
In a little less than six months, Cincinnati will be preparing for what could possibly become one of the premier outdoor music festivals in the midwest. On the weekend of July 13th, the first ever Bunbury Festival will come to life at Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove. Bunbury is said to be featuring 100 or so high-profile indie rock acts, most of whom are nationally touring artists.
In a 2011 interview with Bill Donabedian, the festival’s creator, he calls Bunbury “Cincy’s own Lollapalooza” and goes on to mention that a successful first year would see 50,000 people rocking out to the National on the Yeatman’s Cove stage, followed by the Flaming Lips closing out the night on Sawyer Point’s P&G Pavilion stage. You can find the complete interview right here.
While I wouldn’t be surprised to see the National or even the Heartless Bastards or Greenhornes performing at the festival this summer because of their connections to Cincinnati, it appears that the Flaming Lips are definitely out because they’re already booked for Belgium’s Dour Festival the same weekend.
It’s hard to say exactly what types or what level of acts Donabedian will go after for the festival because afterall, it is a festival in its very first year and you might assume they don’t have a whole lot of money to work with. With his previous involvement in the MidPoint Music Festival and the Indie Summer Series on Fountain Square, I would think we’ll probably end up seeing a few familiar names from both MidPoint and the Summer Series. Some names you probably won’t find on the Bunbury lineup, however, include Radiohead, Florence + the Machine, the Silversun Pickups, Snow Patrol, Young the Giant and MidPoint vets Caribou, all of whom are playing festivals abroad that same weekend.
Of course when it comes down to it there’s just no way to predict or assume what bands will wind up playing the festival because there’s just too many possibilities. If this truly is a festival that sits on a level somewhere between Lollapalooza or Pitchfork (which Bunbury has also been referred to), local music fans are certainly in for one hell of a weekend.
Here’s some food for thought…
Let’s take a look at some of the bands that have played Lollapalooza and Pitchfork in recent years. I wouldn’t go as far to say that we’ll get any of these names at Bunbury, but it’s certainly something to think about:
Andrew Bird
Arcade Fire
Band of Horses
Beach House
Big Boi
The Black Keys
Bon Iver
Broken Social Scene
Built to Spill
Cypress Hill
Death Cab For Cutie
The Decemberists
Dinosaur Jr.
Fleet Foxes
Foo Fighters
Girls
Green Day
Guided By Voices
The Hold Steady
Iron & Wine
Jane’s Addiction
Jarvis Cocker
The Jesus Lizard
Kanye West
The Killers
Kings of Leon
Local Natives
Matt & Kim
Modest Mouse
Mumford & Sons
Muse
The New Pornographers
Pavement
Sleigh Bells
Snoop Dogg
Sonic Youth
Soundgarden
Spoon
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks
The Strokes
Thurston Moore
TV on the Radio
Vampire Weekend
The Walkmen
Weezer
Wolf Parade
Yeasayer
Yo La Tengo
Here are some other bands that have performed at MidPoint and the Indie Summer Series in recent years. Again, I can’t say if we should expect to see any of these at Bunbury, but most of them are the types of bands that generally hit up the festival circuit:
Asobi Seksu
Best Coast
Chairlift
Cut Copy
Dawes
Deerhoof
The Felice Brothers
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit
The Joy Formidable
Maps & Atlases
Margot & the Nuclear So & So’s
Mates of State
Neon Indian
Oberhofer
Robert Pollard’s Boston Spaceship
Surfer Blood
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
These United States
Those Darlins
Toro Y Moi
Washed Out
Why?
Then of course you have the locally-based bands. While the focus of Bunbury seems to be on bands based outside of Cincinnati, we can probably expect to see some of the biggest names in the local scene at Bunbury as well. Here are some names to think about:
500 Miles to Memphis
Bad Veins
Belle Histoire
Bootsy Collins
Brian Olive
Buffalo Killers
The Cincy Brass
Daniel Martin Moore
Fists of Love
Foxy Shazam
Freekbass
The Kickaways
Kim Taylor
Oui Si Yes
Pomegranates
Pop Empire
Sacred Spirits
The Seedy Seeds
Skeetones
The Tillers
Two Headed Dog
Walk the Moon
Wussy
You, You’re Awesome
One other local name I wanted to throw out there was the Afghan Whigs. In December of 2011, they announced that they would be reuniting for the first time in over five years for some shows in 2012. They’re playing in London on May 27th, in Asbury Park on September 22nd, and at the two installments of the Primavera Festival (which take place on the last weekend of May and in early July, just days before Bunbury).
Stay tuned to BrokenMic.com for all the latest information on the 2012 Bunbury Festival. Tickets are currently on-sale now right here. One-day passes are just $46 while the full three-day pass is priced at $93.