PICKATHON Reveals 2024 Lineup Feat. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Courtney Barnett
Our favorite music festival of all time returns with another diverse and impressive lineup
Since attending for the first time over a decade ago, we’ve made zero effort to conceal our belief that Pickathon very well may be the greatest music festival to ever exist. In all fairness, we may have to narrow that down to just the US festivals or, at the very least, to the festivals that we’ve actually attended in person. That said… still pretty amazing. Through the years, I’ve heard the sentiment of the Happy Valley, Oregon festival offering an indescribable experience expressed over and over again by artist after artist, as they perform on hand-built custom stages integrated into the woods and organic landscape. The enthusiastic proclamation of, “I need to come back next year” has echoed through the microphones on more stages than I could count. The last time I spoke to Built To Spill frontman, Doug Martsch, he divulged to me that Pickathon had just edged out the Treefort Festival in his native home of Boise as his favorite and, back in 2016, Ty Segall told me point-blank that he’s played just about every festival in the country and, “they’re all shit, except this one.” I can’t speak on whether or not they maintain these positions today and I acknowledge that Ty was likely being slightly hyperbolic in that moment, but what can’t be argued is that both of these artists have played a TON of festivals. They know what they’re talking about.
Somehow, the Pickathon organizers manage to outdo themselves every year, which is somewhat of an anomaly. That statement may reads as though they are pulling in bigger and bigger acts, but the opposite is actually true. Last year, I wasn’t familiar with the majority of the names on the lineup and was blown away by the results. By booking artists based on talent and live performances over name recognition Pickathon has become known for breaking acts that will go on to become household names in the future. The upside to this is that it is almost guaranteed that you will discover at least one new artist that you love and may have never encountered otherwise. The downside is that, unless you do some hardcore research in advance, you can occasionally pass on seeing an act and regret it later down the road. A perfect example of this is how we caught both Big Thief sets at the festival back in 2017 (most artists perform twice), while a friend of ours who was in attendance missed them. She later became such a fan that, last year, she took a break from the festival to go see them perform in a nearby town, before returning.
The lineup for this year’s Pickathon was just announced and we couldn’t be more hyped about it. Among the names featured are Courtney Barnett and Bonnie ‘Prince” Billy, two returning artists that we’d missed ourselves in the past. In 2014, we simply didn’t prioritize Barnett amidst the stacked lineup and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy appeared back in 2010, before we were even aware that the festival existed. I’m beyond excited to finally get the opportunity to see them both on the farm this year. Other names that some might recognize are the freak folk sister act, CocoRosie, and the popular Bloomington, Indiana retro-soul of Durand Jones. We’ll be taking a deeper dive into the lineup closer to the festival, but a couple of standouts for us already include the free-jazz collective, Irreversible Entanglements and the instrumental trio La Lom (Los Angeles League Of Musicians). I’ll also be happy to finally check out local Seattle songwriter, Dean Johnson in that environment, as well as Brooklyn‘s Geese, whom I have been hearing nothing but praise for over the last year or two. We fully expect additional acts to be added, at least in the realm of comedy, if not beyond.
Tickets are available now at Pickathon.com.
To get more familiar with the lineup, the folks behind Pickathon have offered playlists on a few different platforms, which be linked to below.