Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni. ✶ Thank you for your readership and contributions. ✶
The Wavefront Music Festival has announced the "first wave" of the lineup for this year's fest, which runs July 5-7 at Montrose Beach in Lincoln Park. Headliners include Diplo, Jus†ice and Nicolas Jaar, with more to be announced.
Tickets will go on sale at 9am this Thursday, April 4; Citibank cardmembers will get access to an exclusive presale beginning at midnight April 3. Among the options in the presale will be a "Platinum Cabana Package" for $32,000.
Around noon on Sunday, I began gathering my things, getting dressed and watching the looming black clouds position themselves over the north side of the city. The second morning of a festival is always a little harder to find the motivation for and the daunting weather wasn't helping.
Still, the opportunity to see former LCD Soundsystem front man James Murphy behind the decks was enough to get me out of the house--after the storm had passed of course.
First year festivals are truly a force to be reckoned with. The festival producers are still feeling the crowd out. The attendees are still feeling the festival out. And no one has yet to determine the ideal means of enjoying the festival. The discovery of how to have the best possible experience is all in the hands of the inaugural crowd. Wavefront Music Festival--day one, at least--was nothing short of an experience...a ridiculously fun one at that.
Now, I don't believe the two should be compared but it's hard not to reference Wavefront without mentioning its fellow first-year Chicago dance festival Spring Awakening Music Festival which happened just two weeks ago. Let me repeat: this review is not a comparison of the two. I was thoroughly impressed by both and recognize their uniqueness from each other. However, just for the sake of context, if Spring Awakening was like an all-out-rager that college-bound kids throw the weekend their parents go out of town then Wavefront was the party the parents throw when their kids actually do move into the dorms. No, not old and boring. Professional, experienced, mellow, awesome.
(Photo by Steve Stearns)
Just halfway through the weekend and it's this writer's humble opinion that this festival will go down as one of the best of the summer. As with any festival debut, there's bound to be some bumps along the way but most of the time those things are simply of of anyone's hand. In Wavefront's case, the folks behind it--the same folks behind veteran dance club Spybar--managed to keep the ratio of what rocked and what flopped on day one weighing heavily in the favor of rocking.
We've been hyping up Wavefront Music Festival for the last several weeks on Gapers Block and it's finally here. This Saturday and Sunday, June 30 and July 1, Chicago's house music roots are the guest of honor at this jam-packed beach bash.
There's a lot to look forward to this weekend. Three stages of national and international electronic acts. An additional stage showcasing the best local artists that Chicago has to offer. An ideal festival locale at Montrose Beach, which will encompass both the actual beach and grassy area to the west included in the festival grounds. Now if the weather can just hold off, we've got a great couple of days ahead of us.
Now I know there's a lot to worry about at festivals: What can I wear that's both stylish and conducive to standing in the sun for ten hours? Who is playing when? Why am I paying $8.50 for a Bud Light? But Gapers Block put together some thought provoking (more or less) questions for anyone going to the festival this weekend to mull over.
It goes without saying that Chicago has a lot to offer. Many consider our music scene to be bar none. There's a ton of history here. And, come on, have you driven down Lake Shore Drive on a sunny day? I don't care how bad the traffic is, you can't deny that this city is gorgeous. If you're a good Chicagoan, you'll find a way to enjoy all of these elements this summer. If you're a great Chicagoan, you'll find a way to combine them into one weekend.
The folks behind Spybar seem to have done that with the inaugural Wavefront Music Festival: two full days of local and national dance music talent right on the lakefront at Montrose Beach. Paying homage to the house music genre that's rooted in Chicago, Wavefront has gathered an impressive lineup of DJs and producers including American/Canadian super duo Duck Sauce (the guys who brought you the seemingly omnipresent club hit "Barbara Streisand"), Jesse F. Keeler's post-Death From Above 1979 electro project MSTRKRFT, DJ sets from LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy and Pat Mahoney as well as a slew of local artists on the rise.
Wavefront is giving you a chance to do Chicago right this summer and Gapers Block is proud to give you the chance to do it....for free. We're giving away 10two-day passes to the festival (which hits Montrose Beach June 30 and July 1) and all you have to do is email contests@gapersblock.com with the subject line "Beach Party" for your shot at getting down in the sand. Deadline for entries is noon Friday (tomorrow) when we'll pick 10 lucky winners, so be sure to email before then (just one entry per person, please). [Update! We've picked our winners, thanks to a random number generator, and we're emailing them now. Thanks to everyone who entered!]
Three years ago, Perry's stage at Lollapalooza--which features the vast majority of electronic music artists at the festival--was a humble, circular electro oasis nestled under Grant Park's the nearby treeline. By 2011, the stage had grown to a football-field-sized gargantuan filled to the gills with furry-boot-wearing, shutter-shade-sporting EDM fans. The stage's rapid expansion is a reflection of the parallel growth of EDM--electronic dance music--in the U.S.
Speaking of football fields, Chicago's very first all dance music festival is about to be unleashed on the city and it's far from a down-home, DIY, low-scale first-year festival. Spring Awakening Music Festival will draw between 25,000 to 30,000 bassheads to Solider Field between June 16 and 17. Not only is it the first Chicago festival of its kind, it's also the first electronic music event of any kind to have a stage inside Soldier Field.
"We're definitely priding ourselves on being the first all dance music festival to come to Chicago," said Zach Partin of React Presents. React is co-producing the festival along with dance music hotspot Congress Theater. "We think it's long overdue. We're hoping that we can just pay homage to those roots that we have here in the city."
Apparently, if it's a lakeside rave that you're looking for this summer, you won't have to look far. Hot on the heels of the announcement of the inaugural Spring Awakening Music Festival--billed as Chicago's first all electronic music fest--comes the announcement of another electronic music festival in Chicago.
Wavefront Music Festival will hit Montrose Beach June 30-July 1 with an all electronic/DJ lineup. Notable performers include headliners Duck Sauce, Erick Morillo and Boys Noize--who played a killer set at Lollapalooza back in '09. James Murphy--you know, that guy from LCD Soundsystem--is also slated to play a DJ set.
This might be the right alternative if Spring Awakening is sounding a little too pricey. Tickets are $49 for single day admission and $89 for two-day passes.
