Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Yes, summer is coming and so with it comes New York's cultural scene shifting into overdrive with festivals, concerts, movies and more seemingly around every corner, on every rooftop or parking lot. With help from the WNYC and Gothamist culture and art desk, we're wrapping up our shows during this membership drive with your guide to what to look forward to around here this summer. Today, culture and art editor, Steve Smith is back with us and he's joined by reporter Precious Fondren to talk about some of the many artists coming our way with big concerts. You'll see these and more and a handy guide being published today at gothamist.com if you want to go check it out there. Steve, hi again and Precious, welcome to the show.
Steve: Hi, Brian.
Precious: Hello.
Brian: Yesterday, the focus was on free concerts. Today it's the ones you'll have to buy yourself tickets to. Steve, first up, starting May 30th is the beginning of (Le) Poisson Rouge’s 15th anniversary festival. What's happening there?
Steve: Well, I think the operative question Brian is what's not happening there? That's been true from the very beginning. It's a little bit of everything for adventurous listeners, which is what LPR has been about from the very start when Justin Kantor and David Handler opened it. It was in the space of a legendary jazz club, the Village Gate, but they didn't queue to jazz. They did classical music, and jazz, and hip-hop, and heavy metal and basically everything all side by side by side. They've been about breaking down borders and the 15th-anniversary series really follows suit.
You get two nights with the doom-metal band YOB followed by a chamber orchestra playing Philip Glass. You get alternative acts of the kind that have always been closely associated with LPR like Kevin Barnes of Montreal and the Antlers playing in the round and Zola Jesus, and you get a truly epic double bill of iconic art-rock bands, Faust and Pere Ubu playing on a Monday night together. That's only just scratching the surface. The series is running through the fall.
Brian: All indoors in their downtown space?
Steve: That's right, all indoors.
Brian: Precious, next up are two of the giant mainstays of summer, the Hot 97 Summer Jam and the Governors Ball Music Festival. Who are some of the headliners and what do people need to know about those?
Precious: For the first time in a couple of decades really, Hot 97 Summer Jam is taking place in New York. They're going to have Cardi B headline along with a lot of other New York-centered artists, including Lola Brooke, Ice Spice, Fivio Foreign, Lil Tjay. It's going to be a big celebration of hip-hop this year as well, because of The Lox, which is a legendary rap group from Yonkers. They're also performing and they're going to be celebrating hip-hop in a really special way. You can almost guarantee that it's not just going to be them. It's going to be a lot of other people that they're going to bring along with them.
Then Governors Ball is also very hip-hop-centered this year, but there's also a good mix. There's going to be dance music, electronic, rock. The headliners include Lizzo, Odesza and Kendrick Lamar. Then aside from that, you're going to have Diplo, Lil Uzi Vert, Giveon, Black Midi. It's just going to be a great mix of music everywhere. Then with both of these festivals, Hot 97 is taking place in New York at UBS Arena and Governors Ball is moving to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park this year.
Brian: Oh, really? No longer Randall's Island.
Precious: Yes.
Brian: Wow. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. That's a lot of A-listers at Governors Ball as well. Steve, I see that Dead & Company are on a farewell tour with a stop at Citi Field in time for summer solstice. They're calling it quits after this tour. How many of the original Grateful Dead are in Dead & Company?
Steve: Brian, it depends on how you define original. Technically, Mickey Hart wasn't there from the very start, but at this stage it is singer-guitarist Bob Weir and drummer Mickey Hart. The original Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann decided to sit out this farewell tour. He had some health issues last season, but also, this seems to be an amicable difference of opinions. It cast a downcast light on the prospect of this farewell tour until the band played at Cornell University on May 8th. It was the exact anniversary of one of the most legendary Grateful Dead shows of all time, May 8th, 1977, also at Cornell, and they sounded reborn.
Drummer Jay Lane really just set a fire under the band, John Mayer and Jeff Chimenti playing together, it's really, really a beautiful connection. That's really what I'm going to miss most. We're not going to be able to miss Bob Weir. He will be back playing in Queens in September. They'll still be [unintelligible 00:04:54] for some time to come.
Brian: Cool. Precious, there's something of note in July maybe at MetLife Stadium.
Precious: There's a lot of concerts going on in July but honestly, the concert that's definitely going to be the show of the summer is Beyoncé. She's playing at MetLife Stadium two nights back to back. If you're a super fan, you've probably already seen all little clips floating online of the show. She doesn't have an opener. She's the opener and she's running through a lot of songs in close to three hours. Fans are just really excited. There's been a lot of talk about this because unlike other Beyoncé projects, there hasn't been a visual album to go with the music.
Anticipation has been building because people just want to see her. I will be there July 30th. I don't have my outfit together, but I'm getting the details together soon. I will.
Brian: All right. We look forward to hearing what it is that you will wear and then maybe your review afterwards about what everybody wore. Steve, I think we have time for one more, Forest Hills Stadium. We've talked about a number of iconic venues around here already but Forest Hills Stadium turns 100 this year. I've been hearing they have quite a lineup planned. Anything you want to highlight?
Steve: It really is an amazing lineup and lots of big names that people I've heard like Willie Nelson and The Smile, which is members of Radiohead. But the thing that they've done that's innovative this year is a three-day festival called Re:SET, which is a traveling bill that guarantees every act a separate and distinct set. You won't have to choose ever between which artist you're going to see and which one you're going to skip. They're all going to have big clear sets. The headliners are LCD Soundsystem, Boygenius and Steve Lacy. Each of them is topping a very complimentary bill during the weekend of June 16th to 18th.
Brian: So much fun indoors and out and you did that so efficiently. We're going to squeeze in one more. Precious, we talked about Celebrate Brooklyn yesterday. There's another Brooklyn festival of not AfroPunk Brooklyn. Is that what they call it?
Precious: It is AfroPunk Brooklyn.
Brian: It is AfroPunk?
Precious: We don't have a lot of details on that just yet. We do know that it's going to happen August 26th and 27th and tickets are on sale but if it's anything like past years, it's just going to be a good time for everyone. There's going to be a whole lot of Blackness everywhere in every very variation. It's going to be a lot of fun. Burna Boy headlined last year. He performed in the rain and people stayed all night and I expect no different this year. Whoever the headliner is, it's just going to be a great time.
Brian: Culture and art desk editor Steve Smith, reporter Precious Fondren, thank you very much. Everybody look for their guide to free stuff to do and today's guide to major concerts at gothamist.com.
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