With Lockn’ 2014 featuring Tom Petty, Wilco, Willie Nelson, various incarnations of the Grateful Dead, and one of the last performances ever (and very last festival performance – barring a future reunion) by the Allman Brothers, the bar was set pretty high for following years. Well, with Lockn’ 2015 less than a month away, it’s time to take a look and see what we should expect from this year’s Lockn’ Festival.
The beauty of Lockn’ is that they have no overlapping sets of music and they come up with the most amazing all-star collaborations and special musical combinations. Collaborations that you will never get to see anywhere else. The opening day is a fine example of this unique collaboration. “The Doobie Incident,” a prime example, is The String Cheese Incident playing with the legendary Doobie Brothers. We can only imagine where this Long Train Runnin’ combo is going to take us. Another highlight for Thursday will certainly be Billy and the Kids, composed of Bill Kreutzmann of the Grateful Dead with Aron Magner, Reed Mathis, Tom Hamilton and special guest John Popper along with sax player Dominic Lalli. I saw these guys (minus the special guests) play the 9:30 club back in June and they kicked ass with a very upbeat and rocking rendition of many of Dead tunes. Speaking of The Grateful Dead, did we mention that all four of the core members of The Grateful Dead will be in attendance this year? Mickey Hart will be joined by the electronic duo EOTO. If that’s not enough, the rest of day will also showcase a non-collaborative set from String Cheese Incident, and shows from Little Feat, Deer Tick, Soulive, Strangefolk, Moogatu and the late night show with Galactic in the new Blue Ridge Bowl!
