The Hopscotch Music Festival, which calls downtown Raleigh, North Carolina home, recently announced the lineup for its 2012 event which runs September 6-8. Thirteen hours after opening, VIP passes to the concert’s 15 venues had sold out.
Hosted by North Carolina’s alternative newspaper The Independent Weekly, the event founded in 2010 by co-director Greg Lowenhagen and co-director Grayson Currin has grown to feature 175 bands playing in 15 venues.
The Roots, an American hip-hop band, will headline the three-day event now in its third year. Every year Hopscotch brings together an extremely diverse lineup of musicians, both local and national, and as far as Canada, Sweden, Germany, Finland, and Australia. Interest in the festival continues to grow, with nearly 8,000 likes on Facebook, according to the festival’s official website hopscotchmusicfest.com.
The festival thrives on having a diverse lineup of acts from several genres of music — rock, hip-hop, punk, metal, dance, alternative country, classical, noise, drone, folk, and more. In addition to The Roots, the lineup includes other popular musicians including The Jesus and Mary Chain, Built to Spill, and Yo La Tengo. Thirty-five percent of the acts in the lineup are from Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, or nearby towns, according to the festival’s website.
“Basically, our goal every year is to mix some of the bands we think are the best bands in the world with some of the best local bands that we have right here in the Triangle,” Currin said during the public announcement of the 2012 lineup on Raleigh radio station WKNC 88.1, according to an article by the North Carolina State University Technician Online.
“[We wanted to bring] bands we think will be a surprise for people and bands we think really haven’t been to the Triangle in a long time…bands people will get excited about,” Currin said.
“I think [The Roots are] super current in that they’ve been playing large music festivals,” Lowenhagen said during the announcement on WKNC. “They’re playing in Bonnaroo this summer…They’ve been around for a long time, but they’re still highly capable of taking over our main stage and throwing a heck of a party.”
While the festival is comprised of many contemporary artists, the event is unique in the fact that it is truly geared toward devoted music lovers, featuring musicians that may not be immediately recognizable by name, but are well-respected pioneers in the industry.
John Darnielle, a highly acclaimed songwriter from the Mountain Goats who resides in Durham will play two solo sets at Raleigh’s Fletcher Opera Theater, just one of the venues in festival, according to a blog on the Fayetteville Observer. The singer will play a set on acoustic guitar, followed by a set of mostly heavy-metal covers. The Mountain Goats is a California-born indie rock band that has been together for 20 years.
In addition to the performances, the festival also features day parties, the Edward McKay Uses Books & More Cultural Series, charity activities, a poster exhibition, and more.
Although VIP tickets are sold out, regular three-day passes are still available for $110. One-day passes will be available beginning in July.
