The Dead Keep on Living

Quick on the heels of their successful Fall Run for the Roses comes news that most of what's left of the Grateful Dead will head down the road again when the roses return in 2016.

We expect that the band featuring three surviving Dead members and surprise guitar hotshot John Mayer will make additional appearances at a number of festivals next year. These likely include Bonnaroo, where we have added them as a replacement for Eric Clapton in our prediction post below, Outside Lands, a new and as-yet-unnamed festival in Queens' Flushing Meadows Corona Park the weekend of June 24-26 (not the Panorama Festival there the weekend before), and perhaps the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which will surely also celebrate the life and work of the late, great Allen Toussaint.

Autumn Leaves are Falling...

As we approach the end of the year and head into lineup announcement season, it's time to update our predictions for top US festivals in the first half of 2016. 

Several months ago, we heard that next year's Coachella festival would feature a big-time reunion among its headliners. We initially reported that that act would be Guns 'n Roses. Within days, we crossed that name out, replacing it with the more hotly-tipped LCD Soundsystem. As we suspected, however, we weren't wrong about either act. We expect Coachella 2016 to feature not one but two big reunions among its headliners. 

Without further ado, some of our topline predictions for big US festivals through next Spring, including the new Panorama Festival in New York City, one of several big new festivals whose debut we anticipate in 2016, including June's America Rocks in Rhode Island and the Arroyo Seco Music and Arts Festival at the Rose Bowl...

Coachella

Guns 'n Roses

LCD Soundsystem

Lana Del Rey

Calvin Harris

Twenty One Pilots

The Arcs

A$AP Rocky

Chic

Gary Clark, Jr.

Halsey

Jean-Michel Jarre

The Libertines

Major Lazer

Of Monsters and Men

St. Germain

[11/16 Update] New Orleans Jazz Fest
Van Morrison

Sasquatch

The Cure

Mumford and Sons

Wilco

Governors Ball

Radiohead 

Phish

[11/16 Updates:
A$AP Rocky
Justice
Of Monsters & Men]

Bonnaroo

Dead & Company Eric Clapton

Calvin Harris

Phish
[11/16 Update: Ween]

Panorama

LCD Soundsystem

Mumford and Sons

Firefly

Kings of Leon (making up their canceled performance this year) or Green Day

Mumford and Sons 

Florence and the Machine

[11/13 Update] America Rocks

Green Day or Kings of Leon

Hollywood Vampires

We'll leave our festival predictions there, but name a few more artists we expect to be active to one degree or another in the US in or around the Summer of 2016: Adele, Avicii, Beyonce, Coldplay, the Dixie Chicks, Drake, Ellie Goulding, Eric Church, Foo Fighters, Frank Ocean, Gorillaz, Iggy Azalea, Kanye West, J. Cole, Justin Bieber, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Metallica, My Morning Jacket, The National, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rihanna, Skrillex and Tom Morello.

Whether additional reunions will follow at Coachella or other festivals remains to be seen, but we will also name a few additional acts whose return next year would not shock us: A Tribe Called Quest [11/13 Update: We expect them to appear at one of the New York festivals], Fleet Foxes, N.W.A., Pavement.

Stay with us as the season gets under way!

Enjoy the Fruits of our Labor: Our 2016 Long-Range Festival Forecast

We hope you are enjoying the holiday brought to you by the American labor movement. As part of our own late-summer break, we are taking a moment to share a brief forecast of some of spring 2016's US festival headliners and sub-headliners. It's early days yet, but we are now in a position to make some preliminary calls regarding several major festival lineups for next year. 

For each of the festivals below, we have selected a number of acts that we categorize as either Likely (no guarantees, but we have good reason to believe that they will headline next year) or Possible (far more speculative, but not simply picked out of a hat) to Probable (still speculative, but we have particular reason to think their stars will align). Additionally, under the Don't count them out heading, we name two or three acts that we think just might join LCD's reunion/revivification party in 2016.

Coachella

Likely: LCD Soundsystem, Lana del Rey

Probable: Dan Auerbach's The Arcs, The Libertines

Possible to Probable: Radiohead, perhaps The National

Possible in addition or instead: any one and perhaps two of Coldplay, Gorillaz, Iron Maiden, Kanye West, Metallica, and maybe Mumford and Sons, Beyonce, Paul McCartney, or the Rolling Stones. 

Don't count them out: N.W.A., or maybe Guns 'n Roses

Jazz Fest

Possible: The Dixie Chicks

Governors Ball

Likely: Radiohead and/or Phish

Probable: Lana del Rey

Possible: The National, The xx

Bonnaroo

Likely: Phish

Possible to Probable: The Arcs, Drake, Lana del Rey, and perhaps AC/DC or Black Sabbath

Don't count them out: Fleet Foxes

Keep in mind that it is difficult to make predictions at this early date and that circumstances may change. 

It is even less advisable to forecast festivals later in 2016, but we will nevertheless note a few interesting Lollapalooza possibilities, including a headlining appearance by hometown favorite Kanye West (and/or a reunited N.W.A.), a performance arising out of the new electronic dance music project from another native Chicagoan, Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, and what might be a rare 2016 show by Jack White and Alison Mosshart's The Dead Weather. 

As for Outside Lands, we think that there is a decent possibility that it will feature local heroes Green Day and/or one of the new groups from local legend Carlos Santana. And we take interest in the prospect of a new "America Rocks" festival in late June in Rhode Island, with organizers bandying about names like Metallica, The Black Keys, and Arctic Monkeys. The last, if they return in 2016, will also be top prospects for one or two of the later festivals above.

We will be back later in the year and early the next with more as information develops...

Desert Sands are Swirling...

We here at the Festival Forecaster have been quiet for several months.

During that time, we saw the Rolling Stones tour and Grateful Dead shows we predicted come to pass, including the secret LA Stones gig (and some other appearances that turned out to be private or non-performing) and the follow-up "Dead & Company" shows this Fall. Unfortunately, the big Live Earth event we expected in NYC in June was canceled in its entirety, but the city will see big names at its Global Citizen Festival next month, including two headliners - Coldplay and Pearl Jam - that we predicted all the way back in April.

We hope to back soon with more about the Fall Dead tour, future Stones events, and predictions for the 2016 festival season. But we already have one grain of sand that just can't wait: we believe that there is a strong possibility that Guns 'n Roses LCD Soundsystem will reunite and headline the 2016 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Developing...

Waiting for Wednesday

This coming Wednesday, May 20th, may see two big-name surprise shows, one on each coast of the U.S., and both potentially featuring the biggest names in rock 'n roll. 

The Stones in Hollywood...

The Rolling Stones, set to kick off their North American tour one week from today, are busy rehearsing in the Los Angeles area, and are set to play a warm-up gig or two in that city this week. We believe that the first of two events will be going down Wednesday night at the historic Fonda Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Tickets to this (these) show(s) will not be easy to come by, as the venue fits just 1,200 people, and we're not sure that many (or any) will be made available to the public. We're also not sure that the Fonda is the place to line up for them - tickets may be sold instead at the El Rey or the Roxy, among other places (maybe you'll have to pull one out of a hat at the Magic Castle) - if anyone asks, tell them you're just waiting on some friends. Watch the band's twitter tomorrow morning for a special announcement, though that seems more likely to discuss the recording of a new Rolling Stones record than to contain any details regarding these theatre gigs. 

...and Elsewhere

If you don't make the surprise Stones gig in LA, you won't necessarily have missed your chance to see them in a smaller venue this summer. We expect at least one more surprise gig in and around the coming stadium tour, and perhaps several, primarily in the major cities that the band is skipping this time around North America. Chicago, for instance, could see a surprise appearance during the five nights off between the first two shows in late May, or perhaps the four in mid-June, coincident with the great Chicago Blues Festival, though that period would also be ripe for a surprise gig in New Orleans between shows in Orlando and Nashville. As we have said for months, we believe the New York area will see an appearance on June 18th as part of the big Live Earth event, and perhaps additional shows tacked onto the end of the tour (the 7/20-29 timeframe looks ripest), though we no longer quite expect the latter. Once the tour is over, we also expect a celebratory return to Toronto, perhaps at historic Massey Hall around the last weekend of July. And don't be shocked by a more abbreviated return to the States next year, perhaps in the spring.

The Beatles back on Ed Sullivan?

Meanwhile, on late Wednesday afternoon on the East Coast, David Letterman and Paul Shaffer will be taping their last episode of Late Night at New York's historic Ed Sullivan Theater. That theater, of course, is most famous for musical appearances by Elvis Presley and the Beatles, among other early rock legends. No guests have been announced for the final show - Monday's features Tom Hanks and Eddie Vedder, while Bill Murray and Bob Dylan appear on Tuesday - but assuming that Dave hosts one or two final performers (which is not a given), we think that they may well include Sir Paul McCartney (and perhaps his pal Ringo Starr?), perhaps reprising Macca's 2009 outdoor appearance on the theater marquee (originally inaugurated by Phish in 2004). Other possibilities include Jay-Z, who canceled a marquee appearance in 2013 and will be fresh off two promotional club gigs this weekend, and the Foo Fighters, who have been termed Letterman's favorite band, ingenuously or otherwise, and could play on their own or serve as backing band to one or more other artists before heading off to Europe to start their long summer tour. While a marquee appearance will be best heard outdoors, we recommend a call to the show's standby phone number to those in the New York area looking to score a free ticket to one of the final Letterman shows.

Very Big Announcement(s) Coming Soon?

This Wednesday is Earth Day, and it may bring with it the announcement of the potentially huge Live Earth: Road to Paris event. The picture for that event is getting even clearer, and we've updated our lineup predictions here. In the meantime, you can join an intended 1 billion people demanding climate action by signing the petition at liveearth.org.

Additionally, now that April 20 has come and gone, the Grateful Dead appear to have sold out their Fare Thee Well event in California and announced nationwide theater simulcasts, and Phil Lesh has announced a concert at Central Park Summerstage in September - we were right that he would play the venue this year, but wrong about the month - watch for the additional shows we've forecasted to be announced very soon. However, as we've said all along, we've never been entirely sure that the tour will happen in June. If it is not announced within the next week or so, look for a similar tour hitting New York, Colorado, and more to happen later this year, probably around late September and early October.

Austin City Limits Festival 2015

We expect the lineup for 2015's Austin City Limits Festival to be announced within days, and once again ACL threatens to be one of the last but far from the least of the major festivals. Here are our abbreviated predictions for the headliner lineup and some of the bigger names on the undercard...

Headliners

Paul McCartney (or maybe Elton John)

AC/DC (or maybe Metallica)

Foo Fighters

Mumford and Sons 

Florence and the Machine and/or My Morning Jacket

Kendrick Lamar and/or The Weeknd (but don't count out Drake or Kanye West)

Bassnectar

Undercard

Alabama Shakes

alt-J

Angus and Julia Stone

Banks

Ben Harper

Dillon Francis

Father John Misty

Future Islands

Gary Clark, Jr.

George Ezra

Glass Animals

Hozier

Of Monsters and Men

St. Paul and the Broken Bones

Stromae

Sturgill Simpson

Sylvan Esso

TV on the Radio

Twenty One Pilots

The War on Drugs

and a few maybes: Alesso, A$AP Rocky, Charli XCX, Chet Faker, Cold War Kids, fka Twigs, Kygo, Tove Lo