We are now officially a week away from the next Boston Calling Music Festival, so it’s high time to start planning out a few routines and making mental notes on how it’s all going to play out. Posted below are the set times for the September 5 to 7 music fest deep in the concrete jungle of City Hall Plaza, but first, here are a few things to note:
1. Based on our tastes and interests, this year’s Friday slate is a huge improvement over May’s opening night (Jack Johnson, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Cass McCombs), so this is now legitimately a three-day music festival. The David Letterman-approved Future Islands kick things off at 6:45 p.m., followed by Neutral Milk Hotel (8 p.m.) and inaugural Boston Calling headlines and co-curators the National (9:30 p.m.).
2. Lorde is not headlining Saturday’s slate, instead going on at 8:15 p.m. before rapper Childish Gambino. Interesting sequence, but at that point in the day/night, who the hell cares?
3. We very much recommend seeing homegrown electro-pop trio St. Nothing, the winners of a SonicBids competition to play the fest, at 1:05 p.m. on Saturday. Read our interview with St. Nothing’s Marco Lawrence here, from back in May when we told you they’d be huge.
4. Local band duties are served this year by the pop-leaning Gentlemen Hall and CliffLight, but our city can lay a loose claim on NPR-rock favorites Lake Street Dive, which formed in Boston a decado ago. Dave Minehan, formerly of local rock heroes the Neighborhoods, also plays in the Replacements, so there’s a pretty good New England representation going on here.
5. Speaking of the Replacements, they go on Sunday at 8:15 p.m., before headliners Nas X the Roots. It should be a really cool spectacle.
6. There are several official afterparties this year, involving the local acts mentioned above as well as bands not playing the fest, like Texas rock band White Denim (Saturday at the Sinclair), and Georgia synth-pop dudes Reptar (Sunday at Great Scott). Questlove of the Roots is dropping a fest-capping DJ set Sunday night at the Sinclair. More on all these later next week, but the venue links have the full lineups and ticket info.
7. And finally, the full run of set times:
