Here is yet one more article about the 2022 Maha Festival, this time published by main stage sponsor Union Pacific, but written by yours truly. If you’ve ever wondered what I look like, the article includes a photo of me taken by the super-talented Ben Semisch. Check it out here.
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Been trying to figure out the backstory behind tonight’s Ian Sweet show — why is it presented by Slowdown but is being held at Reverb Lounge? Is it because Slowdown needs the full space to get ready for tomorrow night’s Sleigh Bells show? Or is it because that Ian Sweet show is a reschedule, and at the time of the resched, Slowdown was booked with something else (that dropped off)? Who knows and, I guess, what does it matter?
Ian Sweet a.k.a. Jilian Medford is on a roll these days. Her 2021 album, Show Me How to Disappear (Polyvinyl) garnered a shit ton of college airplay as well as Pitchfork love. Her latest is a 4-song EP, Star Stuff, released a couple weeks ago and is more of the sweet indie you’ve come to expect from Medford.
Opening tonight show is Chicago quartet Bnny, who dropped their debut LP, Everything, last August. $15, 8 p.m.
Why has Lazy-i been so deathly quiet this week? Maybe because like all of you I’m still recovering from the Maha Festival (that, and the fact that nothing has been happening this week).
Some post-Maha info: The folks at Maha reported attendance of more than 11,500 over the two-day event, that breaks down to 4,100 on Friday night (headlined by Car Seat Headrest) and 7,400 on Saturday (Princess Nokia/Beach House). That total attendance number includes an army of 850 volunteers, which is the secret sauce that makes Maha such a well-oiled machine.
Last year, Maha recorded attendance of 6,400 for the single day. The attendance was capped at around 70% of full capacity to allow for social distancing.
I can confirm Maha will again take place at Stinson Park in Aksarben Village next year. The real wild card is what will happen in 2024, when the new downtown river landing is completed. Now that would be a mammoth change for Maha…
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The Outlandia Festival released a site map on their website, and based on everything I can see it looks like it could be a blast, especially if you have VIP tickets.
Two head-scratchers — where exactly is the off-site parking (which is $15)? It’s shown as an arrow that leads somewhere off the map, and may have a different driving route than the on-site and VIP parking. Actually, I don’t see how off-site patrons enter the festival on this map. If there’s a shuttle from off-site, where does it load and unload or do you just have to walk from the off-site parking? I’m sure there will be a map update or more clear directions in the coming week.
Also missing is Outlandia’s performance schedule, which one assumes could drop at any moment now. (UPDATE:They just posted it here). It appears at least one act has fallen off the Friday night line-up, Caroline Spence, who no longer is mentioned on the Outlandia website. That leaves four bands for Friday’s concert (unless there’s a last-minute addition).
The underlying message throughout the Outlandia FAQ — BRING CASH. They won’t have a POS system, likely due to connectivity issues. There will be an ATM on the festival grounds.
BTW, the Friday night VIP tickets, which were sold out, are no longer sold out. In fact, all VIP packages are still available as well as GA tickets from the Outlandia etix website. VIPs look like the way to go — great access, great facilities and VIP parking is included…
Speaking of Petfest, it’s the first Friday of August which means it’s Benson First Friday. The full event map is here: https://www.bffomaha.org/map.html
Saturday night, so-called “gothic singer-songwriter” Marissa Nadler headlines at Slowdown. Her most recent LP, The Path of Clouds (2021, Sacred Bones/Bella Union) received a 7.5 on the Pitchfork meter, where they said, “The thrills of The Path of the Clouds are far richer than most true crime fiction, but like the best examples of the genre, it leaves you breathless.” Whoa. The music is, indeed, haunting. Opening is Omaha indie band Oquoa, playing for the first time in long time. $20, 8 p.m.
There are no 1% shows worth mentioning this weekend.
That’s all I got. If I missed your show, put it in the comments section. Have a great weekend.
Mark Burgess of Chameleons is no stranger to Omaha. He came through and played accompanied by Dereck Higgins way back in 2003 (and had a scheduled concert three years later that he cancelled). Now he’s back, this time playing tonight at new downtown/midtown bistro performance spot The Berkley, 1901 Leavenworth (just down the street from Shuck’s, by where The Milk Run used to be). Alexis DeBoer (Drakes Hotel, who were also on the bill, cancelled due to Covid) opens. Show starts at 8 p.m. $25.
And here’s an early head’s up for this weekend’s Maha Music Festival.
I’ve been going back and forth with people about this year’s eclectic line-up. Is it great or the worst ever? I guess it depends on how you define success. From a forward-looking new band perspective, it’s pretty on point, considering Princess Nokia, Sudan Archives and Geese are definitely indie buzz bands. Beach House remains on heavy rotation on Sirius XMU, as is late addition Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. Car Seat Headrest is a personal favorite, but an odd choice considering they played Maha just a few years ago. Indigo De Souza is another personal favorite, though she also just played at Slowdown just last year. PUP’s performance will likely be the one that people will talk about the next day. As for Sweeping Promises, well, this will be my introduction to that band.
I think it’s a solid line-up, though I don’t foresee it selling out.
The only local act on the bill that piques my interest is Las Cruxes, certainly one of our best local punk bands. I’ve mentioned this before — Maha seems to have ignored what I consider to be the best indie bands in the area, a list of which you can see right here. Ah well, I guess that’s OK seeing as so few people are on hand early in the day for the locals (still, it’s probably a nice pay day).
The sched for the two day festival: Friday Las Cruxes – 5:30 p.m. Bad Self Portraits – 6:15 p.m. Sweeping Promises – 7 p.m. Indigo De Souza – 8:15 p.m. Car Seat Headrest – 9:30 p.m.
Saturday DJ Short-T 1:30 p.m. Dominique Morgan – 2:15 p.m. The Real Zebos – 3 p.m. Omaha Girls Rock – 3:35 p.m. Marcey Yates – 4 p.m. Geese – 4:45 p.m. Sudan Archives – 5:45 p.m. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – 6:45 p.m. PUP – 7:45 p.m. Princess Nokia – 9 p.m. Beach House – 10:30 p.m.
VIP and General Admission tickets are both still available. Those GAs are $85 for both days, $35 for Friday and $65 for Saturday. See you there. More info here.
It’s hard to think about it with Douglas County boasting a COVID-19 positive-test rate of 36%, but summer is coming and this ever-lasting pandemic will eventually be behind us. The folks who put on the Maha Music Festival believe that, enough so that yesterday they announced their 14th annual festival will take place July 29 and July 30 at Stinson Park in Aksarben Village.
It’s a return to two days — or one night and one day, as the Friday night fest will run from 5 to 11 p.m. The Saturday show will go from 2 p.m. to midnight. It’s still too early to say if this will be a limited engagement as it was last year. That depends on the COVID numbers (I would assume). I thought last year’s limited 6,400 sell out with Japanese Breakfast, Thundercat and Khruangbin was a sweet spot capacity for that location.
No word on bands/acts — that’ll come in March. Also, this will be a music-only event. Maha took over Big Omaha a few years ago and hasn’t hosted another Big Omaha event since COVID arrived. More info to come, like ticket prices and such.
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The other big announcement this morning is that Bright Eyes has booked two nights at The Admiral (the newly refurbished Sokol Auditorium) July 2 and 3. The concerts aren’t so much in support of their last album, 2020’s Down in the Weeds. Where the World Once Was, as much as the reissue of nine Bright Eyes albums, in chronological order, in groups of three, beginning this spring. But that’s not all.
There will also be nine companion EPs released. From the event Facebook post: “Or as Oberst puts it, ‘the supplemental reading’ for the primary reissues: One six-track EP per reissued album, each featuring five reworked songs from that album. ‘My thing was they had to sound different from the originals, we had to mess with them in a substantial way.’ Plus one cover that felt ‘of the era’ in which that particular albums was made – a song that meant something to the band at the time. To help the EPs come alive in the fullest way, Bright Eyes called in lots of old friends, like Phoebe Bridgers, M. Ward, and Welch and Rawlings, as well as new ones like Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee. It was the band’s way of reframing, rediscovering, and renewing the past. It was also a hilarious amount of work. ‘I thought it was a cool concept,’ Oberst says. ‘Then I realized its nine records, six songs a piece, so that’s like 54 different songs you have to record!’“
The project is not listed on the Dead Oceans website (Dead Ocean released Bright Eyes’ last album), but there’s a Dead Oceans logo at the end of the rerelease promo running on the Bright Eyes Twitter page, so…
As for the Bright Eyes concerts, no openers listed, tickets range from $40 to $75 though they’re not available yet.
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In other concert news, The Slowdown announced today they’ve booked Guided By Voices for July 9.
Speaking of The Slowdown, Toronto indie trio Wild Rivers headlines in the big room there tonight. The band has a new album coming out Friday called Sidelines on Nettwerk, produced by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol, Sharon van Etten). Stylistically, this fits right in with acts like Oh Pep, Waxahatchee and the Haim sisters — very well-produced summer-night indie pop. LA singer/songwriter Corey Harper opens at 8 p.m. $23.
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