Desert Daze Adds Devo, Wu-Tang Clan, More To Lineup

Courtesy of Desert Daze – Desert Daze
Desert Daze announced its full lineup on Tuesday.

California festival Desert Daze announced several lineup additions on Tuesday.

Leading the announcement are headliners Wu-Tang Clan, Ween and Devo, who join previously announced headliner The Flaming Lips. As with The Flaming Lips, which will perform 1999’s landmark album The Soft Bulletin in full, Wu-Tang and Ween will be performing their own seminal records, 1993’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and 1994’s Chocolate & Cheese, in their entireties.

Wu-Tang is currently on a 36 Chambers anniversary tour. Pollstar Boxoffice highlights include a June 9 gig at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, where the hip-hop group sold 2,280 tickets and grossed $286,850, and a June 14 concert at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., where Wu-Tang sold 6,455 tickets and grossed $418,443.

Ween’s most recent Pollstar Boxoffice report is a sold-out two-night stand at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, N.Y., where the rockers sold 3,914 tickets and grossed $272,802 on Dec. 15-16, 2018.

Devo, meanwhile, is launching its farewell tour at Desert Daze; the band’s booking at the festival is its only one currently on the books.

Courtesy of Desert Daze – Desert Daze lineup
Desert Daze’s complete 2019 lineup.

Khruangbin, Pussy Riot, Moses Sumney, Jessica Pratt, Alvvays and several other acts have also been added to Desert Daze’s lineup.

Today’s additions join a lineup that already includes Flying Lotus, Stereolab, Animal Collective, The Claypool Lennon Delirium, The Black Angels, Parquet Courts, Dungen, DIIV and Atlas Sound.

Desert Daze was nominated for “Music Festival Under 30K Capacity” at the 2019 Pollstar Awards. In 2018, Tame Impala, My Bloody Valentine and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard headlined the event, although lightning storms forced organizers to end the festival — and Tame Impala’s set — early on Friday.

“I guess we’re just hitting the people who are tired of being marketed to,” Desert Daze’s co-founder Phil Pirrone told Pollstar last fall. “I think we are the anti-festival. I think festivals have become Festival TMs. They’re all big business now.” With their psychedelic-oriented programming, the festival has sought to combat that. Added Pirrone: “I guess the common thread for me, is that everybody that we book is telling the truth.”

In April, Pirrone wrote a guest post for Pollstar where he described the challenges and rewards of running a festival like Desert Daze. “A music festival should be a celebration of good music,” he wrote. “A business venture is the very last thing it should be, even though it won’t survive unless it is one.”