The Virgin Festival: Finally, A Music Fest Without Jack Johnson On Its Bill (Maybe)

Last year, the Virgin Festival–Richard Branson’s Baltimore concert that featured the Police and the Smashing Pumpkins as headliners, as well as a few talking gnomes–overlapped with Perry Farrell’s slimmed-down-to-one-weekend Lollapalooza^*. Virgin announced on Friday that this year’s fest would take place Aug. 9 and 10, which also happens to be the same weekend as Jersey City’s All Points West Festival. Which means that Virgin will have one distinction from most of this year’s multi-day music sweatfests:

Surfing songwriter Jack Johnson will likely be nowhere near the top of the bill, since he’s already taken one of the top spots on All Points West’s roster. Last year, when Virgin and Lollapalooza overlapped, they shared a lot of lower-tier artists, but their lineups diverged when it came time to list the headliners: the Police and the Smashing Pumpkins were on the Baltimore bill, while Daft Punk and Pearl Jam headlined in Chicago. Of course, the lack of overlapping headliners means that Virgin likely won’t have Radiohead on its bill either, but hey, that’s the price you have to pay for maybe getting to schmooze with Richard Branson.

Virgin Mobile Festival bringing top music acts back to Baltimore [Baltimore Business Journal]

^* Lollapalooza takes over Chicago Aug. 1-3 this year.