Inside the 2024 North Park Music Fest lineup
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The 2023 North Park Music Festival. Photo: Courtesy of North Park Main Street
Chris Cantore, who spent years as a morning DJ on alternative rock radio in San Diego, took a lead role booking the North Park Music Festival's lineup.
Why it matters: The lineup he and North Park Main Street board member Jim Sakrison created mixes up-and-coming talent from both sides of the border with headliners whose artistic output outpaces their commercial appeal.
Driving the news: One Friday headliner — Fantastic Negrito — has won three Grammys for best contemporary blues album, and is on Mick Jagger's list of favorite blues songs.
- He's joined at the top of the festival poster by Particle Kid, an experimental multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter and son of Willie Nelson. He wowed a San Diego crowd last month in his other gig as lead guitarist for Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
- Saturday is headlined by a rare reunion gig from aughts-era San Diego garage rock band Louis XIV.
- And the festival wraps with a solo, acoustic show from Ty Segall, a lo-fi psychedelic singer-songwriter who produces more music than we produce newsletters.
The fine print: Get there early, Cantore and Sakrison filled the lineup with great acts all the way down.
- Parque de Comitas are a Tijuana-based indie-pop outfit that's catchy and dreamlike.
- San Diego's Mitchum Yacoub blends his experiences playing with legends like Fela Kuti's backing band, The Wailers and Antibalas into a meld of Afrobeat, soul and cumbia.
- Drug Hunt combines (loud) post-punk with a psychedelic edge.
- Rebecca Jade and the Cold Fact plays a dancey soul, funk, rock, gospel hybrid.
- The Night Carrots are a tight rock band that happens to be composed of 10- to 14-year-old girls from North Park. They rip.
Read more: North Park Music Fest is coming into its own