indie

I love how they describe the location for the new Hangout Beach Music & Arts Festival—"on the beach, next to the Hangout restaurant, at the southern end of Alabama Highway 59. If you hit the Gulf of Mexico, you went just a little too far."

Word first came out in December that a new festival was planned was planned for May 14-16. Now the festival is out with its first round of announcements, and it is a pretty impressive start.  The first batch of artists named suggest an edgier outlook than might have been expected. Zac Brown Band, John Legend, and Alison Krauss and Union Station lead the initial slate of acts named.

Other notable names include The Black Crowes, Brett Dennen, Guster, Girl Talk, The Whigs, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Keller Williams, Matisyahu, Jerry Jeff Walker, Ozomatli and the Blind Boys of Alabama. The festival says there will be more than 60 acts. This batch was about one-third of that.

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The influential Chicago indie weekend Pitchfork Music Festival will return for its fifth running July 16-18 at Union Park in Chicago. The festival is expected to follow up with its preliminary artist announcement as soon as tomorrow. A reunited Pavement and songstress St. Vincent are two of the rumored acts.

When Langerado sunk into the Everglades last year, the title of first big rock festival of the year fell open. But it wasn't long until another Florida festival—this one up the coast in Spring Break country—would step in to make a bid for the title.

The Harvest of Hope 2009 festival, which takes its name from the farm labor charity it supports, presented more than 100 punk, indie, hip-hop, folk, dance and blues performers and attracted a huge audience of 17,000 to the St. Johns County Fairgrounds in St. Augustine FL.

Harvest of Hope will be back March 12-14 at the same locale to vie for its place in the ranks of national rock festivals. That's smack dab in Spring Break week. The festival can big numbers of musical fun seekers from Daytona, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Gainesville—all in its region.

This year, 150 acts will appear on four stages, along with workshops, vending and other festival attractions. Great on-site camping is available. Three day passes are very affordable at $30-$50.