Over the past decade, The Peach Music Festival has established itself not only as a hub for the lasting legacy of the Allman Brothers Band but as an essential career milestone and incubator for the headliners of the future in the extended jam band world. The lineup for the 2022 edition, set to take place from Thursday, June 30th through Sunday, July 3rd at Scranton, PA’s Montage Mountain, is a testament to the festival’s fundamental role in today’s live music circuit. Artists up and down this year’s Peach roster have garnered new fans in droves with show-stealing sets at the festival in years past, and many of them are returning to the Mountain in more prominent slots on the schedule this summer.
Related: The Peach Music Festival Releases 2022 Daily Schedules
That’s not by chance, of course. Organizers of The Peach have actively cultivated this phenomenon, giving rising artists the opportunity to put down roots at the cross-section of several devoted fan communities and grow bigger, reach farther. With a long list of bands to reference for precedent, it’s not a stretch to predict that a performance at The Peach could help launch a band to new heights. As we count down to another eventful weekend in Scranton, we’re taking a closer look at a few of the many notable bands due to return to The Peach bigger and better than ever in 2022.
Billy Strings
Last Peach: 2019, Thursday afternoon on the Peach Stage.
This Year: Thursday, 9:30 p.m. | Peach Stage (Two Sets, Thursday Headliner)
Billy Strings was already becoming a national sensation when he hit the Peach Stage for an afternoon performance (and a sit-in with Pigeons Playing Ping Pong) on the opening day of the festival’s 2019 edition, but his ascent since then has been nothing short of astounding. Back in the summer of 2019, the young bluegrass picker was touring clubs and small theaters and opening for bands like Greensky Bluegrass. When he arrives in Scranton for his two-set headlining performance on Thursday, he’ll do so as a Grammy-winning (and Grammy-performing) live juggernaut amid a summer run of sold-out amphitheaters and primetime sets at large-scale events like Bonnaroo.
Billy Strings – The Peach Music Festival 2019 – Full Set
Goose
Last Peach: 2019, Saturday afternoon on the Grove Stage
This Year: Saturday, 12:30 a.m. | Peach Stage (Saturday Headliner)
If you’re getting the lowdown on Goose from one of the Connecticut-native outfit’s many ravenous fans, you’ll likely hear mention of The Peach. Goose’s 2019 Peach set in the sweltering afternoon sun at the Grove Stage has become the stuff of legends. The band underwent a meteoric rise in the wake of the 2019 festival, leveling-up from small clubs to large theaters and amphitheaters faster than they could play the shows they had already booked.
Related: I Know That Life Comes Better: Backstage With Goose [Interview]
All the while, the video of Goose at The Peach 2019 continued to garner attention as an entry point for new fans. Message boards, festival campgrounds, and amphitheater lots around the country lit up with a new call to action: “Have you heard about that band Goose? No? Check out their Peach set on YouTube.” The set remains by far the most-viewed video on the band’s active YouTube channel.
This year, Goose will hit close down the main Peach Stage late Saturday night with a new set of tunes to showcase following Trey Anastasio Band‘s two-hour show—and after the band welcomed Trey Anastasio for nearly a full set of jams at Radio City Music Hall the weekend before the festival, a reprisal of the Trey/Goose combo at The Peach seems like a genuine possibility.
As keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Peter Anspach tells Live For Live Music about Goose’s return to Montage Mountain, “Peach became home for us after our set in 2019, we are stoked to finally return!”
Goose – The Peach Music Festival 2019 – Full Set
Celisse
Last Peach: 2021, late afternoon Saturday on the Grove Stage
This Year: Saturday, 6:15 p.m. | Peach Stage
Guitarist/vocalist Celisse was an undeniable highlight of last year’s Peach. Her set on the Grove Stage benefitted from a confluence of factors: a cancellation earlier in the day that pushed her 1:00 p.m. slot to the early evening; a thematic downpour; and a sit-in from festival headliner and frequent collaborator Trey Anastasio.
In the end, however, it was Celisse’s fiery stage presence and ample abilities on the Gibson SG that won over a jam-crazy crowd largely unfamiliar with her work. Throughout her set, Celisse challenged preconceived notions of a typical lead guitarist. As she quipped from the stage, “People expect the voice and then I start playing guitar and they’re like, ‘this can’t be!’ But it is, in the flesh, it’s me. It’s time to rethink what rockstars look like, huh?”
It seems the music world has heeded that call since then, at least as it pertains to Celisse. Since last year, she’s toured major venues with Brandi Carlile, made high-profile appearances at multi-artist events like Love Rocks NYC, and more. When she returns to The Peach this summer, Celisse will move on up to the Peach Stage for a Saturday evening slot, leapfrogging from the last row of the 2021 lineup card to the top half of the 2022 poster. Her Instagram post on the matter said in all: “Started from the bottom, NOW WE HERE.”
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Eggy
Last Peach: 2021, 2:00 p.m. Thursday on the Grove Stage
This Year: Friday, 12:00 p.m. | Peach Stage; Friday, 9:45 p.m. | Mushroom Stage
New Haven, CT quartet Eggy made the most of a festival-opening 2:00 p.m. Thursday slot in 2021. While the set marked the group’s Peach debut, Eggy had previously been booked on the festival’s COVID-scrapped 2020 edition. When guitarist/vocalist Jake Brownstein, keyboardist/vocalist Dani Battat, bassist/vocalist Mike Goodman, and drummer/vocalist Alex Bailey finally arrived at Montage Mountain to kick off the 2021 festivities in earnest, however, they weren’t keen to dwell on the past. Instead, they attracted a massive crowd with a thrilling set comprised predominantly of new songs written that year.
Since then, Eggy has hatched into one of the most exciting young jam bands on the road, touring the country with groups like Dopapod, Spafford, and The Motet; notching appearances at notable events like Summer Camp Music Festival, Domefest, and Revival Music Festival; releasing new music; and more. The band has also developed a lively and personal online following thanks to the daily stream of light-hearted content, four-part harmony covers, and full-throttle live videos that populate its social media accounts,
The quartet’s positioning at The Peach 2022 reflects just how much momentum they’ve generated in the past year: Rather than an early-afternoon show on the side stage, Eggy will hit the Peach Stage for Friday’s opening set before relocating to the Mushroom Stage for an additional nighttime performance.
As Jake Brownstein tells Live For Live Music, “I’ve been dreaming about Eggy playing Peach since first attending the festival back in 2014. Last year we finally got our chance and it was more than we could have ever asked for. We are honored to have been asked back this year and can’t wait to reunite with our Peach family for two sets on Friday!”
Eggy – The Peach Music Festival 2021 – Full Set
Karina Rykman
Last Peach: 2021, early evening Friday on the Grove Stage
This Year: Saturday, 1:55 p.m. | Peach Stage; with Marco Benevento Friday 1:15 p.m. | Peach Stage
A “City Kid” through and through, Karina Rykman has been within striking distance of The Peach from her home in Manhattan since well before she earned a spot on the bill. As Rykman tells Live For Live Music, “I attended Peach Fest as a fan maybe three or four times before I performed at the festival. One of the more memorable years had to be when a friend of mine told me she had an extra pass for the day, and I got so excited I impulsively took an Uber there from Manhattan. My driver was the best—he waited for me until midnight, and then drove me back to NYC. What a legend.”
Last year, on a damp, grey Friday afternoon, she pulled in a big crowd at the Grove Stage and brightened the day with her vibrant disposition and growing repertoire of psychedelic dance-rock material. Fans around the country have seen more and more of Karina since then, whether she’s opening for Pigeons Playing Ping Pong on the road, touring as Marco Benevento‘s bassist (catch their Peach 2022 set on Friday at 1:15 p.m. on the Peach Stage), or throwing down a packed late-night set at Bonnaroo.
Related: L4LM Staff Picks: The Breakout Artists Of 2019
This year, for the first time, Karina Rykman will have her own set on the Peach Stage—a notion she’s still trying to wrap her head around. “To go from playing the smallest stage in 2021 to playing the main stage in 2022? I have no words,” she says. “Completely honored to be any small part of this great festival.”
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Trouble No More
Last Peach: N/A
This Year: Thursday, 12:30 a.m. | Peach Stage (Thursday Headliner)
While Trouble No More has never played the festival before, the new Allman Brothers Band tribute outfit represents various layers of “return-to-Peach” intrigue. Since debuting at New York’s Beacon Theatre in March, the band has hit the road for a number of other large tour dates and festival plays. The ensemble—featuring Brandon “Taz” Niederaurer (guitar, vocals), Daniel Donato (guitar, vocals), Dylan Niederaurer (bass), Jack Ryan (drums), Lamar Williams Jr. (vocals), Nikki Glaspie (drums), Peter Levin (keys), and Roosevelt Collier (pedal steel)—will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Allman Brothers’ seminal album and the festival’s namesake, Eat A Peach, with an after-midnight performance on the main stage.
Even beyond the contextual relevance, the band features a slew of Peach veterans. Brandon “Taz” Niederauer has been playing the fest for years and will host a late-night set of his own as Brandon “Taz” Niederauer & Friends on Saturday. Lamar Williams Jr. has participated in various all-star Allman tributes at The Peach for just as long. Nikki Glaspie has long been a Peach favorite as part of The Nth Power. Peter Levin has been a regular at the festival since his days touring with the late Gregg Allman. Jack Ryan has rocked The Peach with Marcus King Band and The Shady Recruits, the latter of which will hit the Mushroom Stage again on Saturday evening this year. The Allman Brothers Band’s proverbial road has run through The Peach since its inception, and with Trouble No More on the bill, its route is primed to twist and turn in thrilling new directions.
Tickets for The Peach Music Festival 2022 are on sale now. Get excited for the return of The Peach 2022 by revisiting our daily coverage from the festival’s 2021 edition: Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday.
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