Ah, Summerfest... one of my favorite times of the year, one of the reasons I live in Wisconsin, and one of the state's Guinness record holders - since it's officially the "World's Largest Music Festival."
Perhaps in an attempt to help us hold out hope when we're shivering, the fine folks at Milwaukee World Festival, Inc. (the group that owns and manages Summerfest) tend to release information about major headliners at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater during some of the winter months, especially January and February. Then there's always that date when a TON of headliners for the other stages makes it way to the public - and that date was today - right as we prepare for rain and snow for tomorrow. Yikes!
This info release day gives us the names of the acts and usually the date they'll play; specific stages and times tend to be released later on, as well as many additional acts. They have to do this in stages, after all, since Summerfest features over 700 artists, groups, and performers!
Per usual, Summerfest mixed up genres pretty nicely, and now I suddenly know who Billie Eilish is (honest, I'd never even heard her name until she was announced as an AmFam headliner!) Quite a few acts are ones we play; some of the American Family Insurance Amphitheater headliners like Lionel Richie with Michael McDonald, Jennifer Lopez, Snoop Dogg, etc. are ones we're already away of. So I thought I'd share some of the newly-announced artists - including ones we play - at a glance:
Elvin Bishop's Big Fun Trio, June 26
Foreigner, June 26
Hanson, June 26
10,000 Maniacs, June 27
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, June 27
Foghat, June 27
Collective Soul, June 28
Styx, June 28
Chicago, June 29
Third Eye Blind, June 29
Chaka Khan, July 2
Loverboy, July 3
.38 Special, July 5
Jesus Jones, July 5
The Spinners, July 5
Semisonic, July 6
For the rest of the lineup, check out the Summerfest website here.