The First Ever Oceans Calling Music Festival Looks Amazing
I'm jealous.
Very rarely do I suffer from FOMO because I really enjoy being at home watching movies with my bulldog Nellie, but after seeing the lineup of musicians and celebrity chefs for the very first Oceans Calling Music Festival, I’m jealous I’ll have to miss it.
This years festival being held on September 30th to October 2nd is the inaugural one and was put together by the band O.A.R. and its lead singer Marc Roberge. The band formed in Rockville, Maryland in 1996, and the festival is being held 3 hours east in Ocean City Maryland.
With most music festivals that aren’t as established as Rolling Loud or Lollapalooza, you tend to see an unbalance in the days with bigger guests on one day and the two others left with bands or musicians with less notoriety. You see that now with the Boston Calling music festival that’s this weekend. The Sunday lineup features Weezer and Metallica, and with the Foo Fighters dropping out, Friday and Saturday don’t have a ton of pizzaz. That’s not the case with Oceans Calling; all three days are loaded.
Friday September 30th is headlined by two of my all time favorite bands, O.A.R. and Dave Matthews Band. I’ve only seen O.A.R. live once in my lifetime and God damn were they AMAZING. King is a fabulous album live and I would love to hear them play songs like Nantucket Is Gone or Miss You All The Time. As for Dave Matthews Band, I’ve never heard them live, but I’d be psyched to hear Shake Me Like A Monkey or Ants Marching.
While those two are the big headliners for night one, there are some great side pieces to go off of them. Peach Pit, a band I’ve been listening to a bunch lately, is on Friday night; they have an awesome indie vibe that would be killer to hear live. And then Group Love is also on the Friday night docket. I don’t know a lot of their songs, but hearing Tongue Tied in person would be electric.
On Saturday October 1st, Oceans Calling brings the heat with four big time names; Cage The Elephant, The Lumineers, Logic, and Jimmy Eat World. With Jimmy Eat World, I know the one song that everyone knows, The Middle. They have a good sound and one that I imagine is great live. While I’m not the biggest fan of Logic, he adds a different style of music to the festival. Rap mixed in with alternative and indie rock is a nice touch.
Cage The Elephant and The Lumineers are huge named bands that keep the festival vibes going. Cage The Elephant and The Lumineers may have different styles of music, but they’re both perfect vibes to listen to when you want to kickback and relax.
Another key addition to the Saturday lineup is the legendary rock cover band, Barstools own Pup Punk that consists of Robbie Fox, Rone, PFT, and Frankie Borrelli. Even El Pres Portnoy couldn’t believe the band was on such a stacked lineup.
I saw them live this past winter at Toads Place in New Haven with my dad and holy shit did they bring the house down. They opened with Seven Nation Army and the venue got rowdy beyond belief when they played Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. People were climbing the cage, security got active, and HQ Spider was crowd surfing.
Day three, Sunday October 2nd, provides another unreal lineup of legendary musicians. Alanis Morissette is the main headliner, and while I don’t know really any of her music, I’m sure she’ll be great.
The two artists that get me excited are Sublime and Cyndi Lauper; who would have ever thought those two would be on a festival set list together. Sublime rocks, there’s no other way to put it. They’re an unreal band with so many deep cuts, but when you see them live I imagine you want to hear the hits like Santeria and What I Got. Then to go from that to Cyndi Lauper singing Girls Just Want To Have Fun and Time After Time, the vibes stay immaculate.
A great side performance on the Sunday set list is Tai Verdes as well. He’s a rising star with great songs like Stuck In The Middle, A-O-K, and DRUGS. Exciting things.
Oh yeah, and to go with those great musicians is a star studded lineup of talented chefs. The three celebrity chefs that are billed on the festival poster are Robert Irvine from Worst Cooks In America, Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods, and Amanda Freitag who is always great as a judge on Chopped.
Holy shit am I jealous. My dad and I are just praying that Oceans Calling year one goes great so there is a year two that we can attend.
Got me fired up for summer. Huge lineup, great article. Lifetime subscription secured no further questions please