Re:SET, a new take on traveling concerts, kicks off Friday, June 2nd and sees a trio of powerhouse lineups coming to a city near you. Boasting artists like boygenius, LCD Soundsystem, and Steve Lacy, the AEG Presents event fuses destination festivals with hometown shows.
“[It’s a] new sort of thing that we felt like artists would want and fans would want,” SVP of Global Touring and Talent at AEG Cody Lauzier tells Consequence. “There’s always this part of an artist’s career where they’re like, ‘I wanna play a big show, but I don’t really wanna play the basketball building.’ Because there’s not that much GA and you can’t really dance and you gotta sell seats – it’s sort of a tipping point for an artist’s career. And this festival is a great solve for that because you can play to massive crowds and no one has to buy a seat, but they also can do their own show as big as they possibly can.”
Re:SET aims to benefit both the performers and the attendees. It works like this: Three lineups (LCD Soundsystem, Jamie XX, IDLES, Big Frieda, and L’Rain; boygenius, Clario, Dijon, and Bartees Strange; and Steve Lacy, James Blake, Toro y Moi, and Fousheé) each rotate through groups of nearby cities, hitting each one before moving onto the next regional chunk.
Take the first weekend, for example. On Friday, June 2nd, LCD Soundsystem’s lineup will play the Bay Area in California, boygenius’ lineup will play San Diego, and Steve Lacy’s lineup will play Los Angeles. The following day, they trade spots: LCD Soundsystem heads to San Diego, boygenius to Los Angeles, and Steve Lacy to the Bay Area. One more day completes the cycle before they progress to the next trio of towns.
Such a structure, as Lauzier points out, allows for the type of stacked lineups that don’t often happen in the modern landscape of live music.
“You always see these old concert posters where it’s the most insane lineup ever,” he explains. “You’re like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe, like, Run DMC and the Beastie Boys played,’ or you know, that Beastie Boys and Madonna tour is just legendary. And it doesn’t really happen anymore outside of a festival setting.”