamar and/or Snoop Dogg
Disclosure
Major Lazer 
The 1975
Halsey
Chris Stapleton
Zedd
The Arcs
Leon Bridges

Outside Lands
Radiohead
Arcade Fire
LCD Soundsystem
Future (or J. Cole)
Duran Duran
Bassnectar
Ween and/or Broken Social Scene

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Fete Accompli? O Canada!

The Osheaga lineup will arrive in a just a few short heures. While far too many of our bets are hedged at this point in the season, check out our updated predictions for that festival and more, eh? And stay tuned for Furthur updates on some of the summer's biggest guns, we mean gigs.

Glastonbury Festival (additions)
Adele
Muse and/or Radiohead
Rihanna (to guest with Coldplay)

British Summer Time in Hyde Park (additions)
LCD Soundsystem and possibly Muse

Panorama
Arcade Fire
LCD Soundsystem
just maybe: Radiohead, Lana del Rey, A Tribe Called Quest with the Roots, or Calvin Harris
Alabama Shakes
The National
Cage the Elephant
FKA twigs
Future

Lollapalooza
Radiohead
just maybe NWA, The Dead Weather, or Sigur Ros
The Killers (or maybe Red Hot Chili Peppers)
LCD Soundsystem
J. Cole
Ellie Goulding and/or Lana del Rey
Disclosure
Jack U and/or Major Lazer
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Cage the Elephant
The 1975
The Arcs
Halsey

Osheaga
Radiohead
Red Hot Chili Peppers or Cage the Elephant
J. Cole or Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Disclosure and/or just maybe Sigur Ros
Broken Social Scene

Ovo
Kanye West
Drake
J. Cole
Future

HARD Summer
LCD Soundsystem

Outside Lands
Radiohead
Dead & Company
LCD Soundsystem
Duran Duran
Bassnectar
Ween

FYF Festival
LCD Soundsystem and/or Arcade Fire
Air

Austin City Limits
Radiohead
Sigur Ros

Monday, February 8, 2016

Festival Express

[Further Updates below 2/11] Update 2/9: Canada's Way Home festival has announced as we predicted, and the lineup contained not Radiohead but the homegrown artist we originally believed would fill their slot here - Arcade Fire! In light of this development, we are again predicting that Win, Regine & Co. will appear at New York's Panorama Festival and more, and have updated several of our lineups (and added some more) below...

Our forecasted jamband announcements have come and gone, with a surprise or two and more to come - we expect the Dead to announce additional dates after the Outside Lands lineup is revealed in the weeks to come.

Today, we turn our attention back to the festival scene and up to the Great White North, in anticipation of the announcement of at least two festival lineups tomorrow, including the aforementioned Lockn' Festival in Virginia.

Here are our updated headliner-plus predictions for festivals in the US, the UK, and a whole bunch in America's (newly-stylish) Hat. Take our predictions for all of those that begin with a P with an extra-large grain of salt...

Mysteryland
Chemical Brothers (to be added)
 
Arroyo Seco Music Festival
Stevie Wonder
Tedeschi Trucks Band
Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals
Los Lobos
Dwight Yoakam

Glastonbury Festival
Adele
Coldplay (with special guest Rihanna?)
Jeff Lynne's ELO
Radiohead

British Summer Time in Hyde Park
LCD Soundsystem (to be added)
Muse (to be added)

Pitchfork
Brian Wilson performing Pet Sounds
FKA Twigs and/or Grimes
Guided by Voices
Sufjan Stevens

Pemberton
Red Hot Chili Peppers
David Guetta
Avett Brothers
Sufjan Stevens
Future
Portugal. the Man

Panorama
LCD Soundsystem
Arcade Fire
Lana del Rey (or A Tribe Called Quest with the Roots)?
Calvin Harris or Deadmau5 
Kings of Leon or Alabama Shakes
The National 
FKA Twigs and/or Sia
Future
Cage the Elephant

Lollapalooza
Radiohead
Mumford & Sons or Arcade Fire
LCD Soundsystem
Lana del Rey and/or Sia
The Dead Weather
J. Cole Kendrick Lamar
Ellie Goulding
Disclosure
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Major Lazer Jack U
Halsey
The 1975 Cage the Elephant
The Arcs

Osheaga
Radiohead
LCD Soundsystem
J. Cole
Disclosure

Ovo
Kanye West
Drake
J. Cole
Future

Wayhome
Radiohead
LCD Soundsystem
The Killers
The Arcs
Future
Metric
Tame Impala

HARD Summer
LCD Soundsystem

Outside Lands
Radiohead
Dead & Company
LCD Soundsystem
Duran Duran
Bassnectar
Ween 

Eaux Claires
Bon Iver
The National
Sufjan Stevens
Bruce Hornsby 

Lockn' - Interlocking Music Festival
Dead & Company Ratdog
Mega Nova (Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Carlos and Cindy Blackman Santana, Marcus Miller)
Phil Lesh and Friends
Phish
Ween

FYF Festival
LCD Soundsystem and/or Arcade Fire

Austin City Limits
Radiohead

Thursday, February 4, 2016

A Big Pot of Jam

Since our last update, we've seen announcements of the big Coldplay and Pearl Jam tours we forecasted, including the latter's appearances at Bonnaroo, Fenway Park, and Wrigley Field. Still to come is an announcement of Pearl Jam's 25th anniversary event in Seattle this September, not to mention the big upcoming Guns 'n Roses tour.

Next up, however, are jam bands Dead and Company and Phish, both of whom we expect to announce their summer tours over the next week, the Dead as soon as tomorrow.

The Dead Have Lots of Company
We believe the Dead & Co. tour will be bookended by two major festival appearances, opening with 2 already-announced shows at Bonnaroo in June and closing nearly two months later at or around a return home to Golden Gate Park, where the band will join our previously-forecasted headliners Radiohead and LCD Soundsystem at Outside Lands during "Jerry week" in San Francisco. 

In between, the band will play large-scale weekend stands in or near New York City (plans to play Citi Field or a neighboring site in late June may have been moved to July), Boston (Fenway Park on or about August 1st, Jerry Garcia's birthday), Albany (the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in mid-June), Chicago (Wisconsin's Alpine Valley Music Theatre the second weekend of July), Denver (the University of Colorado at Boulder's Folsom Field during July 4th weekend), and more (Ohio's Legend Valley in mid-July, perhaps?). 

Look as well for the band to hit a series of slightly smaller outdoor "sheds," some of them well-known to older Deadheads, including Albuquerque's Isleta Amphitheater (July 4th), the Austin360 amphitheater at Circuit of the Americas (during the following week), "Deer Creek" near Indianapolis (mid-June), Merriweather Post Pavilion between Baltimore and Washington (mid-July), "Pine Knob" and "Star Lake" near Detroit and Pittsburgh, respectively (same), and amphitheaters in both Washington State and Oregon circa Outside Lands. Following the tour, Bob Weir will hit the road with Ratdog, joining Gregg Allman and friends (including, we believe, former Allman Brother Dickey Betts) and Phish's Trey Anastasio at the Peach Music Festival in mid-August.

Phish Reels a Few in Too
For their briefer part, Phish will play big weekend stands at Wrigley Field (the last weekend of June), SPAC (July 4th weekend), Washington's Gorge Amphitheater (mid-July), and the Denver area's Dick's Sporting Goods Park (Labor Day weekend), with appearances in between at, among others, New York City's historic Forest Hills Stadium and San Francisco's famed Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Earlier plans to play weekend stands in Las Vegas or Atlantic City have not come to fruition.

Will the Bands Interlock?
Finally, while it appears that our speculated late-August Dead/Allmans return to Watkins Glen raceway will not come to pass, look for some big names to unite instead towards the end of Summer at Virginia's jam-happy Lockn' Festival, where we expect Phish to play two nights sandwiching appearances by assorted Dead member solo projects (Ratdog, Phil Lesh and Friends,  etc.).

Stay tuned for updates soon on a host of festivals both in and outside the USA...

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Desitively Bonnaroo

Both Bonnaroo and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival will reveal their lineups next Tuesday, January 19th. Below, we present extensive predictions for both festivals, with Jazz Fest broken into separate weekends...

Jazz Fest 1st Weekend
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Van Morrison
[The Original Meters?]
Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter
J. Cole
Lauryn Hill
Alvin Youngblood Hart
Arlo Guthrie
Beausoleil
Big Freedia
Boz Scaggs
Brandi Carlile
Buffy Sainte-Marie
CeCe Winans
Donald Harrison, Jr.
Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers
Elle King
Galactic
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic
Gregory Porter
The Isley Brothers
Jack DeJohnette and Ravi Coltrane
Jon Batiste and Stay Human
Joe Krown Trio
John "Papa" Gros Band
Kermit Ruffins
The Lone Bellow
Maxwell
Michael McDonald
Mystikal
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Rebirth Brass Band
Rhiannon Giddens
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
Terence Blanchard E-Collective

Jazz Fest 2nd Weekend
Neil Young + Promise of the Real
Paul Simon
Stevie Wonder
Allen Toussaint tribute featuring Aaron Neville, Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John, Elvis Costello, Irma Thomas, and Mavis Staples, some of whom will play their own sets
B.B. King tribute featuring Buddy Guy, Elvin Bishop, Gary Clark Jr., John Hammond, Jonny Lang, Taj Mahal, abd Tedeschi Trucks Band, some of whom will play their own sets
Beck 
My Morning Jacket 
Snoop Dogg 
Alpha Blondy
Arturo Sandoval
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Ellis Marsalis
Flo Rida
George Porter, Jr. and Runnin' Pardners
Govt Mule
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk feat. Art Neville
Janelle Monae
Maze featuring Frankie Beverly
Mississippi Mass Choir
Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas
Nicholas Payton
Punch Brothers
Snarky Puppy
Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue
[Possibles - Ben Harper and Innocent Criminals, Modest Mouse]


Bonnaroo
Pearl Jam
Dead & Company 
LCD Soundsystem
Chris Stapleton (with Special Guest Justin Timberlake?]
Ellie Goulding
J. Cole
Death Cab for Cutie
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
[Pretty Lights-led Super Jam?]
Tame Impala
Ween
Adventure Club
Allen Stone
Andra Day
Beach Fossils
Big Grams
Blood Orange
BØRNS
Brett Dennen
Bully
Cashmere Cat
Chvrches
Civil Twilight
Daughter
Dungen
Father John Misty
FIDLAR
Flosstradamus
Givers
Godspeed! You Black Emperor
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
GRiZ
Haim
Halsey
Hundred Waters
Ibeyi
Jason Isbell
Judah and the Lion
Kamasi Washington
Keys N Krates
Kurt Vile and the Vioators
Lamb of God
Leon Bridges
Lettuce
Lizzo
Lord Huron
Lucius
M83
Miguel
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats
Purity Ring
Sam Bush Band
Sara Watkins
Shamir
St. Lucia
Steep Canyon Rangers
Two Door Cinema Club
Tyler, the Creator 
Vince Staples
Vulfpeck
Waxahatchee
The Wood Brothers
X Ambassadors
Zeds Dead

Monday, January 11, 2016

Let the lineups, um... drop?


We believe the lineups for both Sasquatch and Bonnaroo will drop within the next 24 hours (with the New Orleans Jazz Festival potentially hot on their heels?). Below, our incomplete but potentially-final predictions for all three...


New Orleans Jazz Fest
[possibly Dead & Co? J. Cole?]
Neil Young + Promise of the Real
Paul Simon
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stevie Wonder
Van Morrison
Allen Toussaint tribute featuring Bonnie Raitt, Boz Scaggs, and Irma Thomas
Arlo Guthrie
B.B. King tribute featuring Buddy Guy, Gary Clark Jr., and Jonny Lang
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
Bob Seger
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Cece Winans
Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter
The Isley Brothers
Janelle Monae
Lauryn Hill
Mavis Staples
Maxwell
My Morning Jacket
Rhiannon Giddens
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
Snoop Dogg
Tedeschi Trucks Band


Sasquatch
The Cure
Florence and the Machine
Disclosure
Sufjan Stevens
Alabama Shakes
Allen Stone
A$AP Rocky
Big Grams
Caribou
Chet Faker
Death Cab for Cutie
Four Tet
Grimes
Jamie XX
Kurt Vile
Leon Bridges
Lord Huron
M83
M. Ward
Mac DeMarco
Major Lazer
Purity Ring
The Internet
Todd Terje
Tycho
Ty Segall
Vince Staples
Yeasayer
Yo La Tengo

Bonnaroo
Pearl Jam
Dead & Company 
LCD Soundsystem
Lana Del Ray
J. Cole
Death Cab for Cutie
Ween
All Them Witches
AlunaGeroge
A Place to Bury Strangers
Beach House
Big Grams
Cherub
Godspeed! You Black Emperor
Gr!z
Jason Isbell
Leon Bridges
Lord Huron
Lucius
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats
Of Monsters & Men
Portugal. the Man
Robin Pecknold
Tame Impala
Tyler, the Creator