AN EARLY FALL WEEKEND FULL OF FESTS
Powered by splendid weather and even more splendid lineups, a host of high-profile festivals get down to business this weekend, including Bourbon & Beyond in Louisville, Kentucky, Riot Fest in Chicago, HFStival in Washington, D.C., and the iHeart Radio Festival in Las Vegas.
Zach Bryan, Beck and Paramore
Taking advantage of splendid weather and even more splendid lineups, a host of high-profile festivals will get down to business this weekend across the U.S., including Bourbon & Beyond in Louisville, Kentucky, Riot Fest in Chicago, HFStival in Washington, D.C., and the iHeart Radio Festival in Las Vegas.
Danny Wimmer Presents' Bourbon & Beyond is a brown-liquor-fueled rock & roll fantasyland featuring Sting (filling in for the ailing Neil Young & Crazy Horse), Zach Bryan, Beck, the Dave Matthews Band, the Tedeschi Trucks Band and two of Derby City's favorite sons, My Morning Jacket and Tyler Childers. Drawing upwards of 170k attendees per year, the outing takes place the weekend before Wimmer's hard rock-leaning Louder Than Life at the same venue, the Highland Festival Grounds at the Kentucky Exposition Center. Our advice: Pace yourself.
Chicago’s fiercely independent Riot Fest is underway at Douglass Park after it walked back a planned switch to SeatGeek Stadium in the suburb of Bridgeview. The lineup is led by Fall Out Boy, Beck, Offspring, Pavement, the reunited Sublime and, um, Slayer. Just as intriguing is the event's Riot Land, which brings together everything from a full-scale replica of the grocery store from Kevin Smith's Clerks, live matches from Billy Corgan’s NWA Wrestling, a skate ramp, an arcade, merch pop-ups, a burlesque tent and even a wedding chapel, in case you're inspired to derail your life.
In the nation's capitol, Seth Hurwitz's I.M.P. revives the beloved HFStival for the first time in 13 years tomorrow (9/21) at Nationals Park, with two bands fronted by Ben Gibbard—Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service—each performing their respective 2003 classics, Transatlanticism and Give Up, in their entirety. Millennials unite!
Across the country in Las Vegas, meanwhile, the increasingly genre-agnostic iHeart Radio Festival will welcome Big Sean, Doja Cat, Hozier, Paramore, Keith Urban, Gwen Stefani, Shaboozey, New Kids on the Block, The Black Crowes, Thomas Rhett and Victoria Monét to T-Mobile Arena. If you see host Ryan Seacrest in the green room, please ask him to unblock HITS' phone number?