CALLING A TAME LINEUP
Festival’s 10th edition may draw shrugs, but features some gems
A look at this year’s Boston Calling headliners proves pretty humdrum — ambient hip-hop hero Travis Scott, Australian psych-rock band Tame Impala, overexposed rap-rock act Twenty One Pilots. Look below the headliners and, well, there’s more humdrum (including nearly a dozen repeat acts from years past). And yet, after years of nothing, we finally have our own successful, growing festival. And it’s at least as good as the next fest. The 2019 event — the threeday party’s 10th edition — returns to the Harvard Athletic Complex in Allston for its Memorial Day weekend residency (May 24 to May 26). While you can complain about so much — such as the obvious, male-centric headliners, many of whom will be at a lot of similar events this year including Coachella, various Lollapaloozas and iHeartRadio concerts — the lineup has depth and more than a few true gems. The undercard features some exciting and diverse names. Janelle Monae and Brandi Carlisle became two of 2018’s breakout artists with albums, “Dirty Computer” and “By the Way, I Forgive You” respectively, that perfectly blended the personal and political. At just 20 years old, King Princess could be the next Janelle Monae (or Adele or Amy Winehouse — pick your icon, King Princess will match them) and Snail Mail has already recharged rock in the vein of Mass. natives Palehound and Speedy Ortiz. Like so many of its competitors, Boston Calling works hard to offer an unforgettable experience — for between $264 and $1,129 for the long weekend. That has become increasingly difficult as festivals with comparable lineups and innovations pop up from New York to California, Chicago to Seattle. Sure, we love Fred Armisen and Melissa Villasenor, but everybody has a stacked comedy tent these days. Boston Calling deserves a ton of credit for partnering with the Boston Ballet for a series of performances over the weekend. However its biggest success has always been adding local talent to the lineup. Again, easy to complain it doesn’t have enough locals on the bill; hard to gripe when locals include mellow Tufts rockers Guster, Northeastern bandcamp sensation Sidney Gish, Boston post-punk band Pile and Carlisle lo-fi electropop artist Clairo. Despite its best effort, Boston Calling may get a big shrug from those outside of the 20-something demographic (even if young millennials swarm to sell it out). Thankfully, we have options. Boston Calling dominates, well, Boston. But 30- and 40-somethings might want to road trip west for the return of Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA (June 28-30) or, for my money, the best fest in the state in the Green River Festival (July 13-15). Not sold? Hey, there’s always Billy Joel at Fenway, again, on Sept. 14.