Hozier, Japanese Breakfast, and Dawes to headline first day of XPoNential fest
Festival passes go on sale Friday.
The lineup for this year’s XPoNential fest is being doled out one day at a time.
The weekend-long summer gathering presented by adult-alternative radio station WXPN-FM (88.5) will take place from July 26 to 28 at Wiggins Park and the adjacent BB&T Pavilion on the Delaware River waterfront in Camden. The opening-day band list was announced Tuesday.
Headliner at the BB&T will be Hozier, the Irishman born Andrew Hozier-Byrne whose second album, Wasteland, Baby! topped the Billboard chart upon release this month. The “Take Me to Church” singer broke though with his self-titled album in 2014 and returned late last year with the forthright single “Nina Cried Power,” featuring gospel great Mavis Staples.
Also playing under the BB&T roof in the nighttime portion of the show: continually rising Philadelphia indie heroine Japanese Breakfast (the nom de rock of songwriter and memoirist Michelle Zauner) and 215 jazz-funk-R&B-hip-hop collective Killiam Shakespeare.
Next door on the two stages at the open-air Wiggins Park, the Taylor Goldsmith-fronted XPN stalwarts Dawes are on top of the early-evening bill. Also on tap: the veteran soul woman and song interpreter Bettye LaVette, who last year released Things Have Changed, an album of Bob Dylan covers; Nashville singer-guitarist Rayland Baxter; British songwriter Nilufer Vanya; young Clarksdale, Miss., blues guitarist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram; and West Chester-born six-piece Foxtrot & the Get Down.
Don’t be surprised if this list of acts grows. The lineup for the Saturday fest, which will also take place in Wiggins Park and the BB&T, and Sunday (Wiggins only) will be coming in the next few weeks.
Festival passes go on sale Friday, March 29. Go to xpnfest.org for more information.