Headliners SuperDuperKyle, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizzard, Lizzo and Twin Peaks will be joined by local acts hi-ker and Less is More, plus other national stars. See, save the full weekend schedule.
Playing Alongside Inspiring Acts: Kalamazoo’s Less Is More will rev up Audiotree Music Festival on Saturday. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
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As Kalamazoo’s Arcadia Place begins to look more and more like the site for this weekend’s Audiotree Music Festival, a handful of late lineup adds are preparing to catch the attention of attendees arriving from destinations near and far.
Festival Opener: Grand Rapids’ Hi-ker kicks off Audiotree on Friday. (Photo/Kendra Kamp)
While many music fans will flock to the downtown site to catch Friday night’s hip hop headliners SuperDuperKyle and Lizzo, a pair of West Michigan adds to this year’s slate aim to turn some heads by kicking off the festival each day.
Grand Rapids’ “indie collage pop” trio hi-ker will get the music started Friday afternoon as they play Audiotree for the second time in three years, while Kalamazoo’s soulful pop band Less is More makes its festival debut on Saturday. The two groups making waves in West Michigan’s scene are the only two acts on the 17-band bill that currently herald from The Mitten state.
“It’s kind of hard to describe,” said Less is More’s Jane Spencer. “The fact that we get to play alongside the people who are currently inspiring a lot of our songwriting – acts like Noname, Lizzo and BADBADNOTGOOD – get to meet them, learn from them, and show off what we have been working on, it’s just a beautiful opportunity that none of us are taking for granted.”
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The lineup, which is hip hop heavy Friday night with a dash of electronic and electro-pop music from hi-ker and Bayonne, will be predominantly filled with math rock and indie-folk bands on Saturday.
“I think we have curated a lineup that is better thought out than any other year we have done,” said Adam Thurston, director of operations and co-founder of Audiotree. “After making the decision to go to two days this year, we really spent the time thinking about which bands fit well together so that we could really create a flow throughout each day.”
Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard will headline the fifth-year fest on Saturday night with top-of-the-bill support from Chicago indie act Twin Peaks, CHON and Pinegrove. Other acts on this year’s lineup include Smino, SALES and HOOPS on Friday, as well as Charly Bliss, Active Bird Community, Liz Cooper & The Stampede and Campdoggz on Saturday.
“This might be one of the bigger festivals that we’ve played,” said hi-ker guitarist Chris Ryan.
Big Stage: Audiotree returns to downtown Kalamazoo this weekend. (Photo/Derek Ketchum)
“It seems like it has grown a lot just in the past two years, and while I haven’t seen the stage yet in person, from the photos I’ve seen, it looks like one of the bigger sound systems that we’ve played on, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how our music translates with such a big system.”
The stage was built last year as the festival made the move to Arcadia Place for the first time following one-day stops in the Wings Stadium parking lot in 2013 and at District Square in 2014 and 2015. It measures 40 feet by 32 feet, and will again be situated under the existing band shell.
Two-day passes to this year’s festival are $60 for general admission and $125 for VIP tickets. Single-day tickets cost $32.50 for Friday and $37.50 for Saturday, while VIP tickets are $65 for Friday and $75 for Saturday. All tickets may be purchased online here.
VIDEO: SuperDuperKyle, “Nothing 2 Lose”
VIDEO: Lizzo, “Good as Hell”
VIDEO: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, “Sleep Drifter”
AUDIO: hi-ker, “Jessie B. Good”
VIDEO: Less is More at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe
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