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Daylight Saving: 12 acts to catch at Boston Calling ’18 before the sun sets

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Studio 52 is a community artist space located in the heart of Allston, and is proud to support the Boston music scene and local artist community.


Editor's Note: This article has been updated with the latest festival info and set times. Featured Big Thief image by Shervin Lainez.

A day before Boston Calling Music Festival released its full lineup, the headliners were apparently accidentally leaked online by one of the FM radio stations in town. It gave an early glimpse into the top-billing anchors of this spring's festival, going down May 25 to 27 at the Harvard Athletic Complex in Allston, and fired up the usual debates over quality and relevancy.

But it turns out the real juice for Boston Calling '18 was hidden underneath the big-font bigwigs (Eminem, The Killers, and Jack White, with notables like Queens of the Stone Age, Paramore, The National, Khalid and Tyler, The Creator on Line 2). This year's Boston Calling has maybe its strongest undercard ever, meaning a lot of the anticipated highlights will be going down while the sun is still up.

RELATED: Mass Education: Natalie Portman rolls out guest lineup for Boston Calling

Sure, we can't wait to hear The Killers play songs off Hot Fuss, Eminem's first show in Boston in 13 years should be all sorts of "Fuck Trump" fun, and Jack White is gonna Jack White the shit out of all of us whether we like it or not. But those daytime hours are where the magic truly is, and we've picked 11 bands and artists, out of the overall 45, that we are most excited about. We might come up with another 11 by the weekend.

For stage information, hit the cheap sheet way down below.

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Royal Blood, Saturday @ 5:40 p.m.

When Royal Blood played the Paradise last spring, you could feel the thunder up and down Commonwealth Avenue. When they played Agganis a few months later, opening for fellow Boston Calling’ers Queens of the Stone Age, it seemed not even a hockey arena could contain the British guitar-and-drums duo. Now Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher get to show off their explosive goods with open air above their heads and nothing to contain the heavy dose rawk of their self-titled 2014 debut and last year’s apocalyptic How Did We Get So Dark? Their declaration of “Lights Out” takes effect Saturday before dusk.

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