Cloud Hammer

We're a little over a week away from the lineup announcement for the 2025 Big Ears festival, scheduled for September 10. A recent email from the festival's founder confirmed the price of VIP and the elite Sonic Explorer passes will go up this year, and that there will be more "separately ticketed" events, additional costs over and above the $963.86 I spent last year on the Sonic Explorer pass. 

The only available hotel room I can find, more than six months before the start of the festival, was at the Embassy Suites at $559/night (with taxes, fees and all the other bells and whistles, $2,621.71 for four nights). But on Saturday, I finally had a breakthrough, and managed to book a room at the Hyatt Place, the hotel I've always stayed at there, at the "Member Rate" of "only" $479/night, with Sunday night down to $395 (still, $2,148.02 total).  

In a Facebook post last weekend, the festival said that Pitchfork's "50 Best Albums of 2024" list includes many of the performer to be announced for this year, and told one commenter that their guesses, which included Los Campesinos!, The Dirty Three, Crumb, Beth Gibbons, Jessica Pratt, Hovvdy, Vampire Weekend, Julia Holter, Empress Of, Waxahatchee, Mannequin Pussy, Grandaddy, Kali Malone, and The Smile were "good guesses." In other separate posts, the festival praised recent releases by Pratt and Holter, so one could reasonably assume those two are likely participants next year.

There are some good performers on that list, sure, but it's hardly the unique, one-of-a-kind line-up I've come to expect from Big Ears. I'm not sure I want to spend that kind of money, nearly $3,000,  just to see a bunch of acts that tour regularly and will probably be passing through Atlanta in the next few months anyway.

Of course, I could save money by buying a cheaper, General Admission pass and staying in a hotel outside of Knoxville and driving in each day. But that would be a very different experience, and even though it would cost less money, it wouldn't be worth the time and travel to go.

I still haven't lost hope, though. I'm holding out that when the lineup is announced, it will be amazing and worth every penny of the price. I have nothing against Julia Holter and Jessica Pratt and have seen them both in concert in the past, and they'd make welcome additions to the lineup, although not as headliners. The Dirty Three, Kali Malone, and Beth Gibbons have all performed at Big Ears in the past and I would welcome any of them back, although again not as headliners.

My prediction is that this year will include Malone, Arooj Aftab and Kahil El'Zabar & The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble (they all have new releases out and are currently touring). But past that, it's anyone's guess.