Dates for the fifth annual Gasparilla Music Festival were confirmed months ago (March 12-13), and early bird pre-sale tickets officially sold out this week, likely because GMF has already proven itself a viable, noteworthy music fest showcasing the best and brightest of our local culinary landscape amid bringing in fine musical acts — Modest Mouse, The Gaslight Anthem, Dr. Dog, Los Amigos Invisibles, Benjamin Booker, Trombone Shorty, Ra Ra Riot, Jason Isbell, Page McConnell and the Meter Men, and The Flaming Lips, among others.
But the music-driven event situated in the heart of downtown Tampa is only now revealing the first round of artists that are set to appear on the spread of stages in Kiley Gardens and Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park — and it was well worth the wait.
Leading the lineup is one mighty fine R&B grooving, jazz-hawking and hip hop bumpin’ songstress who first caught my ear with her classy yet sassy kiss-off ode, “Tyrone”: Erykah Badu, who dropped a new mixtape, But You Caint Use My Phone, in November. Featured highlights touch on the string-fueled jams of Greensky Bluegrass, the electro rock sizzle of MS MR, the soul pushing power of Charles Bradley, the intellectual rhyme-slinging of Talib Kweli, the brass-and-percs-fueled Afro-funkiadelic sounds of Antibalas, and the Southern rock and folk swagger of Blitzen Trapper.
Also confirmed so far: Savoy, Kermit Ruffins, Houndmouth, Carlos Varela, David Wax Museum, Andrew & Polly, The Whiskey Gentry, Sweet Crude, Gumbi Ortiz & New Groove City, New Breed Brass Band, Damon Fowler, Fruition, Gwan Massive, Resinated, DieAlps!, Serotonic, The Woolly Bushmen, Poetry ‘n Lotion, Ries Brothers, Samurai Shotgun, Jackson Davis & the Jackettes, Gritt, Mr Tommy, Mt Zion Gospel Choir, Seminole Indoor Percussion Ensemble, and Dunedin Highland Middle School Pipe Band.
The fifth annual Gasparilla Music Festival takes place Sat.-Sun., March 12-13, 2016. Two-day general admission passes for GMF are $60 (two-day VIP Passes $150); single-day tickets are also offered for Saturday and Sunday, at $40 and $30, respectively (VIP $100 and $75). All can be purchased here.
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2016.
