The unseasonably warm weather has us daydreaming about spring, but the cold reality is we’re still 88 days until Memorial Day Weekend — and we’re likely to have a few more frigid blasts of winter to keep us humble. Boston Calling, however, has allowed our minds to easily drift forward with the release of its 2024 set times list, which breaks down performer slots and stages for its more than 50 bands and artists playing across the weekend of May 24 to 26 at the Harvard Athletic Complex in Allston.
Kicking thing off on May 24 and overall is homegrown product Divine Sweater, who take the Happy Valley Red Stage at 1:45 p.m. Notable Friday slate performances include “I Hate Boston” singer Reneé Rapp on the Green Stage (5:55 p.m.), electro-pop trio Cannons on the Blue Stage (6 p.m.), and headliner Ed Sheeran on the Green to close out the day (8:40 p.m.). The local Orange Stage welcomes The Wolff Sisters, Justin Clancy, JVK, and breakout rapper KEI, who’ll likely steal the show from every else (as she often does).
Saturday’s May 25 program is highlighted by a Red Stage that rolls out senseless optimism (1:45 p.m.), the resurrected Bad Rabbits (3 p.m.), and festival stalwart Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls (4:55 p.m.). Vanyaland fave ToriTori opens the Blue Stage (2:20 p.m.) and the Orange Stage showcases Highwater Haulers, the undefeated Cakeswagg, shape-shifting shoegazers Paper Lady, and alt-country mainstays Ward Hayden & The Outliers.
The third and final day, Sunday’s May 26, packs a punch with perhaps the best day of the weekend, highlighted by alt-pop queen and rhinestone comet Chappell Roan, she of our top album of 2023 with the already iconic The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, on the Green Stage at 4:05 p.m. Other notables are Boston riser STEFAN THEV opening the Red Stage (1:40 p.m.), Hozier vs Blondshell duking it out Red vs Blue stage style (7:05 p.m.), and The Killers returning to their headlining podium as B-Flo and the bois wrap it all up on the Green Stage at 9:10 p.m. The Orange Stage delivers a very solid Boston slate of noise-slingers Tysk Tysk Task, hip-hop powerhouse Billy Dean Thomas, alt-pop prodigy Zola Simone, and Fleshwater — a quartet that could very well be lined up on a major festival stage in a few years.
Peep all that info via the graphics below, and again, don’t sleep on the Boston music component to this year’s fest. Come for the familiar names, leave with your new local fave.
