The full lineup for this year’s weekend-after-Memorial Day Wakarusa has been released, and while it’s full of the expected jam bands, there are a handful of interesting acts booked this year as well. My Morning Jacket is the headliner, and if you’re going to go with any band out of that oeuvre as a headliner for a festival that’s trying to get better every year, it should be them.
On the other hand, Wakarusa has been known to dabble in the electronic side of things as well. While this isn’t an unprecedented position among the festivals, it’s interesting to see what a “local” promoter is pursuing for an event, especially one of this size. Modeselektor is the biggest name of the bunch, and serves two purposes. I could argue it’s somewhat disappointing that Wakarusa didn’t book someone of “higher” stature as an electronic headliner – a Villalobos or Plastikman or Underworld summer tour stop or something - just, you know, an electronic “headliner.” On the other hand – it’s Modeselektor. So, regardless of who is making deedle-deedlee-deedlee noises on the main stage, the folks who are there for Modeselektor are going to be getting the funk down.
Roy Davis, Jr. is also booked and more or less rounds out the straight house/techno acts. Further down on the printed lineup are a few surprises – Eliot Lipp has made some significantly impressive beat albums over the years, SBTRKT is one of my favorite of the eh . . . downtempo dubstep crop of producers that have moved past the Burial references, and both Tokimonsta and Take should be considered well past emergent in the new LA beat scene. Throw in Kansas City’s FSTZ and that pretty much rounds it out. Unless of course you count Stanton Warriors and Skrillex, which you shouldn’t.
Tickets are $140 for the full event pass, and I think it will be a bit before the schedules are released. I don’t have any allusions of going to this but the logistics would probably be easier to work out than DEMF, which occurs the weekend before. Then again, some things are just worth working harder to attain.