Pitchfork Music Festival is On for 2021. What Can We Learn from It?

We see some new faces on tour for the fall and something almost unheard of: women headliners!

We’ve been tracking festival lineup announcements as a way of reading the tea leaves for New Orleans’ festivals in October. Every festival that makes it to the stage of announcing a lineup ups the odds that French Quarter Festival, Jazz Fest, Buku: Planet B, and Voodoo will get there too. On Monday, Pitchfork.com announced the lineup for the Pitchfork Music Festival, which will take place in Chicago September 10-12. 

1. “To ensure the health and safety of guests, artists, and staff, the Pitchfork Music Festival will adhere to the city of Chicago’s COVID-19 protocol, and will keep attendees updated as federal, state, and local regulations evolve. For the latest safety guidelines, visit Pitchfork Music Festival’s Health and Safety page.” - That kind of vague language will likely to be the case for all New Orleans’ festivals as well. Too much can change between now and then to make COVID-related statements meaningful. Between now and October, we could see immunization passports required, we could see go with God, and we could see a lot of points in-between. 

2. I had to double and triple check to make sure that I saw correctly that the festival’s headliners are all women—Phoebe Bridgers, St. Vincent, and Erykah Badu. Women dominate Saturday’s lineup with Angel Olsen, Kim Gordon, Waxahatche, Jamila Woods, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Faye Webster, Amaarae, and Horsegirl. Buku and Voodoo, take note. Neither festival has done a good job in the past of booking women, and the last time I did the math, Voodoo managed to get women onstage for around 27 percent of the acts, and Buku was lower. As Pitchfork shows, you can do better if you try. The talent’s out there. 

3. Who would you want to see come to town? Erykah Badu would make sense at Jazz Fest, though I’m not sure her trippy funk will survive the baking sun on Congo Square Stage in the late afternoon. (And as a side note, will the sun be as punishing in October as it is in late April on that stage?) I’d also happily see Waxahatchee on the Fais-Do-Do Stage.

Much of the lineup would make sense at Voodoo including Bridgers, St. Vincent, and Angel Olsen.

4. … and in an unrelated to Pitchfork Music Festival take, The Dead and Company tour will be in Tampa on the Thursday before the first weekend of Jazz Fest and the Houston area on the second Friday of Jazz Fest. Both do-able, though the second weekend is more likely since the next announced stop after Tampa is the following Monday in North Carolina—a long trek from New Orleans.