Newport Folk 2019 - July 26-28

Listening to the new Josh Ritter on NPR First Listen. Really hoping he gets announced soon!

Pretty happy with this. Was starting to worry that I’d be dealing with some conflicts on Saturday with not much I’m interested in on Sunday.

I was especially worried that she may conflict with Lucy Dacus, and I’d have to choose between two of my most excited for acts.

I just hope that the move makes sense. As in, we’re not down to 17 acts on Saturday while squeezing a 19th in on Sunday (or pushing her into the Museum because of a last minute change in plans that had to be accommodated).

Beck is another. Played Newport 2013. In 2014 he played a competing show in Providence on the same weekend as the festival.

I wouldn’t call Phos a big announcement.

In fact, I would think until Wednesday, we were missing announcements like Phos. I call this the $25-$30 ticket artists that help fill in the middle of the day.

Looks like it was the former, rather than the latter. Would've preferred a bigger splash, but Newport does whatever the hell they want. Regardless, I enjoy discovering newer artists, and will check this one out.

Newport Festivals Foundation has made a donation on behalf of Adia to Jessi Zazu Inc. to provide a songwriting class for at risk children – supporting the students as they learn the craft of songwriting and teaching them how to record their original song for demo submission. Each child will leave the workshop with a recorded demo.

100% agree with that first sentence. Aside from a few acts with multiple albums, this is turned into the 'new music discovery festival' and that's not ideal for an ENTIRE weekend. Kind of reminds me of Dancing With The Stars Season 18 or a "side stage lineup" ... has me saying "who?!" ... 14 announcements to go. Waiting to be blown away. 

I'm sure the announced acts have something to offer and i need more time to listen to all of them but I'm hoping for First Aid Kit, Highwomen, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, New Basement Tapes, Willie Nelson, Dave Rawlings Machine/Gillian Welch, Black Keys (stretch!), Lumineers (likely out), Greensky Blugrass, Avett's, Trampled By Turtles, Old Crow, etc.  Any of those. 

To be fair, even though I think I set off this convo (with my lack of bands that you would pay $20-$30 to see comment), I wouldn’t say we’re missing big acts. In some ways, we have a lot of small acts and quite a few bigger acts as well (acts that usually get announced at the end of the announcement season). I just feel like we’re missing name-recognized middle of the day acts.

On the higher end: Trey, Jeff, Maggie, Dawes (for at least this fest), Kacey, Phil, and Sheryl. (We probably have 3 of the top 4 - 5 acts for each day already announced.)

Acts in the middle: Marley, Lake Street Dive, Phosphorescent, Lucy, Alankov, Mountain Man, Lukas, Parker, and I’m With Her (maybe Amy Ray Band)

And then a bunch of stuff with little name recognition, few streams on Spotify, buried in the lower tiers of other festivals, someone could argue could play Museum without issue, etc. Not that it’s not good (nor am I complaining). I’m super excited for a lot of it because Newport/Jay crushes it with finding hot pre-trending acts. And maybe Newport is actively doing their best to avoid booking repeats, and in 2019, most of this tier of acts would indeed be a repeat. But it still seems weird thinking it may be 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a main stage and a band with fewer than a million Spotify streams might be playing.

I suppose there is the chance that they are announcing museum spots individually so they can mention the donation.

But I really don’t see any of these playing the museum.

I really like Maggie Rogers. And I am excited for her set at Newport.

But then again, I also really like Taylor Swift, Lorde, Ariana Grande, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ellie Goulding, Sky Ferreira, Selena Gomez, Kesha, Sia, etc.

I’m excited in hopes that her set will be different from the other Americana on the lineup (obviously I like Americana or I would not be going to a folk fest... but given that I only go to one festival every year I like some diversity if possible). That said... if she performs some stripped down acoustic set... I’ll be a tad disappointed.

In the grand scheme of music, it’s hard to know Maggie Rogers staying power. Is she riding high off of this album (from her viral success) and it’s one and done? Or has she done a good enough job at appealing to more discriminating music fan by teaming up with Rostam and making random appearances at Newport, etc?

Same. Adia was a good get. So much great music. Hard to keep up. I saw a video today of Lucas Nelson decribing how he wrote the intro to Shallow for A Star Is Born. I could see Sheryl and Lucas signing it. Blondie might play. Doing another featival nearby. They were there for the start of several music genres. First band to have a rap #1. Anyway, for newbies I recommend listening to any band announced. If you don't like them move on. There are several stages. No biggie. This festival is so much more enjoyable if you put a little effort into getting to know the music and seeing if Newport is the festival for you. Jay has told us we'll know the lineup when it's over Sunday night. Every day at the fest top class artists show up unannounced at random so sweating about headliners is futile. Sure, we want to know but having faith is this fest gets rewarded. We're lucky. We often see stars being born.

Anybody else hoping Newport adds Bibio? I finally checked out his new album, and it’s great. I’d love for Newport to venture more into folktronica.

You can’t tell me this wouldn’t be beautiful in the Harbor tent...



(Unrelated, but I wish Newport also occasionally embraced freakfolk).