Live Music Louisville

First let me say that I started writing this before I knew Brittany was writing her post about upcoming shows.  I guess this shows how creepily in sync we are.

I realize that it is not even technically winter yet, and not to wish away the next several months or anything (Happy Thanksgiving by the way!), but I am already looking forward to next spring/summer’s festival run.  A lot of 2015 date and lineup announcements have been (and will be) rolling out, so my mind is drifting to warmer and easier times- sun on my face, beer in hand, and vibing to some tunes.  ROMP (June 24-27) and Forecastle (July 18-20) have become two of our yearly staples, but we’re looking forward to a couple new and different adventures as well.

One late night last winter (probably during one of those polar freezes we experienced), we came across the line-up for a second year festival in Atlanta called Shaky Knees. The headliners included Alabama Shakes, Modest Mouse and The National, but the entire lineup was chalk full of great bands. Tired and slightly delusional, we bought the tickets and committed to a long weekend down in Georgia. It may have been one of the best decisions we made, catching some bucket list shows (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Iron and Wine), reuniting with some of our favorite bands (yes, that’s you Houndmouth and The Lone Bellow) and getting introduced to a lot of new, interesting stuff.  For example, we caught the end of San Fermin‘s set and have been obsessed with them ever since.  Needless to say, we’ll be heading back May 8th-10th in 2015.

We’ve also been seeing a lot about some regional stuff that will be hard to miss. Although Nelsonville Music Festival (May 28-31) has been around for about 10 years, this is the first I have heard of it.  With Trampled by Turtles, St. Vincent and Merle Haggard headlining this could be a great “end of the school year” celebration.  Cincinnati’s Bunbury Festival caught my eye last spring but we didn’t go, so I might convince Britt to a Forecastle warm-up. (N.B.: 3-day passes are on sale and VERY reasonable for the July 10-12 festival.)   Several single day festivals have been making moves as well: a new KY festival down in Bowling Green, HillTopp Music Festival (March 28), has had a lot of Twitter action in past few weeks.  Similarly, the MoonTower Festival in Lexington, which featured one of our favorites, Moon Taxi, last year, will be making some date/line-up announcements here shortly.  MoonTower also had Sundy Best, a local favorite and band which we are tied back to through Centre College- Kris Bentley is a fellow Colonel alum.  The Ohio River Throwdown was too much fun last fall and I’d definitely find my way back there, as well.  I’m even tempted to finally do Lollapalooza this year with my best friend from high school- she was with me during the early Grey’s Anatomy playlist days.

Moral of the story:  once it is warm outside, we’re going to be busy.

-Aubrey