Indy Week to Host Hopscotch Fest in September

Apologies for posting this a day late (I just discovered this as visiting my computer-less grandparents yields limited Internet access), but this is a big story to stary off 2010.

The Independent Weekly will be launching a music festival in September 2010 called Hopscotch, set to span 10 venues in downtown Raleigh (note music editor Grayson Currin's addition to the comments section). The festival is set for Sept. 9-11 (that's a Thursday-Saturday structure), about two months before Troika usually falls, and we are to expect 150 bands of national scale at Slim's, Tir Na Nog and downtown Raleigh's City Center.

At the N&O, Dave Menconi states the obvious:  this is a surprising time for any publication to be doing anything other than cutting back. Regardless, the festival seems to be a Raleigh version of South by Southwest. Though it's months away, the lineup will likely include Currin pals the Rosebuds, Bowerbirds and Megafaun--the latter two formerly of Burlytime Records--as well as some Merge acts (e.g. the aforementioned Rosebuds and the Love Language). Here's hoping Superchunk reserve

With Merge taking over Chapel Hill every five years, and Troika tackling Durham annually (and Trekky, Piedmont Biofuels, among other small ones), it seems like the capitol could blow the other two points of the Triangle away. It certainly is aspiring to be much grander in scale that Cherry Bounce. We'll be following this one closely for sure.