GOOSE ISLAND — On the heels of Riot Fest departing the city for suburban Bridgeview, Chicago’s newest major music venue is debuting its own festival this September.
The Salt Shed, which has quickly become a popular music destination in the few short years it’s been open, has announced that it will debut its Warm Love Cool Dreams festival the weekend of Sept. 28 and 29.
On Saturday, the “Warm Love” half of the series, The Jesus Lizard will headline, in their first Chicago appearance in six years.
Also appearing on Saturday will be Sextile, Provoker, King Woman, Bendik Giske, Aitis Band and Stress Positions.
On Sunday, the “Cool Dreams” lineup includes Kelela, Floating Points, Sister Nancy, Shabaka, 454, John Glacier and SML.
The bands will play in succession so there will be “no overlapping sets, each day feeling like a progression through a mixtape,” according to the press release.
Brent Heyl is the director of music for 16 on Center — the self-described “hospitality collective” that includes Empty Bottle, Thalia Hall and Evanston’s Space — and the managing partner for Empty Bottle Presents. He curated the festival, taking the unusual title from a line in Chicago author Nelson Algren’s seminal novel, “The Man with the Golden Arm.”
Heyl said the announcement of the Salt Shed’s new fest so close to the departure of Riot Fest was not planned, but an attempt for Salt Shed to build its own festival imprint.
“The impetus for this festival was really to try to create something where we could come back year after year for the bands that we have been building up through our venues that we love,” Heyl told Block Club. “Specifically to the Empty Bottle and the Thalia Hall audiences, there’s a lot of incredible bands — from niche up to widely recognized bands — that come from a certain genre that would be exciting to pair together.”
Having the iconic Jesus Lizard headlining opening night will certainly help put the festival on the map. The band will be pushing their new album Rack, which is scheduled to be released on Sept. 13 on Ipecac Records. Rack will feature the classic Jesus Lizard lineup — David Yow, guitarist Duane Denison, bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly — for the first time since the 1998 record Blue. The band known for their incendiary live shows last played Chicago at Metro in December 2017.
“We were looking at just different ideas and what would be the, the ideal kind of band to plant a flag with it,” Heyl said. “[The Jesus Lizard] come up in so many conversations anytime that we discuss different festival lineups, and we’re just like, ‘Okay, let’s take the big swing and go for it.’ And then coincidentally, I swear that we didn’t even know that they were recording a new record. So that played into it, and there’s so many other factors that it just feels like a lot of things aligned in a great way.
“It’ll be really special for some people as Steve Albini was just such a part of that band,” Heyl said about the iconic music engineer who died on May 7. Albini recorded several of the band’s records, including Head, Goat, Liar and Down in the ’90s. “He would have loved to have been there to help celebrate.”
Thursday’s announcement is just the beginning for the festival. While the bands will perform in Salt Shed’s outdoor “Fairgrounds,” there are plenty of other spaces throughout the facility, including in the indoor “Shed” space.
“The plan is to make use of the entire facility,” said Heyl. “We’re planning to use the inside, the outside, the roof decks. The Salt Shed has great options for concessions, so we’ll be able to bring in some unique stuff. We’re talking to some folks about a potential conversation stage, hopefully interviewing some of the artists and people that they’ve impacted around the city. So there’s definitely more to come.”
Tickets go on sale 10 a.m. Friday, with general admission tickets for the weekend at $90 and premium tickets at $200. Single day tickets will be $49 and $115, respectively. All tickets will be available at www.emptybottle.com.
More information about the upcoming festival and other performances is available on the Salt Shed website.
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