Top 15 Music Festivals of 2014 – Part 2
Continuing where we left off, here are the rest of the awesome music festivals scheduled for this year. Take a look.
8. Sweetlife Festival:
The Sweetlife Festival began in 2010 as a simple parking lot gig behind Sweetgreens’s Dupont. The original show had an audience of only five hundred people. However, over the years, it has evolved into one of the biggest musical bills on the East Coast, offering a lineup of top artists. This year’s festival will be headlined by pop diva Lana Del Rey, rock acts Foster the People and rapper 2 Chainz. The annual celebration of “thoughtful living, wholesome food and flavorful music” is sure to be a top draw for music enthusiasts from all over the country.
9. Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival:
The Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival is an annual touring summer festival which is held across the United States and Canada. The festival has been sponsored by Rockstar Energy drink ever since its inception in 2008 and the hard rock/metal festival has featured some of the biggest names in the genre over the years. The festival’s official lineup will be announced on March 31 and it is set to kick off in early July. If rumors are true then heavy metal band Korn is set to headline this year’s festival. So keep your fingers crossed!
10. iHeartRadio Country Festival:
This time a new country music festival is being included to the year’s big music events. The first ever iHeartRadio Country Festival was recently announced by Clear Channel Media and it is set to showcase one of the year’s most exciting lineups. iHeartRadio already hosts an annual music festival but this is the first time a country music centric festival is being organized. The festival is slated to be held at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas in late March.
The festival’s highly impressive lineup includes a mix of young, established country artists led by Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum and Luke Bryan and includes names like Carrie Underwood, Eric Church, Hunter Hayes, Florida Georgia Line and Jake Owen.
11. Ultra Music Festival:
The Ultra Music Festival is one of the biggest electronic music festivals to be held in the US. Aptly, the festival is held in the party capital of the United States: Miami, Florida. The festival’s dates usually coincide with the annual Winter Music Conference which is another major electronic music festival.
Ultra Music Festival began as a relatively small one day affair in 1999 but has grown to be one of the biggest musical events in the country, usually lasting over a weekend. The 2013 version was unique in the sense that it was spread over two consecutive weekends, but this year the festival is back to a single weekend format.
Headlining the festival this time around will be the heavy weights of electronic music genre, Avicii, Tiseto, David Guetta and Armin Van Buuren. Accompanying them will be a host of other artists who have made a mark for themselves in this genre. This year’s festival is hyped up to be the biggest party of the year.
12. Rock on the Range:
One of the biggest, purely rock, music festivals around, Rock on the Range is back bigger and better than ever before. Featuring rock legends and icons Guns N Roses and Kid Rock, this year’s festival is expected to be one of the biggest events.
Rock on the Range event is an annual rock music festival which was first held in 2007. Like most first time festivals, it started off on a small note but grew with every passing year. As of today, it is held in two venues, Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus and Canad Inns Stadium in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Last year’s event saw more than a hundred thousand people attending the festival over three days, and following this year’s lineup announcement, it is highly likely that this particular record will be broken.
13. Florida Country Superfest:
The Florida Country Superfest is the inaugural edition of a new country mega fest which will feature some of the biggest names in the country music industry. Slated to be held at the EverBank Field in Jacksonville in June, the event will showcase artists like Jason Aldean, Florida Georgia Line, Little Big Town, Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert, Big & Rich and Eric Church.
Some of the biggest names in American country music scene, the artists are sure to attract fans from all over the US as they converge in Jacksonville to celebrate the long and storied tradition of country music in America.
14. Playboy Jazz Festival:
The Playboy Jazz Festival is one of the oldest jazz music festivals in the United States. The inaugural edition of the event was held in Chicago in 1959. Like the name suggests, the festival was founded by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in an attempt to breathe life into the fledging jazz scene. The second festival was held twenty years later at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and since then it has become an annual fixture in the year’s music calendar.
This year’s festival will showcase a wide variety of artists including Dianne Reeves, Jamie Cullum, George Benson, Dave Holland and Fantasia. Comedian George Lopez is set to host the event for the second year running.
15. OVO Fest:
And last, but not the least, in our list of top 15 music festivals is OVO Fest.
The OVO Fest is the brainchild of Canadian rapper and hip hop artist, Drake, who organized the first festival in 2010. The festival is famous for unannounced special guests who Drake convinces to perform at the festival. Over the years some of these special guests have included industry powerhouses like Jay Z, Eminem, Stevie Wonder and Kanye West.
The fifth edition of the OVO Fest will be headlined by the recently reunited hip hop duo Outkast, who will perform on the first day of the festival while Drake himself will start off the second day. The most exciting thing about the fest however, will be the appearance of the unknown guest stars that will perform alongside the two main acts.
This concludes the wonderful events that the music world has to offer us in 2014. Each one is more amazing than the other and each one hard to resist. If you call yourself a music lover, this list must have something for you.
Image courtesy: By Vinch (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons