Flying Lotus And The Flaming Lips Added To Desert Daze Lineup

Courtesy of Desert Daze – Desert Daze
Desert Daze announced the additions of Flying Lotus and The Flaming Lips to its 2019 lineup.

Desert Daze announced two major additions to its largely unrevealed lineup on Wednesday.

The festival, which returns to Moreno Beach in Lake Perris, Calif., Oct. 10-13, will host boundary-pushing producer Flying Lotus and indie-rock institution The Flaming Lips.

Both artists will offer unique sets. Flying Lotus, who releases his new album Flamagra later this month, will bring the latest edition of his immersive 3D tour to the festival. His Desert Daze announcement arrives a week after he announced August and September dates for his tour, which kicks off Aug. 10 at San Francisco festival Outside Lands and will make stops at venues including Brooklyn’s Brooklyn Mirage and Denver’s Mission Ballroom. 

null – Flying Lotus 3D
Debuting his 3D set at the FYF Fest in Los Angeles in July.

Meanwhile, when The Flaming Lips will take the Desert Daze, the beloved band will play its acclaimed 1999 album The Soft Bulletin in full. The performance – a U.S. music festival exclusive – follows a three-date UK tour this September where The Flaming Lips will similarly play The Soft Bulletin in its entirety.

The Flaming Lips will embark on a conventional U.S. tour this summer beginning July 18 at Ogden Amphitheater in Ogden, Utah, and concluding Aug. 7 at Red Hat Amphitheater in Raleigh, N.C.

The additions of Flying Lotus and The Flaming Lips follow previous Desert Daze announcements of Animal Collective and Stereolab, which embarks on its international reunion tour later this month. The rest of Desert Daze’s lineup remains under wraps.

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.”

Early bird passes for Desert Daze are already onsale and tickets, VIP packages and camping passes for the festival become available tomorrow.