You’ve got ten days to game-plan your 2023 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, and organizers just announced schedules and set times, so it’s time to get pickin’.
SF’s annual, beloved, free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, SF’s only music festival that doesn’t make you feel like you’re the oldest person there, has been slowly releasing the names of the acts performing this year — as is their usual lead-up September tradition. But with the festival now coming up next weekend (Friday, September 29 - Sunday, October 1), the Chronicle informs us that organizers have released the full schedule and set times, all of which are now posted on the festival website.
We’ve also included these below, and you’ll notice something new. There is now a stage called Horseshoe Hill, which will feature a few musical acts, but will also have poetry and literature readings organized by City Lights Bookstore, and lecture sessions like “Doc Watson at 100.”
Music festivals always force hard decisions with schedule overlaps, and Friday’s frustrating conflicts will make you pick between bluesman Shakey Graves (5:05 p.m.) and Lilly Hiatt, who’s John Hiatt’s daughter (5 p.m.). Then to close the day out, you’ll have to pick between the 70s R&B sounds of Thee Sacred Souls (5:50 p.m.) and L.A. folk-rock band Dawes.
On Saturday you’ve got fiddler Laurie Lewis (12:45 p.m.) and longtime songwriting legend Rickie Lee Jones (4 p.m.). But time conflicts loom, with near-simultaneous performances by some of the day's biggest stars, guitarist Steve Earle (5:45 p.m.), Australian indie rockers The Church (5:45 p.m.), and the “Soul Queen of New Orleans" Irma Thomas (6 p.m.).
Sunday sees X’s John Doe with his new act John Doe Folk Trio (12:25 p.m.), Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express (1:35 p.m.), folktronica star Beth Orton (3:05 p.m.), and vocalist Rufus Wainwright (4:15 p.m.). But hard decisions loom when you have Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (4:45 p.m.), Kurt Vile & the Violators (5:55 p.m.), and the traditional close-out set by Emmylou Harris (5:45 p.m.).
Plus, we’ll see the return of the old Arrow Stage, which has not been at the festival since 2016.
And they are livestreaming some of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival acts on something called HSBtv. But you do need to download the HSBtv app, or have an Apple TV or Roku account, so it does require you to download something.
Image: @HSBFest via Twitter
