Bonnaroo 2025 Artist Spotlight: Lip Critic

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 2025 lineup. A festival that feels like it’s ever evolving (especially with some big tweaks and improvements in the past few summers post-pandemic), this year marks Bonnaroo’s 22nd installment (and 24th anniversary), boasting not only another great and varied lineup, but also some exciting additions like the brand new, high-tech Infinity Stage, billed as “the world’s largest 360-degree, immersive sound experience” and unlike anything that’s ever been showcased in North America. Back once again in its usual June 12-15 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!

We’re told tickets are very low and on track to sell out, so grab those right here if you haven’t already (and don’t forget the camping or parking pass), and read on for our Bonnaroo Artist Spotlight!

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As we’ve previously mentioned, Bonnaroo’s Who Stage has been moved this year to Outeroo (campground Plaza 7, taking the place of what was last the Galactic Giddy Up), after a couple of years in an upgraded setup in Centeroo (to make room for the Infinity Stage), and in a more intimate form before that (previously known as the Sonic Stage), leaving no smaller, full-time music stages left in the main venue (after also losing the New Music on Tap Lounge and Cafe Where over the years). We understand the why, and with tens of thousands of people coming and going from camp, it’ll hopefully still attract solid crowds with less big stage competition, but, still, it’s a bummer to lose closer proximity to what has always been one of the best musical discovery outlets in Centeroo. There’s no better example as to why the Who Stage lineup should not be overlooked this year than New York electro-punk outfit Lip Critic, whose debut full-length, Hex Dealer, was one of last year’s best, weirdest, and most essential records. Formed in 2018, while students at SUNY Purchase (a school known for fostering some really creative artists), one of Lip Critic’s most eye-catching attributes is their unusual lineup: two drummers (Daniel Eberle and Ilan Natter) and two samplers (Bret Kaser and Connor Kleitz, with the pair also serving as synth players and co-producers in the studio, and Kaser as primary vocalist and lyricist). Adopting a unique and bombastic sound that blurs the line between punk, hardcore, electronic, postmodern pop, hip hop, and experimental noise rock, Lip Critic have, across a few short years and just a handful of releases, become one of New York’s buzziest, wildest, and most interesting bands, acclaimed for their live performances, which are part rave and part punk show. The band’s aggressive and frenetic debut EP, Kill Lip Critic, dropped in 2019, with an extended followup, Lip Critic II, arriving the following year and featuring thicker, glitchier, more electronic arrangements. 2021’s Lip Critic: Truth Revealed EP continued their prolific run, and the following few years saw the group’s hype continue to build, as they finished college (they’re now in their mid-20s), inked a deal with Partisan Records (home to other great bands like Idles and Fontaines D.C.), and began work on what would become their first proper LP, last year’s Hex Dealer, marking a more serious shift to making music a full-time focus. More honed, off-kilter, hard-hitting, conceptual, and ambitious than any of their prior work, and as nihilistic and sarcastic as ever, Hex Dealer sees the band- who all hail from the greater New York area (Connecticut, Staten Island, Manhattan, and Rockland County), and count an eclectic variety of influences among them- maintain a fiercely DIY approach, both in how they write and record, and how they conceive of their wild and visceral live shows. Though their set falls in a premium timeslot that will surely make it hard to escape the main stages, we suspect that Lip Critic’s debut on the farm will be one the low-key best sets you’ll see all weekend if you can make the time to hit the campground; don’t say we didn’t warn ya.

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