Bonnaroo 2019: Phish, Childish Gambino, Post Malone to Headline
Festival will take place June 13-16 in Manchester, Tennessee
Daniel Kohn | January 8, 2019 @ 9:13 AM
Last Updated: January 8, 2019 @ 9:17 AM
Getty Images
Phish, Childish Gambino and Post Malone will headline the 2019 edition of Bonnaroo, the festival announced on Tuesday morning.
Cardi B, The Lumineers, Solange, Kacey Musgraves, The National, Maya Rudolph’s Prince cover band Princess, and the Andy Samberg-led comedy troupe The Lonely Island also feature prominently on the festival’s poster.
Phish and Gambino will perform on Friday evening, while Malone will headline Saturday night. Phish will also headline Sunday evening, performing two sets. The Vermont-based band also headlined in 2009 and 2012. The festival’s first night will feature a set from Nashville’s Grand Old Opry that includes special guests, though it is unclear who those guests might be.
Though the festival has veered mostly from its jam-band roots in recent years, it has retained its popular super jam, which is an artist-curated set that melds genres and musicians who rock out to a theme. This year’s curator is DJ/producer GRiZ, and the set will take place on Friday. Last year’s SuperJam paid tribute to the music of Tom Petty.
First taking place in 2002, Bonnaroo will once again take place at Great Stage Park, the 700-acre farm and event space 60 miles southeast of Nashville in Manchester, Tennessee. Bonnaroo will take place from June 13 through June 16. The festival was notably where the Beastie Boys’ final concert took place in 2009, and where R&B superstar D’Angelo made his return the stage in 2012 with a surprise appearance during Questlove’s SuperJam.
THURSDAY, JUNE 13
Grand Ole Opry Featuring Special Guests
Saba
Space Jesus b2b Eprom b2b Shlump
12th Planet
Sunsquabi
All Them Witches
Magic City Hippies
The Nude Party
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
The Comet Is Coming
Jack Harlow
Eprom
Caroline Rose
Donna Missal
Peach Pit
Hekler
Dorfex Bos
*****
FRIDAY, JUNE 14
Phish (Late Evening Set)
Childish Gambino
Solange
The Avett Brothers
Brockhampton
GRiZ
RL Grime
Beach House
GRiZ SuperJam
NGHTMRE
Gojira
Courtney Barnett
Girl Talk
AJR
Catfish And The Bottlemen
K.Flay
Anoushka Shankar
Nahko & Medicine For The People
Liquid Stranger
Deafheaven
Parquet Courts
Rival Sons
Ibeyi
Jade Cicada
Las Cafeteras
Cherry Glazerr
The Teskey Brothers
Medasin
Tyla Yaweh
Ducky
Monsieur Periné
Mersiv
Crooked Colours
*****
SATURDAY, JUNE 15
Post Malone
Odesza
Hozier
Kacey Musgraves
The National
The Lonely Island
ZHU
Juice WRLD
Joe Russo’s Almost Dead
Gucci Mane
John Prine
Jim James (Full Band)
Maren Morris
Gramatik
Shovels & Rope
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Quinn XCII
Clairo
Bishop Briggs
Hippo Campus
Space Jesus
Tokimonsta
Chelsea Cutler
The Record Company
SNBRN
Ruston Kelly
Whipped Cream
Rubblebucket
Little Simz
Memba
Deva Mahal
DJ Mel
*****
SUNDAY, JUNE 16
Phish (2 Sets)
The Lumineers
Cardi B
Brandi Carlile
Illenium
Walk The Moon
Mac DeMarco
King Princess
Lil Dicky
G Jones
Trampled By Turtles
The Wood Brothers
Hobo Johnson & The Lovemakers
Princess (Featuring Maya Rudolph & Gretchen Lieberum)
The Soul Rebels
The Lemon Twigs
Two Feet
AC Slater
CID
Dombresky
Bombino
Faye Webster
Ripe
Kikagaku Moyo
Igloohost
Coachella 2019 Lineup: 19 Surprises and Snubs From This Year's Poster (Photos)
"DJ" Idris Elba and news-machine Ariana Grande's ascendancy to headliner status are amongst the surprises in this year's lineup announcement. Click through for more ...
Getty Images
SHOCKER: Idris Elba
The last time we caught musician Idris Elba, he was DJ'ing a small party for an indie film at Sundance (above). He wins this year's "Hans Zimmer" bizarro booking award. Sidenote: The Elbas are having a good year, his daughter is also the 2019 Golden Globes Ambassador.
Getty Images
SURPRISE: K-Pop Girl Group BlackPink
That hand gesture is correct. They landed on the coveted second line. Huge around the world with 14.4 million Instagram followers, they're not a force in U.S. music ... yet.
Instagram
SNUB: No Marshmello, no Chainsmokers
Both played Coachella once as mid-tier electronic artists, in 2017 and 2016 respectively, then both released a string of hits that shot them over their producer peers to become global pop stars. A promotion from their earlier second line status to headliner would not have unreasonable. If each had been seeking to return for a prestige play, they may have been competing with each other. However, the economics of booking expensive DJ acts who are excessively available in Vegas every weekend (both are residents at the appropriately named "XS" at the Wynn) doesn't make sense for this stacked house lineup. If anything, Ariana Grande nabbed what could have been their pop-star spot.
Getty Images
SURPRISE: Jaden Smith
His dad, Big Willie, would have been less of a surprise.
Getty Images
SURPRISE TO COME? Will Smith
Will Smith got a taste of the modern festival scene when he showed up with the aforementioned Marshmello on the main stage at Ultra in Miami last March. Smith has been hiking through youth culture recently, pulling off the most cinematic stunt on YouTube by bungee jumping the Grand Canyon for his 50th birthday and hosting YouTube's annual Rewind video. With '90s nostalgia in bloom, he would have been a popular bizarro booking himself, yet remains a lock for a "surprise" guest appearance when his son takes the stage.
Instagram/RyanHadj
ON BRAND: DJ Snake
Since he last played in 2017, the "Let Me Love You" producer has scored 7 billion streams of his debut album on Spotify, became the eighth most played artist in the world, spun a set on top of the Arc de Triomphe (pictured), accepted French President Macron's invitation to join the leader's World Cup championship celebration, and launched "Taki Taki" to number one in territories around the globe. As an associate of his manager, Amy Thomson, the stats support my bias that the producer deserves this spot on what has been called the most important stage for an electronic producer.
Instagram/DJSnake
SNUB: Everyone in Kanye's clique is going, except Kanye
Kanye was rumored to be a headliner for months, until news broke hours before the lineup reveal that he was out of the running. The "what if?" of a "Kanye and Friends" headliner-by-committee show checks out. A chunk of Kanye's orbit - Kid Cudi, Pusha T, Sheck Wes and even his former creative director Virgil Abloh (right) - are all headed to Indio, without the boss.
Getty Images
WHAT?: Cola Boyy
A 28-year-old disabled activist/disco marxist from Oxnard, California, was the first artist announced, popping up on Coachella producer Goldenvoice's Twitter hours before the lineup reveal. (His 230 twitter followers had only climbed to 278 hours later. Gaining a toehold in the attention economy is hard even with sudden fame.) "Is this a hack?" live music analyst @TheFestiveOwl tweeted. Later, when Childish Gambino was revealed as a headliner, one Reddit user pitched a "Cola Boyy x Paper Boi" collaboration.
YouTube/ColaBoyy
SNUB: Pearl Jam
If Pearl Jam hadn't picked a fight with Ticketmaster in the early 1990s and staged the first concert at the Empire Polo Club in protest - proving the venue's viability - there's a fair chance that there's no Coachella today. For the 20th anniversary, this "forefather" band that still sells out tours could have been a worthy wink at the festival's origin story. However in 2019, Vedder and company are a demographic mismatch. They are not alone ...
Getty Images
SNUB: 20th Anniversary Pageantry Overall
Because Coachella skipped a year early on, 2019 will be the 20th edition and 20th anniversary of the first Coachella in 1999. A throwback stage, a sprinkle of bookings from still active artists, or even a small "20th" on this year's poster would have been a cool flourish. It doesn't look like Goldenvoice has any intention of marking the occasion. Sorry, Moby and Beck.
Coachella
AS PREDICTED: Billie Eilish
The 17-year-old "Ocean Eyes" singer blew up sometime between Coachella 2018 and Lollapalooza last summer. She doesn't play the KIIS FM Jingle Ball circuit. She has to be there.
Instagram/BillieEilish(WhereAreTheAvocados)
BUSTED RUMOR: Mumford and Sons
"A Coachella-sized hole in their 2019 touring schedule," Redditors said. Those people must have been living in "The Cave."
Getty
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME: Gryffin
Every spring, there's one melodic producer who rockets up a level through new material, a theater tour, and then marquee festival performances. Last year, it was Illenium. This spring, it's going to be L.A. local Dan Griffiths. In November, he debuted a new live show at the Palladium in Hollywood, turning a Friday night crowd into gunpowder. Based on that "oh, this song too" reaction, there's an engaged audience primed to wake-up to his fandom. Add him to your schedule.
Juliana Bernstein
MISSED OPP: Miley Cyrus
It's not just her current hit "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart." Cyrus has seven songs with super-producer Mark Ronson in the can. As she peeks out what from she's calling "the blackout," a prominent Coachella set felt like the right launch pad for her new cycle.
NBC
ON BRAND: Maggie Rogers
With a new album in mid-January, Rogers has felt like a lock for months. As they often do, "SNL" nailed her on the front of this arc when she sang "Fallingwater" barefoot on this past November's Jonah Hill-hosted episode. Now, she's playing live on Saturday night in Indio.
Instagram/MaggieRogers
SURPRISE: Bassnectar
Producer Lorin Ashton's visual-heavy sets are a hypnotic religious experience for "Bassnectar buddies," like these folks in the front row of a past show. This is the set that will max out the specs of the new Sahara tent production. Bring your sunglasses.
Getty Images
MISSING IN ACTION: Skrillex
"Sonny" has been out-of-cycle for a few seasons while most of his peer producers never "turn down." Over the last few months, he's been quietly playing festivals abroad, but tip-toeing around a significant U.S. solo show. As a multi-year Coachella vet and recent scarcity, he could have been booked as high as headliner.
Instagram/DJSnake
MISS: LSD (Labrinth, Sia, Diplo)
From the moment this supergroup debuted last spring with a string of catchy hits, fans had them penciled in to a sub-headliner spot. Because they don't perform together live, the time, expense, and logistics of producing a stage show together without a tour probably just wasn't worth it for these three. We still get Diplo's best bud Dillon Francis, whose 2017 set is still straining neck-bobbing muscles on YouTube years later.
Facebook/LSD
Check out our "Coachella 2018 Final Report Card" for a sneak peek at what else is coming back to the festival in 2019.
Headliner Ariana Grande, “DJ” Idris Elba, K-Pop girl group BlackPink and no mention of the festival’s milestone 20th anniversary
"DJ" Idris Elba and news-machine Ariana Grande's ascendancy to headliner status are amongst the surprises in this year's lineup announcement. Click through for more ...