Bonnaroo Artist | Washed Out
Bonnaroo History | 2014
Stage & Time | Sunday | Infinity Stage | 9:45-10:45pm
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 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!
LEARN
More than decade since the last time we featured Washed Out in a Bonnaroo Artist Spotlight– which was also the last time the project appeared at ‘Roo- it’s interesting now to reflect on the legacy and impact of the preeminent indie artist, born Ernest Greene, who was a torchbearer of the chillwave scene of the late 2000s and early 2010s, a scene which even way back in 2014 we noted was beginning to fade out of vogue. Music moves in circles though, and, like so many other styles trailblazed and beloved by millennials, the indie music of the early 2010s has been connecting with a whole new Gen Z audience, and Washed Out, who’s never stopped creating and innovating over the last 15 years, sounds as fresh and relevant than other (I’ve long argued that even if genre trends might come and go, the best artists associated with them, the ones creating the sound rather than reacting to it, remain timeless). Though, thanks to lending his classic tune “Feel It All Around” to beloved 2010s sketchy comedy show Portlandia might conjure up associations with the Pacific Northwest, Greene hails from small-town Georgia, and still calls the Peach State home, now based on a 20-acre horse farm in Macon (after previously bouncing around in cities like Atlanta, Athens, and Decatur). Finding fame in a very 2000s way, Greene started making music in a bedroom studio after moving back in with his parents after college, and soon found an audience thanks to MySpace, scoring buzz from several notable bloggers (back before playlists, when blogs were a major tool for musical discovery). His second EP, Life of Leisure, arrived in 2009, and featured the aforementioned “Feel it All Around,” met with high praise from outlets like Pitchfork, and catapulting Washed Out to hipster scene stardom (Ernest himself never really seemed to be the blog-obsessed, Brooklyn-dreaming, Urban Outfitter-shopping type that made up much of the indie audience at the time, though he happened to land on a sound that was catnip for that time and place). By 2011 debut full-length, Within and Without, Washed Out had signed with Sub Pop, and cemented his status as a critical darling and indie innovator of the 2010s. Blending elements of synth-pop, dream pop, shoegaze, indie electronic, lo-fi bedroom pop, and hip hop, all through a shimmering, lush gaze of ’70s rhythms and ’80s synth sheen, the multi-instrumentalist and producer has managed to keep his core sound while iterating on it with new influences with each subsequent effort, from more psychedelic leaning 2013 sophomore album Paracosm, to more rhythmic and hip hop sounds with 2017 ambitious visual album Mister Mellow (something of comeback after taking time off to start a family), to more polished, modern, and ambient sheen with 2020 mid-Covid Purple Noon, to last year’s latest, Notes from a Quiet Life, which, though thematically more adult and self-reflective than ever (Greene lives on the aforementioned horse farm now with his wife and kids), feels like a full circle moment, calling back to that early Washed Out stuff more than anything in over a decade. We’ve been huge Washed Out fans since the project’s (and our site’s) earliest days, and we we still remember how great they were at Bonnaroo 2014. This time around, Greene and co. will play an evening set on the brand new, immersive Infinity Stage, which, though unfortunately booked against Hozier’s closing headliner, is sure to be one of the vibiest things you can experience all weekend.
WATCH | “The Hardest Part” (Official Video)
LISTEN | “It All Feels Right”
