Festival Acts That Would Have Slapped in 2020
Let’s get something out of the way...everything is terrible all the time now, and we’re bored in the house. Before the end times, one of the most exciting parts of the summer season was the announcement of that year’s collection of music festivals. You’d wake up, log in to your mid level tech job, and realize the muted #music channel of your company's slack or slack equivalent seems all sorts of poppin’ off. Is it someone having a stupid hot take? (No, it’s a 50 comment thread about the first 10 acts of Lollapalooza or a reveal of that year’s Sunday headliner that is 100% likely to be an aging group of stately white indie rock that causes a LOT of early 30s engineers to comment “Huh, maybe I’ll pick up a single day pass this year, I love Three Adjective Aging Indie Band Name that never had huge mainstream success but enough success in the right places to always get best new music on Pitchfork even though the album sounds like a vanilla soy candle.”) I purposely digress. Ever since my first real concert (Taking Back Sunday’s Where You Want to Be Tour, featuring Emanual), I’ve been in love with hanging out with a big group of people who are as excited as I am to see a musician live, going to about a show a month for most of my 20s. I also love going to a festival or two in the Chicago summer (usually Pitchfork and/or Riot Fest cause I’m a rebel). I had been away from Chicago for the last 2 years, and missed some great line ups, as I was planning my move back to Chicago one of the most exciting parts was planning which festival I’d want to go to. Of course, it was never meant to be in 2020. Live music is on hiatus, and festival grounds have not been built, transformed into an adult oasis of expensive as shit alcohol and smuggled in club drugs (I assume). Since I’m missing the festival season here’s a quick list of likely 2020 Festival Acts that would have slapped this year.
Jeff Rosenstock - Playing on the hottest day of festival, as a midafternoon highlight
Jeff Rosenstock released a surprise album NO DREAM in May, and as usual it bangs. Rosenstock is one of the most consistent artists currently releasing music, and has a singular skill of capturing the feeling of being in a friendly mosh pit better than any other act in the indie rock/postpunk/midwestemorevivial scene. Rosenstock has the tendency to change up his setlist pretty regularly, but I can only imagine the goal of his 2020 festival set would be to give the beggars permission to explode, we’ve been begging Jeff, plz save us.
I recommend getting 70% drunk in your apartment, lock the doors, and put together a Rosenstock setlist and listen to it while skanking on your bed. Not to be missed on this bedfestival set across his discography: “State Line”, “f a m e”, “All This Useless Energy”, “America” (end with this song), “Festival Song” (duh), “We Begged to Explode”, “You, in Weird Cities”, “Hey Allison!”, “Twinkle”, “The Trash the Trash the Trash”
NNAMDÏ - Probably playing on the midsized stage, in the afternoon, that ends up becoming the act of the day with the most gravity, pulling everyone in and becoming an early weekend highlight. Many articles after festival season will say “Is NNAMDÏ finally ready for the mainstream?”
I’ll be honest, I’m v late to the NNAMDÏ party and it’s a huge bummer. I like many of the white people who moved to Chicago in their early 20s haven’t given the entire Chicago music scene it’s due. I initially moved here in early 2014, in the height of Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap and I figured Chance the Rapper will always be exactly that amazing and how could anything come close to that and I’m sure everything he releases after this will be just as good, probably better (like many positive things we thought in the pre-Trump world, I was very wrong about this). I didn’t do a ton of digging into the local music scene except for exposure of local acts opening for bigger bands throughout the year. Enter 2020, and in one of my myriad Slack instances someone slips me a Spotify link to NNAMDÏ’s newest album Brat. Brat is currently in the running for album of the year for me, and seeing him perform some of these songs live would easily be a huge highlight of any festival.
In my limited exposure into NNAMDÏ’s back catalog, he’s always been an artist that makes the music he wants to make, whatever the genre may be, and is a man in love with chaotic beauty. Brat twists and turns itself inside out, anchored by NNAMDÏ the whole way. He guides the listener with his voice (voices?) through the instrumentals, showing the listener every single shiny object and beat change and leaves you feeling a bit better by the end of the album. Brat is one of those albums that’s a fun casual listen, but continues to open up and hit deeper on repeat close listens. NNAMDÏ is dealing with the entire world, and he’s hoping we dance through it with him and make it better.
My recommendation here is to buy this album on vinyl, slip yourself a few edibles, lay down, and place your mid level bookshelf speakers on either side of your head and vibe. Keep your eyes closed and really vision quest what this festival crowd would be like. Highly recommended to play the song “Gimme Gimme” 5x back to back to back to back to back.
Yaeji - The late afternoon act that slowly brings the entire crowd into her world of a dance party where you don’t quite move your arms, but you’re having a good time
Yaeji IMO is one of the coolest people on the planet. Somehow in 2017, I heard “Drink I’m Sippin On” and I was hooked. Since hearing that song and everything Yaeji has done the past few years, I assume while she’s making her music she continually high fives herself after placing another perfectly fat bassline over ethereal Korean/English vocals. I’ve always loved Yaeji’s reasoning for blending these two languages, where she uses English vocals for things she is ok with everyone “hearing” and switches to Korean when it’s a bit too personal for the whole world to know.
What We Drew 우리가 그려왔던, her latest album, was released in April and makes it clear that Yaeji will be slapping on festival stages for years to come. I remember sharing a link to this album with my little brother and I said “Just make sure you listen to this with the bass heaviest headphones or speakers you have,” song after song Yaeji pushes just how deep can a bassline be and time and time again, the answer is “we can go deeper.”
I recommend hot boxing your bathroom and playing Yaeji on the 5 Amazon Alexa devices you’ve brought in while you slowly turn into a wet robot. This should simulate the ultimate Yaeji festival wish of getting caught in a summer rainstorm as “Raingurl” begins to play.
Haim - The sunset set where the most uptight of festival goers start to hit that drunk/high point where they finally start swinging to the music, and they really freak out when the saxophone hits on “Los Angeles”
Haim have been festival stalwarts since their first album Days Are Gone, and with 2020s Woman in Music Pt. III, they’ve created the perfect album for the festival season. The music they’ve created is their most melodic, personal, and interesting to date. While Days Are Gone will always hold a special place in my all time album rankings (they felt so unique in 2013), Woman in Music Pt. III has been the album of my summer, blasting it whenever I’m in a car, the one oasis we have left where it feels like the pandemic doesn’t exist.
Haim has always put on a great show, and getting to hear the grooves of their latest record would have easily been a highlight of any summer fest. To me, whenever I listen to Woman, it feels like the color temperature of the world tips just a few degrees warmer, inviting me to step away from the stress and anxiety that is 2020 and just enjoy the sister’s indelible talent of being at once in the past, present, and future of the indie rock scene.
I recommend setting up a tent in your backyard (or living room if backyard isn’t an option) grabbing a few of your cool friend’s suspect mushrooms and pretending to be on day 3 of one of the bigger camping oriented music fests.
Run the Jewels - Nothing to say here other than it’s not a good festival unless you have RTJ absolutely tearing up the stage.
For your pleasure, here’s a Spotify Playlist Festival Replacement.
