Well, it ain’t Sasquatch. But Live Nation has made good on its pledge to not let Memorial Day weekend pass quietly at the Gorge Amphitheatre.
End of the Rainbow Festival 2019 is a festival which takes place on the at 03:30 in Gorge Amphitheatre, Quincy, United States. End Of The Rainbow event, planned for Friday, May 24th through Sunday, May 26th at the Gorge Amphitheatre, has been postponed indefinitely with an undetermined date.
Last year when it was announced that the long-running festival would not return in 2019, Live Nation Pacific Northwest division President Jeff Trisler said the Gorge would continue hosting concerts over the holiday weekend — a tradition that predates Sasquatch. We know now what life after Sasquatch looks like, at least for this year.
On Wednesday, Live Nation unveiled a lineup for its new End of the Rainbow event, led by bass music king Bassnectar (playing two sets), cloud-rap graduate Lil Uzi Vert and trap star Young Thug. The lineup continues a heavy bent on EDM and hip-hop, with Griz, producer duo Flosstradamus, rappers Trippie Redd (another SoundCloud sensation) and Vic Mensa. Also included are livetronica favorites STS9, Sasquatch veterans Gogol Bordello and Santigold, plus somewhat of a curveball appearance from Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who released a more electronic project last year.
“The common denominator among all of that talent is it’s really movement-oriented, dance, rhythmic — however you want to characterize it,” Trisler says. “It’s really more of a party atmosphere than anything else.”
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The rest of the bill features downtempo maestro Emancipator, Eprom, London on da Track, Whipped Cream, Thriftworks, Dorfex Boss, Nessly, Run DMT and Darci. Live Nation consulted with Bassnectar’s management to help fill out the lineup.
While the lineup certainly looks like a small festival in scope, Trisler’s shying away from the term.
“We’ll never use the ‘F’ word again,” he jokes, alluding to the increasingly tough North American festival market. “It’s not a festival, it’s a holiday weekend event at the Gorge. … That weekend has always been the unofficial start of the outdoor music season in the Northwest. Everybody’s current memory is that Sasquatch has been there so long, a lot of people don’t even remember a time when it wasn’t. That’s what we wanted to do with this new event, was remind people that things have been going on Memorial Day weekend at the Gorge forever.”
Trisler knows fans are likely to think of it as a festival regardless, but the biggest difference he says is that End of the Rainbow is a single-stage event, meaning no more roaming the grounds or sound bleeding over from various side stages. All of the acts will perform on the main stage, backdropped by the Gorge.
The new don’t-call-it-a-festival festival runs May 24-26, with tickets going on sale 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 15. Three-day passes are $199 and there are no plans to offer single-day tickets.
Angling for a more ready-to-rage crowd than the indie-centric Sasquatch lineups of old, it’s clear End of the Rainbow is courting a different/younger demographic. It’s something Sasquatch — whose founder Adam Zacks is not involved with the new event — experimented with in its latter years, as its core audience reared on Bon Iver and Modest Mouse was aging out of its peak festival years. 2018’s last-gasp attempt at recapturing Sasquatch’s glory days found favor among online critics, but failed to sell enough tickets to keep the festival going.
Trisler says it’s too soon to tell whether End of the Rainbow will become an annual event, but one way or another, Memorial Day weekend will thump on at the Gorge.
It was supposed to fill the Memorial Day weekend void left by Sasquatch! Music Festival’s cancellation. But two months before the three-day, don’t-call-it-a-festival festival was set to uphold the tradition of the holiday weekend music at the Gorge Amphitheatre, End of the Rainbow has reportedly been called off.
In an email from Ticketmaster on Friday, ticket holders were notified that End of the Rainbow is “postponed indefinitely,” Consequence of Sound reported, citing “unforeseen complications” and “key artist cancellations.” Tickets to the originally planned May 24-26 bash led by EDM titan Bassnectar will be refunded and will not be honored if a makeup date ever materializes.
“End of the Rainbow was built on a desire to create a special event for all attendees at The Gorge,” the email reads. “Due to unforeseen complications and key artist cancellations, we have been forced to reschedule. We will promptly refund all tickets & shuttle accommodations while we work to reschedule a new date. We understand how disappointing and inconvenient this is, but this is not the end of End of the Rainbow. Stay tuned.”
Despite the assertion that End of the Rainbow may return at some point, the fact that the event’s social media accounts have been deleted and its website taken down doesn’t inspire much confidence.
Unlike Sasquatch and many other traditional music festivals, End of the Rainbow was billed as a single-stage event, heavy on EDM and hip-hop acts meant to lure a younger, party-hearty crowd. When the lineup — featuring two nights headlined by Bassnectar, Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug, Griz and STS9 — was announced last month, Live Nation Pacific Northwest president Jeff Trisler said the company did not plan on selling single-day tickets. Some Bassnectar fans were later irked when the schedule revealed the rap acts were stacked on Friday, with new ticket options for Friday-only and two-night, Saturday-Sunday passes becoming available.
Trisler could not be reached for comment Monday.
After 17 years, Sasquatch’s Memorial Day weekend reign at the Gorge ended following 2018’s attempt at returning to its indie roots. Despite a stellar lineup featuring indie-rock favorites Bon Iver, Modest Mouse and the National, and a plethora of rising stars like Lizzo and Phoebe Bridgers, it wasn’t enough to keep the struggling fest alive.
Michael Rietmulder: [email protected];on Twitter: @mrietmulder.Michael Rietmulder is the Seattle Times music writer.
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