Boston indie rock band Slothrust, Native blues rockers Indigenous and Chicago bass house brothers Birthdayy Partyy will headline Lincoln Calling when the multi-day, multi-artist festival returns to a half-dozen downtown venues Sept. 23-25.
The festival, which began in 2004, moved online last year, presenting about 40 artists on three digital “stages†over three days.
It will be back downtown in September, with around 70 artists. That’s a couple dozen fewer artists than usually appear at the festival. And many of the artists who were announced Tuesday are from Lincoln.
That reflects the festival operating on a budget about half that of 2019, a decision made this spring when COVID-19 capacity and health and safety restrictions were still in place.
“Not knowing what was going to happen in the fall, we chose to be very conservative with the budget,†said Executive Director Spencer Munson. “And a couple of our major sponsors, one diverted their resources to health concerns — you can’t blame them for that — and the other saw reduced receipts from hotel tax.
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“That made us be conservative, but we also wanted to focus on local and regional. We wanted to make sure our local artists, who haven’t been able to play during the pandemic, got paid well."
The regional emphasis is reflected in a lineup that includes Pink Fuzz of Denver, the LA Jones Quartet of the Kansas City area, Tone Tone Skam of Chicago, Gully Boys of Minneapolis and Indigenous of Yankton, South Dakota.
Indigenous, who have been frequent Lincoln performers since the band began as a family group more than 20 years ago, will headline an all-Native showcase being presented in conjunction with Vision Maker Media, the nonprofit that is a premier source of public media by and about Natives.
“This is a perfect event to celebrate (Vision Maker's) 45th anniversary,†Munson said. “It’s a combination of that and something that came out of when we booked A Tribe Called Red a couple years ago. We’re building on that and hope it will be a continuing collaboration with Vision Maker."
The Vision Maker showcase is one of five announced Tuesday. The others will be presented by regional label The Record Machine, Omaha’s community hub Culxr House and the Lincoln cultural festival Latino Lives, in addition to an EDM night headlined by Birthdayy Partyy and curated by Nebraska producers Black Magik.
The latter two showcases will include Lincoln artists, who will make up a higher then usual percentage of Lincoln Calling 2021.
“We have excellent relationships with the bands, and they’re all really, really good,†Munson said. “We’re going to have The Kris Lager Band, A Ferocious Jungle Cat and Emily Bass and the Near Miracle all on one bill. I don’t think that’s been done in a long time.
“And we’re going to add maybe 20 more artists, including some nationals, that we hope are less Lincoln, to balance the festival out.â€
Those still-to-be-announced artists will likely include a few who performed on last year’s digital Lincoln Calling. That group will include the LA Jones Quartet, a blues outfit that was part of Tuesday’s announcement.
The digital offering led to the creation of Lincoln Calling TV, an online music presentation platform. Lincoln Calling TV will be rebooted Sunday when it begins streaming performances by three bands each week through the start of the festival, Munson said.
Festival tickets are $45 and are on sale at . One-day passes will be available in September.