[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s an honor to be included on the Newport Folk Festival lineup, but to play its biggest stage? That’s a sterling distinction all on its own, and Boston’s contribution to Newport Folk this year by way of KINGSLEY FLOOD will be opening up the festival on the Fort Stage Friday afternoon.
You know who’s not playing the Fort Stage? Amanda Palmer. All due respect to Our Lady of Divine Self-Adoration, but we think it’s pretty rad that the underdog Boston band gets the big stage and Palmer — though playing at a later time on the first day of the festival, Friday, July 26 — well, doesn’t. The thing is, the first set on the Fort Stage is kind of hallowed ground, as far as New England musicians go: David Wax Museum and Brown Bird are two bands in recent years who’ve opened up Newport from the “big stage” with the million dollar view stretching out across the water before them.
It’s fitting that Kingsley Flood — a band that’s shared stages with both of the aforementioned bands, and one that we here at Vanyaland have secretly hoped would make it to Fort Adams for what feels like always -— gets to do just that.
Tickets are still available for Friday (just barely) at Newport Folk if you feel like ODing on Del’s frozen lemonade, banjo riffs, and an inevitable group sing-along to “Wagon Wheel” (‘cause Old Crow Medicine Show is closing out the day).
In addition to Kingsley Flood, you’ll get to catch the man I plan on marrying who just doesn’t know it yet, a.k.a. Chicago’s JD McPherson, on the Fort Stage, as well as Feist and OCMS.
Newport Folk’s Quad Stage boasts Deer Tick’s John McCauley, Phosphorescent, Blake Mills and The Milk Carton Kids. The Alex + Ani Harbor Stage — that same one Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes nearly shut down the festival at back in 2010 — will host Hey Marseilles, The Last Bison, The Mountain Goats and, oh yeah, Amanda Palmer.
For the full Newport lineup and three-day schedule, go to the fest’s lineup page. Colin Meloy, Jim James, and the Avett Brothers lead Saturday’s slate, while Andrew Bird, the Lumineers, and Beck top Sunday’s bill. Both Saturday and Sunday are sold out.
RELATED: Help our friends at Newport Folk by helping the Jane Pickens Theater, June 4, 2013
NEWPORT FOLK FEST 2013 | Friday, July 26 to Sunday, July 28 at Fort Adams State Park, 90 Fort Adams State Drive, Newport, RI | For more information call 401-848-5055 or go to newportfolkfest.net