However, this news is monumental - DC finally has a music festival! What's that? A music festival on the tidal basin? In my backyard? I can shower? (sorry, Bonnaroo.) YES.
That's right - DC will host it's inaugural music festival, Landmark Music Festival, September 26th-27th. I mean I guess DC has had some festival-like events on the Mall - the Concert for Valor on November 11th, 2014 and the since-recently annual Global Citizen Day concert. I attended both, and was not super impressed. The first one had an awesome lineup - Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, Metallica to name a few - but you had to get there at like 9am to get anywhere near the stage. Sorry. I have a day off from work and its like a mile from my house - this chick ain't gettin' up that early. That being said, arriving an hour before the show meant you could get a spot next to the Washington Monument (for those of you non-Washingtonians, that means you're literally a mile away from the stage). You could watch on the many big screens on the mall, but I guess I could have just watched on HBO.
For Global Citizen Day, it was much more festival-esque - nice weather, I got a tan, OK music. Thankfully we arrived right at the beginning of the festivities and I got the see the only band I cared about - My Morning Jacket. The downside? They played 3 songs and for an hour between each band's set you had to listen to some self-righteous celebrities talk about global warming and poverty while they were chauffered in their Maybachs to this speaking engagement. I'm kind of over this level of DC hypocrisy.
All of that considered, seems like Landmark Music Festival is an actual music festival! HURRAH! However, this being DC and the capital of charitable events, the festival ain't for nothin'. All proceeds go to the Trust for the National Mall to restore the National Mall to it's once beautiful condition. (If you've seen the Mall lately, looks more like a construction site than a place to hold a music festival, but I digress). So that we don't further destroy the Mall's limited grassy areas, the festival will actually be held in West Potomac Park, that ambiguous area that no one thought actually had a name next to the MLK memorial and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial.
The festival is featuring 40 artists, with your headliners to please mainstreamers, hipsters and music snobs alike - Drake, The Strokes, alt-j topping the bill - and then some of my favorites which basically convinced me to buy a ticket at all - the legend himself Dr. John, The London Souls, Red Baarat, Rebirth Brass Band, Vintage Trouble, The Lone Bellow and hometown boy Wale (well, he's from Gaithersburg, but whatever - I'll let it go, Wale).
Rhiannon Giddens of Carolina Chocolate Drops fame will be there. She's been gaining traction as a solo act, so would be good to catch her show - saw them at 9:30 Club and killed it as a soul-bluegrass act.
Sidebar - Another day-long music festival I'll be attending in July is the Foo Fighters July 4th concert at RFK featuring Gary Clark Jr, Trombone Shorty, Joan Jett, Trouble Funk, Buddy Guy, and LL Cool J - all artists featured on Dave Grohl's HBO special "Sonic Highways".
Back to Landmark - a year without Bonnaroo and Nola Jazzfest will be made a little better with this hometown music festival. Early bird tickets were $100 for both days - CRAZY CHEAP! - and they are now $150. Get yours now!
Landmark Music Festival
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