Back on the Borderland: The Black Crowes, Caamp, Marcus King and more
2024 lineup marks 6th anniversary of WNY homegrown festival
After last year’s Borderland Festival, a full-on bacchanal featuring headlining sets by Trey Anastasio, Goose and Moe across 3 consecutive days, it was clear that Jennifer Brazill’s dream of building an enduring and increasingly eclectic roots music festival in her hometown had been realized.
As the Borderland team announces the lineup for the 2024 edition of its fest - held, as ever, in East Aurora’s bucolic Knox Fram State Park, 20 miles south of Buffalo, Friday, September 13 through Sunday, September 15 - that notion has been successfully underscored.
With headliners the Black Crowes, Caamp, Marcus King, and a special festival-capping performance by Dark Star Orchestra performing the Grateful Dead’s legendary 5-9-77 Buffalo Memorial Auditorium show topping a broadly diverse lineup of legendary and up-and-coming national and international roots-based artists and a full complement of regional bands, this year’s lineup builds on Borderland’s previous successes.
The Black Crowes recently released Happiness Bastards, their first album of new material in 13 years, and it’s a stunner - a searing blend of heavy roots rock, deep southern soul, acoustic beauty and Led Zeppelin-esque strut. If you’ve listened to the album at high volume or scoped some of the You Tube clips documenting the early days of the Happiness Bastards tour - which have included guest appearances by the likes of the Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood and Charlie Sexton - then you know what a major coup a regional headlining set in our neighborhood is.
Indie-roots rising force Caamp’s inclusion on the bill fills the role Goose played during the 2023 Borderland lineup - we’re catching a band on the way up, just as it stands poised to explode into a major force on the roots/jam scene. Marcus King has grown into a must-see artist in the mild of roots/Americana/southern soul geniuses like Gov’t Mule and the Tedeschi Trucks Band. And I don’t need to tell you how cool it is for the Buffalo-area GD contingent to be offered the opportunity to close the weekend with Dark Star Orchestra’s recreation of the enduring majesty that is/was the Dead’s 1977 Aud show.
The full lineup includes, in addition to the headliners, performances by funk/jazz/rock genius Cory Wong (who you should know through his work with Vulfpeck, the Fearless flyers, Dirty Loops, Jon Batiste, and more), the Wood Brothers, the Sheepdogs, Houndmouth, Sierra Hull, Eggy, the Dip, Wilderado, the Rumble and Sumbuck (featuring members of Caamp and Hiss Golden Messenger).
Adding to the pure musical gold on offer will be a set from the Wailers, representing arguably the finest live reggae band in the history of the genre, and certainly in possession of the form’s most indelible songbook.
Representing Western New York’s regional music scene will be Handsome Jack, Annie In The Water, Folkfaces Tribute to “John Prine”, Uncle Ben’s Remedy, BigMartha: An Allman Brothers Experience, Fuzzy & The Rusbelts, Borderland DeadAll-Stars, Buffalo Brass Machine, and Buffalo Music Club’s “Borderland Band Camp, ” with more to be announced in the coming weeks..
Presale Passes will go on sale Friday, April 26 at 10 a.m. and will continue for two hours. Fans can sign-up for a presale link by heading to borderlandfestival.com.
General On-Sale will begin Friday, April 26 at noon, through borderlandfestival.com.
Available passes included in the on sale are Weekend GA, Weekend VIP, “Anyday”
Single-day GA, Weekend on-site RV camping, Weekend Kissing Bridge off-site tent & RV camping, and various parking options.