Hopscotch 2025 is officially in the books, and all in all another great one. This year's festival featured performances from over 100 artists plus its signature community focused day parties, and a pop-up from Skate Raleigh. With its "choose your own adventure" style of scheduling, everyone's experience at the festival is going to be unique.
As has become more and more regular, it rained this year, and it was a huge bummer that Sparks weren't able to perform their headlining set on Saturday. Looking on the bright side though, I think the rain wasn't all bad. At a festival like Hopscotch you often feel like you want to be in two, or even three, places at the same time. On Saturday night I wasn't going to miss Sparks, but I also really wanted to see the synthesist Jeremiah Chiu at Nash Hall who was performing at the same time. Once it was announced that Sparks weren't going to be playing it made my decision to head to Nash Hall much easier. After three days of running around downtown Raleigh, it was really nice to stay put in that room for the night where I caught three beautiful sets from Jeremiah Chiu, Claire Rousay, and Tara Clerkin Trio.
Anyway, here's a full breakdown of how I chose to spend my time over the weekend.
Thursday
For me, the first half of Thursday night was heavy on loud guitars, and then followed by a cool down session with some music that was more ambient and atmospheric. The first band of the night I caught was the Queens-based indie rock band Frog. I wasn't familiar with them before the festival, but their name kept coming up as I was chatting with friends and eavesdropping on strangers in line to pick up our festival credentials. I'm really glad I caught them, because their performance was a lot of fun and left me wanting to dig into their catalog more.
After Frog at Moore Square I headed over to the other main stage at City Plaza to catch the experimental and aggressive sounds of YHWH Nailgun. Their set was intense and it worked as a perfect lead in to the 90s post-hardcore giants Unwound, who were up next back at Moore Square. Unwound performed the entirety of their 1995 album "The Future of What" plus a few bonus songs to round out their 90 minute set.
The final headliner of the night was Earl Sweatshirt, one of the sharpest lyricists going today. Two weeks ago he released his latest record "Live Laugh Love," and his Hopscotch performance was his first time performing those tracks live. They sounded great, as did the rest of his set which featured a surprise appearance from the Charlotte rapper MAVI, who is featured on Earl's 2019 EP "Feet of Clay." MAVI brought his signature style of joy and energy to the stage and the crowd was there for it.
I ducked out of Earl Sweatshirt's set a little early so that I could catch Tomin, an artist who last year released two albums on my favorite label going today, International Anthem. Tomin is a multi-instrumentalist and poet from Brooklyn who I had never had a chance to see, and his performance that night was one of my favorites of the whole festival. After a night of loud guitars it felt healing to grab a seat in Nash Hall and listen to something a little more chill.
After Tomin, I stuck around Nash Hall for a set from the legendary pioneer of ambient music, Laraaji. Decked out in all orange and joined by percussionist Arji OceAnanda, his performance incorporated nature sounds with bells, synths, and other instruments.
I closed out the night at Kings where the dub reggae craftsman Pachyman was performing a solo set to a packed out room. Pachyman is truly a studio musician, but watching him mix his music live was the perfect way to end the night. His music is best heard loud, so hearing it in a club like Kings with a group of other fans was really nice.
Friday
After not enough sleep, I was back at Kings on Friday afternoon to catch the tail end of the Three Lobed Records day party. I was sad that I missed most of the lineup, but was so glad I got there in time to catch guitarist William Tyler's collaboration with the Los Angeles-based composer Claire Rousay. It felt like a continuation of where I left off the night before. The music was beautiful and sublime and the room was packed with a crowd that was fully locked in.
From Kings I headed back over to City Plaza to catch Fust, one of my favorite local bands who put out one of my favorite records of 2025, "Big Ugly." This was my first time catching them since the record came out and the new songs sounded so great live.
From there it was back to Moore Square where I caught former Black Midi frontman Geordie Greep, and then went back to City Plaza for Geese who probably had the biggest crowd I saw of the whole festival. Geese is a band that over the past few years has slowly been building a fanatical fanbase, so the energy in the crowd for that performance was especially high. Frontman Cameron Winter released an excellent solo album at the end of 2024, and Geese's next album "Getting Killed" is out at the end of September, so once again we were treated to some early performances of new and exciting material.
After Geese I popped back down to Moore Square for Godspeed You! Black Emperor who I don't think I had seen in about 20 years. Their music is entirely instrumental. It's big and emotional and for their live show they also incorporate visual elements that match those emotions. Their performance was really powerful and during it I realized that they were a perfect choice for a headliner in the year of 2025.
After Godspeed, most of the crowd headed back to City Plaza for My Morning Jacket, but my colleague Eli Chen and I decided to make a different move and we headed over to Transfer Co. Food Hall where rapper Fatboi Sharif was performing. After that set Eli took off, and I moved to Lincoln Theatre to see California based Salami Rose Joe Lewis, which is the project of musician and producer Lindsay Olsen. I would describe her records as pretty mellow, but the live show she and her band, which included drummer Luke Titus, brought that night was anything but. It was a really high energy set and another major highlight for me.
After that performance it was back to Transfer Co. Food Hall to catch the New Orleans based rapper Cavalier, who also put out two records I really loved in 2024 on another favorite label, Billy Woods' Backwoodz Studioz.
To close things out that night I headed back to Lincoln Theatre to catch one of my most anticipated sets of the festival, Swamp Dogg. Backed by a tight band, the 83 year old put on a really fun show that was filled with fan favorites and the stories behind them.
Saturday
On Saturday I got down to Moore Square just in time to catch This Is Lorelei, a project from musician Nate Amos who is also one half of the band Water From Your Eyes. After that it was back up to City Plaza for Les Savy Fav, another band I don't think I had seen in 20 years. To put it lightly, their frontman Tim Harrington is wild. It had been years since I had seen them last and I wondered if he would still have the same presence as a performer. That question was answered immediately, as we walked up he was out in the crowd at least 100 feet from the stage where he was dragging tables around from the nearby restaurants and "blessing" people with little pushes to their foreheads. It was hard to keep track of him until he brought out a ladder, also in the middle of the crowd, and climbed that which had the crowd a little nervous but also very much loving it.
As is becoming a Hopscotch tradition now, the weather got a little iffy at this point in the evening, but after a slight delay Nilufer Yanya finally took the City Plaza stage in the rain. Those of us who braved the weather caught a great, albeit abbreviated set from the London-based musician. After her set it was soon announced that the night's headliner Sparks would not be able to perform due to safety issues, which was a huge bummer.
The rain kept falling throughout the rest of the night which made it an easy decision for me to stay put at Nash Hall once again. There I caught three beautiful sets in a row from Jeremiah Chiu, Claire Rousay, and Tara Clerkin Trio. While I was bummed to miss Sparks, it was all in all another great festival.
