What the Festival Lineup: The Good, the Bad and the WTF?!

The full announcement of the What the Festival lineup dropped today, and while we’re generally excited about it, in reading over the final poster, there were also moments bad and just plain, well, WTF. Here’s our breakdown.


The good:

  • Nightmares on Wax is an absolute classic DJ and probably the classiest standout on the whole bill. Seeing a live set from him should be on your bucket list.

  • Signed to Skrillex’s OWSLA label but originally from Sydney, What So Not will bring a taste of the Australian dance scene, which fuses house, garage and bass at lower BPMs.

  • Trippy Turtle, just added to the bill today, is one of the hottest Jersey club producers around right now.

  • The festival will again feature exclusively Funktion One sound systems, one of the world’s finest. Here’s to hoping that no one climbs inside one this year.

  • Say what you will about the Glitch Mob, it will be pretty outrageous to see them and thousands of very, um, happy fans in the shadow of Mt. Hood.


The bad:

  • Though quality artists all, there’s a fair amount of rollover from last year, including Claude VonStroke, J.Phlip, An-Ten-Nae and Glitch Mob’s Ooah, who performed last year in Pantyraid.

  • Techno is effectively absent from the lineup.

  • To enjoy many of the psychedelic/future/beats producers who fill out the bottom of the poster, you’ll need to blaze kush at White Widow dankness or higher, and also start using words like “blaze” and “dank.”


The WTF:

  • I can understand reggae band World’s Finest on the bill, but Lost Lander is a little too turnt- down for a festival.

  • Washed Out is just a way for festies to convince their bookish significant others to attend (or to convince your bookish self that WTF is not a wild and crazy electronic festival).

  • Norwegian producer Kygo’s name is in far too small a font size.


What the Festival is June 19-22. Tickets can be purchased at whatthefestival.com.

WWeek 2015

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