Mill Valley Music Festival returns with headliners Fleet Foxes, Greensky Bluegrass and more
The second annual Mill Valley Music Festival brings an eclectic array of talent to Marin County with performances by alt-folk band Fleet Foxes, modern roots-music masters Greensky Bluegrass, SoCal R&B band Thee Sacred Souls and more.
Started in 2022 as a single-day event held at Mill Valley Community Center's Friends Field that featured sets from Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, Lettuce and Los Amigos Invisibles, the success of the inaugural edition led to the return of the festival expanded to a two-day line-up of live music and good times.
Operated in partnership with Noise Pop Industries (the same organization that puts on San Francisco's highly anticipated annual Noise Pop Festival), this year's Mill Valley Music Festival will be held on May 11-12. A portion of 2024 ticket proceeds from the Festival will then go on to support several local charitable organizations including Kiddo!, the Mill Valley Schools Community Foundation and Mill Valley Friends of Parks & Recreation.
In addition to a full schedule on the main stage, the Mill Valley Music Festival offers up the intimate second Sweetwater Stage with a variety of entertainment, a curated line-up of North Bay restaurants and food trucks providing delicious culinary options, a pop-up record shop featuring Loose Joints Records, Bright Antenna Records, and Rain Dog Records, a wellness tent with massages and vitamin injections, a family fun zone with children's activities and an array of local arts and crafts vendors in the Manzanita Market. Sunday's attractions also includes a dedicated Mama's Lounge in celebration of Mother's Day.
The first day of this year's festival finds popular indie-folk band Fleet Foxes topping the bill. Led by guitarist and principle songwriter Robin Pecknold, the Seattle-based group's shimmering vocal harmonies helped them score a record deal with Sub Pop. They have released a string of acclaimed albums since first coming together in 2006. While the band has had some drama with the acrimonious 2012 departure of drummer Josh Tillman (who had already launched a successful solo career as Father John Misty) and subsequent extended hiatus when Pecknold returned to school to complete his undergraduate degree, Fleet Foxes would re-emerge with the 2020 album Soar (which the songwriter essentially recorded solo) and a return to the road for the full band augmented by a brass section after the pandemic.
The balance of the Saturday line-up includes performances by San Diego R&B group Thee Sacred Souls (who wowed audiences with their stunning performance at last fall's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass), indie-rockers Fruit Bats, powerful soul belter Danielle Ponder and an opening set from NorCal native Elliott Peck. On Sunday, the festival welcomes modern-day bluegrass legends Greensky Bluegrass as headliners.
A jam band that grew out of the open-mic scene in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Greensky Bluegrass was founded in 2000 by banjo player Michael Bont, guitarist Dave Bruzza, and mandolin player Paul Hoffman, the group drew equally from traditional string-band sounds and the more exploratory improvisations of the Grateful Dead, Phish and pioneering "jamgrass" group the String Cheese Incident. Over the course of nearly a quarter century of playing music, the group has independently released 11 live and studio albums while collaborating with such luminaries as Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann, Railroad Earth and Billy Strings.
The line-up on Sunday is rounded out by acclaimed country songbird Margo Price, Birmingham, AL-based rock-and-soul band St. Paul & The Broken Bones, New Orleans second-line funk legends the Rebirth Brass Band and Sonoma County-based songwriter Eric Lindell. Additional information on tickets, frequently asked questions about parking and how to get to the festival and more are available at the Mill Valley Music Festival website.