Norman Music Festival Promises a Dirty, Electric Good Time

Third annual fest offers free, live indie music from downtown Norman, Okla.

The third time is clearly a charm for the Norman Music Festival with this year’s lineup featuring indie rock sensation Dirty Projectors.

The Brooklyn-based band will headline the festival’s main stage along with Detroit rockers Electric Six and Latin funk orchestra Grupo Fantasma from Texas.

The third annual Norman Music Festival is April 24–25 in downtown Norman, Okla. The festival is free and open to the public and will take place east of the railroad tracks on Main Street.  Saturday night entertainment will be predominantly at indoor locations, and Sunday will feature the full-blown festival atmosphere complete with street closures and large outdoor stages.

NMF3 Chair Quentin Bomgardner said more than 25,000 people attended last year’s one-day festival. With growing crowds and growing interest among musicians across the country, organizers added an extra day to this year’s event.

“By adding an extra day, more talent can be showcased,” Bomgardner said. “And with last year’s number of attendees, an extra day will help accommodate the festival’s ever-growing crowds.”

Organizers are completing the band lineup and will announce additional performers in the next few weeks. Previous headliners include Of Montreal, Polyphonic Spree and the Chainsaw Kittens, among others.

Dirty Projectors are the experimental rock project of Dave Longstreth, a former Yale student who left college to become one of the most intriguing indie singer/songwriters of the early 2000s. Named for a day job Dave once held cleaning projectors at a movie theater, Dirty Projectors began as a very simple LoFi solo project releasing home recorded projects to an audience of friends.  The band’s rise since that time has been steady and striking, and included such fascinating and captivating projects as the 2007 release Rise Above. In April 2008, Dirty Projectors signed with Domino Records and released critically acclaimed album Bitte Orca in June 2009. That year, the band also collaborated with David Byrne and Germaine Greer on the song "Knotty Pine" for the compilation album, Dark Was the Night.

Grupo Fantasma is an 11-piece Latin funk orchestra from Austin, Texas. Formed in 2000 from the merger of two Austin acts, The Blue Noise Band and The Blimp, the band emerged with a sold out show at the former Empanada Parlour in Austin. The band is best known for their exuberant live shows and their recent association with Prince and his 3121 Club in Las Vegas. The band has backed Prince on numerous occasions, including his performance on the ALMA Awards in 2007. The band often performs at his after party jam sessions. The ensemble has sold more than 20,000 albums independently.

Electric Six is a six-piece Detroit-based band that plays what has been described as a brand of rock music infused with elements of garage, disco, punk, new wave, and metal. The band met recognition in 2003 with the single "Danger! High Voltage", and subsequently recorded six full-length albums: Fire, Señor Smoke, Switzerland, I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master, Flashy and KILL. They have also released a rarities album, Sexy Trash.

"When I found out we were looking at them for the main stage I was 100 percent on board, and stoked,” Bomgardner said. “They're a nearly 15-year-old band that will make a lot of new fans on April 25th. At their core, they're Detroit rockers with attitude. But they bend a ton of genres within it and create an eardrum party."