Hopscotch Festival (Raleigh): Public Enemy, Broken Social
By Team JamBase Mar 31, 2010 • 8:45 am PDT

The Hopscotch Music Festival is scheduled for September 9-11, 2010, in downtown Raleigh, NC with 120 bands in 10 venues over three days. Tickets go on sale Thursday, April 1, at www.etix.com and www.hopscotchmusicfest.com.
The festival will be headlined by two nights in Raliegh City Plaza, which opened last fall. Panda Bear and Broken Social Scene will headline Friday, Sept. 10, with support from Triangle favorites The Rosebuds. Public Enemy will headline with a rare full-band set on Saturday, Sept. 11. Los Angeles trio No Age and Raleigh’s The Love Language will open. More than 110 bands will be spread between nine clubs throughout the festival’s three days. A sample of those bands includes:
![]() |
Lucero
9th Wonder
Akron/Family
Marissa Nadler
Harvey Milk
Fucked Up
Javelin
Richard Buckner
Megafaun
Kylesa
Atlas Sound
Harlem
Bear in Heaven
Carefully assembled by Hopscotch Director Greg Lowenhagen and Curator and Independent Weekly Music Editor Grayson Currin, the lineup spotlights the core of the Triangle’s rich music scene by putting it on the same stages as some of the world’s best bands.
“Several music festivals in the Triangle make it clear how strong the talent in North Carolina is, and they do it better and better each year,” Currin says. “We don’t want to replace that. Rather, we want to expand on it by showing that this area has the caliber of bands and listeners that can support a big music festival.”
Lowenhagen hatched the idea for Hopscotch after moving to Raleigh following stints in Austin and Chicago, cities known for their support of live music festivals. He was surprised that no events in the Triangle regularly brought in a fleet of bands from outside of town. “When I returned from being away, I realized the Triangle, with its strong music heritage and abundance of local talent, seemed ready for a different, more nationally recognizable festival to call its own,” he says.
TICKETS
Admission for Hopscotch Music Festival is designed to suit a wide range of fans. Individual tickets for the shows in Raleigh City Plaza – on Friday, Sept. 10, featuring Panda Bear, Broken Social Scene and The Rosebuds; on Saturday, Sept. 11, featuring Public Enemy, No Age and The Love Language – cost $30 each. For $45, fans can buy a wristband that allows entry into all nine festival clubs for all three days. A limited number of $85 wristbands gain fans admission to both City Plaza shows and all clubs, saving $20 off of face value. A very limited number of $120 VIP wristbands are available. Those wristbands include skip-the-line access to all shows and a VIP festival kickoff party on Thursday, Sept. 9. In cooperation with cosponsor etix.com, Hopscotch Music Festival is offering wristbands and tickets to all fans with reduced service charges.
CURRENT LINEUP
9th Wonder & Friends, Active Child, All Tiny Creatures, American Aquarium, Americans in France, Atlas Sound, Balmorhea, Bear in Heaven, Best Coast, Birds of Avalon, Black Congo NC, DJ George Brazil, Broken Social Scene, Brutal Knights, Richard Buckner, Burning Star Core, Cannabis Corpse, Caitlin Cary’s Small Ponds with Tres Chicas, Collections of Colonies of Bees, Cults, Greg Davis, Double Dagger, Double Negative, The Dynamite Brothers, EAR PWR, ExMonkeys, First Rate People, Followed by Static, Ben Frost, Fucked Up, Future Islands, Golden Boys, The Golden Filter, Goner, Gray Young, Ryan Gustafson, Hammer No More the Fingers, Harlem, Harvey Milk, Horseback, John Howie Jr. & The Rosewood Bluff, I Was Totally Destroying It, Javelin, Jeb Bishop Trio, Juan Huevos, Kill the Noise, The Kingsbury Manx, Kooley High, Kylesa, The Light Pines, Lonnie Walker, The Love Language, Lucero, Luego, Max Indian, Erin McKeown, Megafaun, Midtown Dickens, The Moaners, The Monologue Bombs, Motor Skills, Mountains, Jon Mueller, Marissa Nadler, No Age, Ocean, Old Bricks, Panda Bear, Pattern Is Movement, Pictureplane, Plague, Pontiak, Public Enemy, The Rosebuds, Schooner, Sightings, spcl gst, Spider Bags, Thien, Tigercity, Tortoise, Treasure Fingers, US Christmas, Sharon Van Etten, Veelee, Vincent Black Shadow, War on Drugs, Washed Out, Weedeater, Whatever Brains, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Yip-Yip. More acts to be announced April 12.