Festival headliners revealed at last
Canadian R&B star The Weeknd, flamboyant British power trio Muse and old-soul New Zealand singer Lorde have been announced as headliners for the 12th edition of the Osheaga Music and Arts Festival, which runs from Aug. 4 to 6 on Parc Jean-Drapeau’s Île Notre-Dame.
Other top names at the festival include Major Lazer, Justice, Solange, Cage the Elephant, Foster the People, MGMT, Father John Misty, Die Antwoord, the Shins, Milky Chance, Belle and Sebastian, Run the Jewels, Majid Jordan, London Grammar, Tove Lo, De La Soul, Tegan and Sara, Danny Brown and Angel Olsen.
Plants and Animals, Snails, Heat and Heartstreets are among the lineup’s homegrown artists.
While many of the 100-plus acts on the bill were revealed Friday via a memory game shared online by festival organizers, the three marquee acts were kept under wraps until Tuesday’s lineup announcement, amid the usual swirl of speculation.
Two of the three are making repeat visits to Osheaga. Much like Florence and the Machine, who delivered a festival-stealing orchestral-pop performance in 2012 and came back to headline in 2015, Lorde returns with the wind still in her sails from a buzzed-about 2014 appearance.
“I still remember the reaction,” Osheaga founder Nick Farkas said Tuesday afternoon after the lineup was unveiled. “You see someone that young and that good — we all obviously would have liked her (second) record to have come out before we announced, but we’re so confident in her ability to headline.
“Obviously, Osheaga is about live performance. We watch very intently and see who pulls it off better than others and try to remember that for future years. We’ve had bands go from playing early to headlining, like the Black Keys. Once you see them play, you realize it’s not going to be much of a risk to put them up higher on the bill.”
The Weeknd was given an earlyevening slot at the 2012 edition of Osheaga. Now, superstardom has made it possible for Farkas and his team to bring him in as a headliner a mere two months after his May 30 Bell Centre concert.
“We didn’t really struggle with that, because he’s one of the biggest artists in the world,” said Farkas, who is also Osheaga promoter Evenko’s VP of concerts and events. “The Bell Centre show is pretty much sold out, and we’re drawing 65, 70 per cent of our people from outside Quebec anyway.”
Which isn’t to say Osheaga’s location is incidental when it comes to booking decisions. Muse’s impassioned drama has been an easy sell in Montreal, which made the trio a natural choice to share top billing.
“We’ve always wanted Osheaga to have a certain Montrealness, and Muse is a bigger act in Quebec than almost anywhere else,” Farkas said. “Two Bell Centres, two Vidéotron Centres (in Quebec City) last time they played (in January 2016) — that’s four arena shows in the province. You can’t ignore that.
“We want to reflect what people in this market like. Look at Vance Joy,” Farkas said of the Australian singer who has prominent billing this year. “In past years, Patrick Watson or Half Moon Run — we look for stuff that is uniquely strong here.”
Farkas emphasized a truth known to almost everyone who has attended Osheaga: “We’ve never been just about headliners. The reason we have six stages and the reason we have 110 acts is we believe what makes Osheaga so much fun, so interesting to go to, is the opportunity to see all these bands and discover stuff you never heard before.”
When asked for his own undercard highlights, Farkas stopped short of reeling off half the lineup. “Car Seat Headrest, Hamilton Leithauser, Cloud Nothings; we’ve got some great Canadian bands — Death From Above 1979, Arkells, Broken Social Scene back for the first time in six years. I absolutely love (Californian folk-rockers) Dawes — I’ve been fighting the booking department here, ‘Let me put on some of that My Morning Jacket-type stuff.’ ”
Former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and blues-rock dynamos Alabama Shakes were cited among this year’s coups. “We offered and were surprised that it worked out,” Farkas said of Gallagher. “Alabama Shakes, I think they’re hardly doing any shows. They played one show in Laval (but) never played in Montreal.”
Another act that would have been a coup kept recurring on lineup predictions, but Farkas said U2 — whose confirmed tour dates end three days before Osheaga — was never in contention.
“They’re so huge that playing a 45,000-person festival wouldn’t really make sense for them,” said Farkas, who speculates the band’s Joshua Tree retrospective tour will reach Montreal on a future leg.
No matter how off-base fans’ prognostication gets, Farkas said all comments and complaints are
considered.
“Frank Ocean’s playing (the Ontario festival) WayHome. We’re getting a lot of feedback on our website saying, ‘How come Frank Ocean’s not coming ?’ You can only get so many artists, but we take every single suggestion seriously. We might go, ‘OK, people really wanted to see Frank Ocean last year,’ or ‘People want to see (2015 headliner) Kendrick Lamar again.’ “
As for this year, 2½ hours after three-day passes went on sale Tuesday, Farkas was happy with fans’ enthusiasm and sales, which he said were on par with the previous two years. (As usual, singleday tickets will become available closer to the festival dates.)
“We really sweat our lineup from top to bottom, and every year I tell myself I’m not going to get completely stressed leading up to (the announcement). … But you never know until it goes out there whether people who buy tickets are going to be happy with (the lineup). We’re very encouraged thus far.”