Is March too early to get your festival season started? We don’t think so and, frankly, we don't care. Treefort Music Fest, running now until Sunday, March 26 in downtown Boise, Idaho, is too good to miss. Looking at headliners alone, the festival boasts two of the biggest names in independent music today, lovable goof Mac DeMarco and indie goddess Angel Olsen. Apart from the headliners though, the bulk of the lineup originates in Boise (153 out of 400 bands are from the city, to be exact). While Boise band names like Magic Sword or Sun Blood Stories may mean nothing to you now, by the end of the weekend we suspect they’ll be synonymous with great music and fresh mountain air. I'll put it this way: Built to Spill were once just some band from Boise and now they’re, well, Built to Spill. TreeFort wears its love of all things PNW music on its sleeve, enlisting plenty of KEXP fav's from Seattle and Portland for a venerable celebration of the region's best sounds. Tongue-in-cheek rockers Chastity Belt play the main stage tonight, Thunderpussy, who are as absurd, fantastic, and absurdly fantastic live as you'd expect a band called Thunderpussy to be, perform twice during the weekend, and SassyBlack, one half of the late, great, experimental hip hop duo THEESatisfaction, take the stage on Friday. You've also already got one friend going: KEXP's own DJ Sharlese, who helps you discover the best of local music each Saturday on Audioasis, speaks on a panel hosted by Portia Sabin of famed Olympia label Kill Rock Stars. The panel - one of many focusing on independent arts - takes place at noon on Sunday, March 26 at the Owyhee.
Check out the video tour below or just take our word for it and hit the road. We guarantee you'll come back with at least one band to brag about having discovered first or Jonathan Richman isn't playing TreeFort.
Oh yeah, he'll be there too.
What are you still doing here? Get your butt to Boise!
Week by week, we get closer to MoPOP’s Sound Off! finals on Saturday, March 11th, which will be broadcast LIVE on KEXP's Audioasis! Now in its 16th year, this all-ages "battle of the bands" has introduced us to acts like The Lonely Forest, Naked Giants, Manatee Commune, and more.
