FFF lineup includes Jane’s Addiction, D’Angelo, Wu-Tang Clan, Chvrches
Major music festival celebrates 10th anniversary with groups offering throwback and new appeal.
Two things are striking about the 2015 Fun Fun Fun Fest lineup, which was released Thursday morning.
The first: The event, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and has grown from an underground genre fest into a major music fest, is now booking artists in the same league as the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The FFF lineup is littered with artists who either have played, or could easily play, the big brother fest. The most striking is neosoul kingpin D’Angelo, whose career stutter started a few years ago when he was booked then canceled an ACL Fest set, before he came raging back with a brilliant new album at the end of last year. Let’s go ahead and call him the Fun Fun Fun’s biggest “get.” Other ACL alums on the 2015 FFF bill include chillwave pio- neer Toro Y Moi, Scottish electro-pop trio Chvrches, dance floor bangers Chromeo, synthesizer and sampler queen Grimes, and Neon Indian. Other buzzy artists who would be just as comfortable at the big fest include Future Islands, Alvvays and Odesza.
Second, while ACL Fest has largely moved away from nostalgia-based bookings — headliners Foo Fighters and ’80s rocker Billy Idol are the Zilker Park fest’s only true legacy acts this year — FFF Fest wholeheartedly embraces them. But it’s a different kind of nostalgia.
FFF’s lineup is geared to those of us who came of age in the late ’80s/early ’90s and were “alternative” before it was a radio format. This lineup is for the 40-year-olds who saved up salaries from their after-school jobs to buy a ticket to the first Lollapalooza ( Jane’s Addiction will play “Rit- ual de lo Habitual” in its entirety). It’s for the punks who used to hang out in skate shops ( Drive Like Jehu, Venom, Dag Nasty, Skinny Puppy, NoFX) and the music nerds who spent their Clinton-era college years working the graveyard shift at the radio station ( Babes in Toyland, the Charlatans UK, Ride, L7). It’s for the Gen X-ers whose early interactions with the Internet were message board battles that consisted of rap lyrics thrown back and forth ( Wu-Tang Clan) and inevitably descended into arguments about the merits of true hip-hop ( Afrikaa Bambaataa) vs. rap.
Despite the throwback appeal, FFF has always been a music connoisseur’s paradise, and plenty of cutting-edge new artists fill out the bill. Flamboyant, falsetto-voiced dance club commander Shamir, wistful indie rockers Speedy Ortiz and soul- ful Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ were all big breakouts at South by Southwest this year as was “turnt up” rap brother duo Rae Sremmurd. Rising indie rocker Mikal Cronin, Kendrick Lamar’s Black Hippie Collective brother Schoolboy Q, garage rockers Parquet Courts, chiptune innovators Anamanaguchi and anarchic blues rocker Ben Booker are all great new voices.
Other notable acts include ‘80s rockers Cheap Trick, Antemasque (the new project from At the Drive-In’s Omar Rodríguez-Lópezand Cedric Bixler-Zavala), Emo band American Football, indie rap collective Doomtree, electro-cumbia outfit Bomba Estero and jazz trio Badbadnotgood (hopefully performing with Wu-Tang’s Ghostface Killah).
The lineup for the festival’s popular comedy tent will be announced later this summer.