Stern Grove Announces 2023 Lineup: Flaming Lips, Indigo Girls, Patti Smith, And More

The 2023 Stern Grove Festival announced its 2023 summer lineup Tuesday morning, with the Flaming Lips, plus Lyle Lovett, Buddy Guy, the Indigo Girls, and plenty more.

The free annual San Francisco outdoor summer concert series, The Stern Grove Festival, released its 2023 schedule Tuesday morning, and they did it the official way; unlike last year when the lineup was accidentally released early on Muni ads. That said, last year was an impressive lineup, and this year’s concert series is no slouch either, with performances scheduled by the Flaming Lips (August 20), Patti Smith with Bob Mould opening (August 13), Buddy Guy (August 6), Lyle Lovett and His Large Band (July 9), and the Indigo Girls over Pride weekend (June 25) among more.

Booking the Indigo Girls and Neko Case to perform on Sunday of Pride weekend is surely a good get. Jazz fusion band Snarky Puppy opens the summer series on Sunday, June 18; dance star Santigold plays July 2; and the requisite SF Symphony show is July 23.

The Stern Grove Festival is San Francisco’s oldest free music festival, this being its 86th annual iteration. Things were somewhat in doubt last season after a gigantic water main break scuttled the end of the 2021 season. But the outdoor amphitheater concert area was rehabilitated enough for the festival to resume last summer.

If you’ve done this Stern Grove drill before since they instituted ticketing, you know that tickets are free, but you have to remember to reserve them several weeks prior to the show. (They’re usually gone in about five to ten minutes). This year, it’s structured so that the magic ticket time is 2 p.m. on the Thursday or Friday four weeks before the show.

So to make it easy, we’re listing the performance dates and ticket reservation dates for the 2023 Stern Grove Festival below:

June 18: Snarky Puppy, Isaiah Sharkey (Tickets Thursday, May 18)

June 25: Indigo Girls with full band, Neko Case (Tickets Thursday, May 25)

July 2: Santigold, Ogi (Tickets Friday, June 2)

July 9: Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, Andrew St. James (Tickets Friday, June 9)

July 16: Angelique Kidjo, Jupiter & Okwess (Tickets Friday, June 16)

July 23: SF Symphony with special guest Lettuce (Tickets Friday, June 23)

July 30: Bob Moses, Neil Frances (Tickets Friday, June 30)

August 6: Buddy Guy, Eric Gales (Tickets Thursday, July 6)

August 13: Patti Smith, Bob Mould (Tickets Thursday, July 13)

August 20: The Big Picnic featuring the Flaming Lips, Alan Palomo (Tickets Thursday, July 20)

Related: Liz Phair Cancels Sunday’s Stern Grove Show ‘Due to COVID,’ Ani DiFranco to Headline Instead [SFist]

Image: Stern Grove via Facebook