Last year’s Hardly Strictly marked a turning point for the more-than-just-bluegrass music festival, with new curator Chris Porter replacing longtime booker Dawn Holliday, who co-founded the free weekend-long concert in 2001 with Warren Hellman.
The festival returns to Golden Gate Park for its 18th edition on Oct. 4â6, with the first part of its lineup announced today. If fans were worried about a drastic change in the acts booked for the festival, they needn’t be: this year’s artists are a mix of familiar faces and sounds.
Hardly Strictly mainstay Steve Earle is back, along with acoustic Americana duo Milk Carton Kids and a joint performance from indie-folk band Iron & Wine and Southwestern rockers Calexico, who recently released a collaborative album.
Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha, whose vocal-driven music melds Eastern European folk melodies and sun-drenched psych rock, will also perform, as well as Texas roots country crooner Hayes Carll, blues guitarist and singer Jackie Greene, twangy rock band Meat Puppets, Grammy-nominated R&B, blues and Americana star Bettye LaVette (whose career is undergoing a renaissance), up-and-coming Nashville country star Margo Price, and UK folk-rock band the Waterboys. (Listen to Hardly Strictly’s medley of all the artists here.)
Hardly Strictly organizers also unveiled the schedule of “Out of the Park” concerts, taking place the week of the festival in venues all over the Bay Area. Hayes Carll performs at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley on Oct. 5; the same day, Meat Puppets hit the Ivy Room in Albany. On Oct. 6, Calexico and Iron & Wine play at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga. On Oct. 8-9, DakhaBrakha performs at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. And the Waterboys play San Francisco’s Fillmore on Oct. 11.
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