June 16-18
Marking its third year, the Over Yondr festival, in Greenville, is famously phone-free: During the event, all attendee phones and smartwatches are privately secured in special Yondr pouches that will remain in the attendees’ possession but silenced throughout the festivities. And how about that lineup, then? For 2023, it’s U.S. Girls, Madison McFerrin, Melt, Kweku Collins, Kate Davis, Miss Grit, Jeremy and the Harlequins, Kendra McKinley, Charlie Sztyk and Seamstress, Camp Saint Helene, the Eugene Tyler Band, Cyote, Moonrocka, and 30 Rack. Plus there’s camping, yoga, lawn games, vendors, trivia, a lending library, tie-dying, kids’ fun, and more.
June 23-25
Described as “a family-friendly festival of folk, traditional, Celtic, and world music and dance,” the camping-encouraged Old Songs happens at the Altamont Fairgrounds near Albany. This year promises Guy Davis, Jake Blount, Low Lily, Rum Ragged, Beppe Gambetta, Cantrip, Tret Fure, Bruce Molsky, Anne Hills and Al Power, Scott Ainslie, Windborne, Grosse Isle, Gangspil, Steve Gillette, Maire Ni Chathasaigh and Chris Newman, the Gaslight Tinkers, Jim Gaudet and the Railroad Boys, Evie Ladin, Sara Milonovich and Daisycutter, the Vox Hunters and Flannery Brown, Andy Cohen, Rev. Robert B. Jones and Matt Watroba, Forty Degrees South, and a lot more.
August 5
The Hold Steady celebrate their new album The Price of Progress and 20th anniversary tour with the first-ever Positive Jam, an all-star festival at Arrowood Farms in Accord on August 5. The Brooklyn rockers headline, with support from Guided By Voices, The Tallest Man On Earth, Laura Stevenson, I Get Wild (plays Talking Heads), and Oceanator. The Positive Jam weekend festivities will kick off with THS Positive Jam Prelims Pool Party, slated for 5-8:00pm on August 4 at Inness. The event will include DJ sets from The Hold Steady, pool party, lawn games, and more, headlined by a special storytellers performance by The Hold Steady. Food and drink will be available for purchase. Tickets for THS Positive Jam Prelims Pool Party will be on sale exclusively with purchase of Positive Jam festival tickets.
Through September 1
The site of the 1969 Woodstock Festival rocks again! This month bites down hard at the outset with the Hollywood Vampires (June 1) and flies on from there with James Taylor (June 29), Robert Plant and Allison Krauss (July 1), the Steve Miller Band with Joe Satriani (July 2), Tears for Fears (July 5), Boy George and Culture Club (July 22), the Outlaw Music Festival with Willie Nelson, Gov’t Mule, and more (July 29), the Chicks (August 3), the Cat Bird Music Festival with the Lumineers and others (August 19-20), Rod Stewart plus Cheap Trick (September 1), and more.
Through September 7
Thanks to Chosen Family Presents, the brains behind the much-missed venue BSP, the beatific Saugerties sculpture park Opus 40 is back with its second season of sagely programmed outdoor music and other events. Already underway, the lineup has the Ulsterados (June 2), Juma Sultan’s Aboriginal Music Society (June 3), Laura Stevenson (June 10), the Mammals (June 11), Mystic Bowie’s Talking Dreads (June 17), Sessa with Pulso de Barro (June 25), Etran De L’Air (July 1), Craig Harris, Neil Clarke, Mala Waldron, and Christopher Dean Sullivan (July 8), Wild Pink (July 14), Clare and the Reasons (July 15), Deerhoof (September 7), and much more. Saugerties.
September 8-10
How does some fine live music amid the apple trees sound? Still another fresh, young festival on the map is Meadowlark, which here lands for its inaugural incarnation at Stone Ridge Orchard. The three-day, indie-/roots-minded soiree stars DeVotchka, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Jolie Holland, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Chris Smither, Lizzie No, Chris Staples, Babehoven, Beccs, Cloudbelly, Kaia Kater, Ryan Lee Crosby, and several more still to be announced. For the campers-welcome, all-ages weekend, the naturally beautiful surroundings will also feature a farmers’ market, local artisans selling their wares, and a full complement of food trucks.
September 15-17
Marking the 30th anniversary of indie label Dromedary Records, this multi-venue wingding will kick off with Feelies offshoots Yung Wu and Speed the Plough at Tubby’s in Kingston (September 15) and continue with Antietam, Sleepyhead, Flower, Cathedral Ceilings, and others at the Avalon Lounge and Left Bank Ciders in Catskill (September 16) and Lotion, Monsterland, the Mommyheads, Jenny Toomey, and more at the Avalon Lounge and Spike’s Record Rack in Catskill (September 17). See venue and Dromedary Records websites for prices and schedules.
This article appears in June 2023.
