Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, Vanyaland‘s guide to help you sort out your weekend entertainment with curated selections and recommendations across our three pillars of Music, Comedy, and Film/TV. It’s what you should know about, where you need to be, and where you’ll be going, with us riding shotgun along the way.
Music: The Town and The City Festival in Lowell
While some well-known multi-day, multi-venue music festivals in other parts of the country are starting to lose their appeal, others continue to thrive. Lowell’s The Town and The City Festival continues to ascend, and this weekend’s sixth edition delivers more than 60 performances across roughly a dozen venues across the Spindle City’s downtown. The festival is inspired by the spirit of Lowell native Jack Kerouac by showcasing a mix of music, comedy and literary arts. Lady Lamb and Ezra Furman kicked things off last night, and the weekend showcases a healthy mix of homegrown and national acts, like Couch, Loudon Wainwright III, The Sheila Divine, Heretix, Ali McGuirk, Jake Swamp and The Pine, Senseless Optimism, blindspot, Hilken Mancini & Melissa Gibbs, and more. “It’s always exciting for me to bring the festival back to my hometown,” says founder Chris Porter. “Lowell is such a great place for this kind of event; it’s a very walkable town so venue hopping is very easy to do. Kerouac said ‘The only truth is music,’ and the festival gives music lovers a lot of truth to enjoy.” Check the poster for the full lineup, and hit the homepage for ticket information.
THE TOWN AND THE CITY FESTIVAL :: Friday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26 in downtown Lowell :: Festival info, lineup, and tickets
Music: Beach Bunny at House of Blues
Few bands making music today are as fun as Beach Bunny. The Chicago indie trio led by guitarist and vocalist Lili Trifilio releases new album Tunnel Vision this week, the awaited follow-up to 2022’s Emotional Creature, and show it off on a North American tour with Pool Kids and Jayla Kai that rolls into Boston’s House of Blues this Sunday (April 27). Consider it a record release party! Last fall we were treated to a buoyant single from it in “Clueless,” and Trifilio has this to say about it: “I wrote this song [last] February reflecting on the passing new year. It took me 5 minutes to write, in a lot of ways it wrote itself – it’s not supposed to be sad, I just hope it makes you feel something. Time & changing are complicated subjects, I didn’t write this track with the intention of forming any conclusions, I really just needed to get my thoughts out – I still don’t understand it all, but that’s the fun part of being alive: Figuring it out along the way.” We feel that.
BEACH BUNNY :: Sunday, April 27 at House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $28 to $48 :: Event info and tickets
Music: Independent Film Festival Boston in Somerville, Brookline, and Cambridge
While Lowell holds down the music portion of Massachusetts’ festival weekend, Independent Film Festival Boston takes it to the screen across three theaters — Brattle, Somerville, and Coolidge — now through Wednesday (April 30). As usual, there’s a lot going on at IFFBoston, and we’ve covered some of the highlights: Film editor Nick Johnston previewed five films not to miss, including the highly anticipated Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd bizarro comedy Friendship and Albert Birney’s intriguing science fiction flick OBEX; and Boston Music editor Victoria Wasylak interviewed Tom Stern, the director of new documentary Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt ahead of its Saturday night screening at the Somerville Theatre that’ll be moderated by Vanyaland senior writer Michael Christopher. And hey, who knows, maybe Gibby Haynes might show up and crash the party. Hit the festival link for all the deets, and check the 2024 highlight reel after the jump.
IFFBOSTON :: Now through Wednesday, April 30 at The Brattle, Somerville Theatre, and Coolidge Corner Theatre :: Screenings, events, and showtimes vary :: Festival homepage