Bonnaroo 2023 Artist Spotlight: The Beths

Bonnaroo Artist | The Beths
Bonnaroo History | Newbie
Stage & Time | Saturday | That Tent | 1:30-2:15pm || Toyota Music Den (Plaza 2) | 5:00-5:45pm

Like we’ve been doing for many years now, we’re making it our mission to help you get acquainted with many of our favorite acts from Bonnaroo‘s 2023 lineup. After roaring back to life last summer, after two years off due to Covid and weather, this year marks Bonnaroo’s 20th installment (and 22nd anniversary), boasting not only another great and varied lineup, but also more changes and improvements then we’ve seen in years, with more flexibility in ticketing and camping, a reimagined “Outeroo” campground area, new activations, and further new ways to Roo. Back once again in its usual June 15-18 timeframe, we’re counting down the days until another great weekend on the farm.

As we dig through the entire schedule, we’ll highlight a spread of performers spanning across genres and stages, big and small, new and old, to bring you some of the most interesting, lesser-known, and most highly-recommended among this year’s crop of artists. And as our time at ‘Roo approaches, we’ll also be bringing you some special features and full list-style daily lineup guides, to help you plan your weekend ahead of the fest. While these previews won’t span every artist, and might omit some more obvious must-see acts, we hope they’ll serve as a way to help you navigate Bonnaroo’s gargantuan lineup, and to make the most of your busy weekend at the fest!

Grab your tickets right here if you haven’t already, and read on for our Bonnaroo Artist Spotlight!

LEARN

New Zealand indie rockers The Beths initially formed in 2014, while studying jazz at the University of Auckland (though singer/songwriter Elizabeth Stokes and guitarist and producer Jonathan Pearce had been friends since high school), finding a musical bond over the indie and poppy punk stylings of their youth. The group’s debut EP, Warm Blood, arrived in 2016, and between it and their buzzworthy live show, they soon built a following across Australia and New Zealand, and signed a record deal abroad with Carpark, who both re-released their EP as well the band’s debut full-length Future Me Hates Me to international audiences in 2018. Celebrated for their edgy, incredibly catchy, layered, harmonically dense, and occasionally self-depreciating style, which lands somewhere between the biting, propulsive indie punk of Bully and the breezy, poppy indie of Alvvays, The Beths (named for Stokes; a nod to, apparently, how Gilmore Girls‘ Lorelei named her daughter after herself) quickly found buzz online and praise from numerous high-profile outlets, landing them on tours with the likes of Death Cab for Cutie, Pixies, and The Breeders. After a long stretch on the road, the band dropped a great sophomore effort with Jump Rope Glazers, though, unfortunately, it arrived in the summer of 2020, in the midst of the initial wave of Covid and lockdowns (which, of course, their home country of New Zealand took particularly seriously). It was during another lockdown, in late 2021, that the group worked on much of what would become their third LP, last year’s Expert in a Dying Field, completed in Los Angeles while on tour earlier in the year. The group’s best work to date, and also their first album to hit #1 at home in New Zealand, Expert sees The Beths perfecting their nostalgic, honed, poppy indie sound and earnest delivery, jam-packed full of infectiously hypnotic jams with a ton of heart and substance. Though you can also catch them supporting The National later in the summer, The Beths’ Bonnaroo debut will easily be one of the weekend’s coolest sets!

WATCH | “Expert in a Dying Field” (Official Video)