The All Roads Music Festival returns to Belfast in October, with a lineup of more than two dozen acts playing five different venues.
“We have really established ourselves over the past decade-plus as being a home for artists who are representative of how great this scene is,” said Josh Gass, chief operating officer of All Roads Presents, which puts on the festival.
The festival’s performers span genres ranging from Americana to indie rock to blues.
“I think the lineup is very interesting this year — very diverse, and a lot of cool emerging artists,” Gass said.
The festival kicks off on Friday, Oct. 16, with a party at Marshall Wharf Brewing Company featuring three acts: Katherine Perkins, Isaac Raven, and Leaf, a psychedelic and funk rock jam band from Portland.
Saturday’s lineup features two dozen bands including the Sunburned Sharks, a “sun-soaked indie-funk R&B band” from Portland, Auburn’s Cryin’ Caleb Aaron, who’s been called a “blues-punk prophet of doom,” and midcoast singer-songwriter Alice Limoges.
The festival, which started in Belfast more than a decade ago, has always taken place across a range of traditional and more experimental venues, ranging from the American Legion Hall to Opera House Video to the Basil Burwell Community Theatre, and this year will be no different, Gass said.
“We’ve had that since year one,” Gass said, noting that the idea came from the organizers of the Free Range Music Festival, held in Belfast in the early 2010s. “I really think that was a huge draw, not only for audiences, but for the artists,” Gass said.
In past years, the festival has been held in Belfast in the spring. This year, All Roads expanded to Portland and put on a festival in May that had a greater emphasis on nationally touring bands.
While the Belfast festival venues are within walking distance of each other, there is also a shuttle. There are several different ticketing options for the Belfast festival – passes for the entire festival or Saturday are on sale now, and tickets for individual performances will go on sale around Labor Day.