Friday, April 18th
Sweetwater 420 Fest: Galactic, Conspirator, Steel Pulse in Centennial Park
This weekend Centennial Park will belong to the hippies! Sweetwater 420 Fest 2014 will be hosting a killer lineup of jam, reggae, and jamtronica acts all weekend. Friday’s acts will include Galactic and Steel Pulse and the main Sweetwater Stage, Honey Island Swamp Band and Conspirator at the Planet 420 Stage, Sugar Kayne, Nextakin & Daddy Dough Tag Set, Eddie Gold, An-ten-nae, and Two Fresh at the Not So Silent Disco Stage. There will also be a Relapse 420 Comedy Tent and a Sweetwater Experience tent at the festival! Be sure to check the event page for the full schedule!
Doors at 4 p.m. Tickets: Friday GA $10, Friday VIP $60, GA 3-day pass $18
Charlie Hunter & Scott Amendola at Eddie’s Attic
Following up on last year’s critically hailed Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead, guitarist Charlie Hunter and drummer Scott Amendola return with Pucker, a lean and sinewy session marked by fierce grooves, caressing melodies, and startlingly intuitive interplay. While Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead focuses on Hunter’s compositions, Pucker focuses on Amendola’s compositions!
Check out our exclusive Q&A with Charlie Hunter!
Doors at 6:30 p.m. Tickets: GA $20 in advance, $26 at the door. Table seats are $25 in advance and must be purchased in multiples of 4. Online and phone sale close at 5 p.m. day of show.
Sonia Leigh with Josh Kumra at Eddie’s Attic
Sonia Leigh is an Atlanta native recently relocated to Nashville. A diverse artist who’s music hints a bit of an old country and old rock and roll sounds similar to Springsteen, Rolling Stones, and Jannis Joplin all rolled into one. Influenced by those very artists along with new rock like The Killers, Counting Crows, Passion Pit, Beth Hart, and Imagine Dragons, she has developed a style hard to pigeon hole yet familiar enough to pull you in and make you want to hear more and more. Sonia Leigh delivers a power punch performance that gets you out of your seat and has you listening closely to the words all at once.
Doors at 9 p.m. Tickets: GA $12 in advance, $16 at the door. Table seats are $15 and must be purchased in multiples of 4. Online and phone sales close at 5 p.m. day of show.
Please Pleaserock Me at Smith’s Olde Bar
Please PleaseRock Me is the new group from the PleaseRock collective that compiles the music by and surrounding the Beatles. They go beyond accurate Beatles recreations, although they do some songs note-for-note. Their set also includes famous Beatles covers, songs the group wrote for other artists, solo material, and songs from other bands they joined or collaborated with.
Doors at 8 p.m. Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 day of show. Online and phone sales close at 2 p.m. day of show.
Protomartyr with Spray Paint at 529
In a city full of brilliant people with dead-end jobs and dampened by bitter-cold winters, playing music offers a cheap outlet. Protomartyr’s taut, austere rock was incubated in a freezing Detroit warehouse littered with beer cans and cigarette butts and warmed, feebly, by space heaters. Despite the cold, Protomartyr emerged with a sound that is idiosyncratic but relatable, hooky but off-kilter. There’s a temptation to call it garage rock, but that doesn’t quite fit. Post-punk suggests something too retro; indie rock, something too precious. What Protomartyr is, is “stuck between the cracks.”
Doors at 9 p.m. Tickets: $8 Online and phone sales close at 6 p.m. day of show.
Conspirator with The Mad Violinist at Terminal West
If you’re not ready to head home after the music at Sweetwater 420 Fest ends at 11 p.m., you’re going to wantto head over to Terminal West for the official after party with Conspirator! The show starts at 11:30 p.m. with the Mad Violinist opening up first. We’re guessing Conspirator will be back out and ready to go by 1 a.m. Conspirator was originally conceived as an outlet for Disco Biscuit members, bassist Marc Brownstein and keyboardist Aron Magner, to explore new developments in electronic music, in a way that felt pure and authentic.
Doors at 10:30 p.m. Tickets: $15
Kingdom Rave 13: Seven Lions, Funtcase, Keys ‘N Krates at MetroPlex Atlanta
Break out your kandi and glowsticks, ravers, for a crazy night of EDM. The party is scheduled to go until 8 a.m. Saturday morning with over 60 regional favorite EDM DJs not including headliners, Seven Lions, Funtcase, and Keys ‘N Krates. You can check out the full lineup on the Kingdom Rave event page!
Doors at 9 p.m. Tickets: GA $40, VIP $100
Future Rock at The Masquerade-Hell Stage
Also appearing: Thomas Jack and Higher Learning
Chicago’s electronic rock stalwarts Future Rock continue to pound out pulsating beats with the verocity of a 70’s era rock band. Back home they are justly celebrated for legendary performances such as their set at Wicker Park Fest that turned the entire neighborhood into a vast and energized dance floor, forcing even the palest and most resolutely hard-to-impress hipsters to call up their inner dance masters. Live performances combine loops, samples and Mickey Kellerman’s keyboards with Darren Heitz’s drums plus Felix Moreno’s Larry Graham-style bass slapping to create an enormously powerful groove. Their light show is as good as their music, and their set have been known to inspire dance frenzies.
Doors at 9 p.m. Tickets: $12
Saturday, April 19th
Sweetwater 420 Fest: Sublime with Rome, EOTO, Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers, Anders Osborne in Centennial Park
Get ready to gear up for another big day of music in Centennial Park! The main Sweetwater stage will host Wesley Cook, EOTO, and Sublime with Rome, while over on the Planet 420 Stage Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers and Anders Osborne will be rocking. The lineup for the Not So Silent Disco includes DJ Applejuice, Sorted, MK Ultra, Ployd, Nit Grit, Up Until Now, Paul Basic & Supervision, and George Acosta.
Doors at 12 p.m. Tickets: Saturday GA $10, 3-day pass $18
Augustana with Twin Forks at Vinyl
Best known for their hits “Boston” and “Sweet and Low”, Augustana throws us back to 90’s alternative piano rock. Although based in California, the group formed in southern Illinois in 2002, while singer/keyboardist Dan Layus and guitarist Josiah Rosen were studying contemporary Christian music at Greenville College. The demand for this show was so big that it had to be moved from the smaller, Vinyl, venue at Center Stage to The Loft to account for all the fans.
Doors at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $18 in advance, $20 day of show. Online and phone sales end at 6 p.m. day of show.
DJ ?uestlove at MJQ Concourse
One night only at the MJQ Concourse, The Dirty Boy Social Club presents Dirty Thirds featuring DJ ?uestlove. He’s an extremely talented producer who has worked with Elvis Costello, Common, D’Angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Bilal, Jay-Z, Nikka Costa, Al Green, Amy Winehouse, John Legend. You want want to miss a chance to miss Questlove live!
Doors at 11 p.m. Tickets: $30 in advance, $40 at the show. Online and phone sales close at 4 p.m.
Kristy Lee with Sarah Peacock at Eddie’s Attic
That mighty rumble you hear coming out of Alabama is none other than Kristy Lee. Her voice like thunder, rolling in before a sweet southern rain, instantly washes the world away. Kristy Lee’s unique rhythms are absolutely nourishing, clean, pure, and unapologetic. This woman means it when she takes her voice out to play! By the time Kristy Lee reached 18, she landed her first album nationwide, to be sold exclusively with “Target Stores” across the states. Kristy Lee’s first album gave her an early jump on, what is now, a career. This Alabama girl can pack a house in any state. Tough luck sticking her in a category, because when it comes to writing songs, she has no limits!
Doors at 6 p.m. First show starts at 7 p.m. Second show at 9:30 p.m. Online and phone sales close at 5 p.m.
Mishka with Sarah Blacker at Smith’s Olde Bar
Born in Bermuda and raised in the Caribbean, Mishka is a traveler and a sailor at heart. A free spirit, whose lyrics melodies and grooves, are reflections of the roots and culture in which he grew, Mishka’s music is Caribbean at the core, and yet it’s an eclectic sound that contains many elements and genres. From bass heavy roots reggae, to mellow acoustic ballads, songs of love, songs of social justice and consciousness, you have to hear for yourself and experience the music. Mishka has released four full length Albums to date including the eponymous Mishka in 1999, One Tree in 2005, Above the Bones in 2009, Talk About in 2010, and EP’s Anything Anytime Anywhere (2011) and Ocean Is My Potion (2012), all of which have received critical acclaim around the world.
Doors at $12 Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 day of show. Online and phone sales close at 2 p.m. day of show.
The Love Language with Antique Firearms at 529
Friends and fans of The Love Language songwriter and frontman Stuart McLamb have learned to expect a lot, but rarely in a timely manner. Completing a triumvirate of spiritual transmissions spent lost (2009’s The Love Language) and found (2010’s Libraries), 2013’s Ruby Red exorcises the transient brilliance fostered by McLamb within the sheet rock walls of the album’s namesake artist space.
Doorst at 9 p.m. Tickets: $8 in advance, $10 day of show. Online and phone sales close at 6 p.m. day of show.
Sunday, April 20th
Sweetwater 420 Fest: Kung Fu, G. Love with Special Sauce, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Dirty Heads in Centennial Park
The final day of Sweetwater Fest is jam packed with amazing jam acts that will have you running from stage to stage making sure you don’t miss one second of the madness. Dirty Dozen Brass Band, G. Love and Special Sauce, and Chris Robinson Brotherhood will be playing the main Sweetwater Stage, but the Planet 420 Stage will also be hosting major acts including Kung Fu and Dirty Heads throughout the day. Ill Esha, Phutureprimative, and Archnemesis will round out the highlights for the Not So Silent Disco Stage. Make sure you schedule accordingly to fit in all this awesome acts!
Doors at 12 p.m. Tickets: Friday GA $10, Sunday VIP $60, GA 3-day pass $18
Kelly McFarling at Eddie’s Attic
Kelly McFarling is a wanderer of wilderness and cityscapes. Since her first release Distractible Child (2010), McFarling has been traveling extensively back and forth across the country, making her mark in the age old tradition of performing live music and connecting to audiences through her bold songwriting, powerful voice, and incredible band, the Home Team (Tim Marcus, Andrew Laubacher, Jonathan Kirchner).
Doors at 6 p.m. Tickets: $10 in advance, $14 at the door. Table seats are $12.50 and must be purchased in multiples of 4. Online and phone sales close at 5 p.m.
Cherub at Terminal West
Also appearing: Carousel and ProbCause
Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber take their fun very, very seriously. The pair behind the ambitious and emphatic Nashville duo Cherub craft hooky electro-pop that lyrically captures the risque, pleasure-seeking impulses of their youth, while their studio expertise results in grooves so alluring, even your parents can dance to them.
Doors at 8 p.m. Tickets: $15-$18
Midnight with Shitfucker at The EARL
Black Heavy Metal is the law, and Midnight subjugate all subjects with their highly anticipated debut album after nearly a decade of EPs and splits. Satanic Royalty is both a distillation of first-wave black metal magic and an extension into harder-rocking territories rampant with lust, filth, and sleaze. The name Midnight has been a cult one for years now, but here they prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt – bow down before their Satanic Royalty!
Doors at 8 p.m. Tickets: $13 in advance, $15 day of show. Online and phone sales close at 6 p.m.
