Historic HFStival Makes Return at Nationals Park After 13 Years
Image Courtesy of Dean Robbins
By Dean Robbins
HFStival was at one point the largest music festival on the East Coast. It was created to commemorate the legendary DMV alternative radio station WHFS. Today, WHFS has been gone for almost sixteen years and the festival for over thirteen. In resurrecting the event, 9:30 Club owner Independent Concert Promotion (I.M.P.) had two options: celebrate the history or reinvent. In emphatically choosing the former, the result was something bittersweet but suffused with hard-earned identity.
Of the festival’s eleven acts, four have performed at a prior HFStival and nine released their biggest hits in the 1990s and 2000s. The opener Lit played three prior installments.
The festivities began a little after noon with a reunion of WHFS radio personalities including former Washington Capitals announcer and radio host Wes Johnson, Paula Sangeleer, Gina Crash, Patrick Ferrise, and eleven others. Some of the DJs would reappear to introduce each act in the roughly 15 to 30-minute intermissions.
John, an attendee who went to every HFStival from 1998 and 2006 and sported an original 1999 HFStival shirt, said, “[he] loved the station but DJs didn’t really drive it for me”.
There was nevertheless excitement for the reunion heard in applause from the Nationals Park’s smaller, early bird crowd. The music began just past 12:30pm with festival and alt rock veterans Lit who played a five-song set ending in their biggest hit “My Own Worst Enemy” off their 1999 breakout album A Place In The Sun.
Rock band Filter then performed another under 30-minute set around 1pm featuring four songs off their first two albums Short Bus and Title of Record. Lit, Filter, and every other band almost exclusively played off older albums, even if they have multiple newer ones.
Tonic, a country-flecked arena rock trio (with a drummer on tour), rounded out the three short opening sets with five songs again pulled from their first three albums released between 1996 and 2002.
Legendary folk punk outfit Violent Femmes, best known for hit “Blister in the Sun”, blew their way through a ten-song set predominantly drawn from their seminal 1983 self-titled debut. The band made a lot out of a minimal set design with cheeky elements like a bass guitar inside a huge purple box.
At 3pm, the bands gave way to DJ Girl Talk that attempted to turn up the energy through a variety of interactive gimmicks. Members of the pit were invited on stage, confetti canyons were set off, and a dancer shot a toilet paper gun into the crowd and threw inflatables.
Jimmy Eat World followed the DJ with an 8-song set including their hit “The Middle” and the 2022 single “Something Loud”. The band encountered technical difficulties which would be a theme for the next few hours. Frontman Jim Adkins said, “I would have it right than [DC avant-rock band] Unrest doing Jimmy Eat World.”
Liz Phair encountered her own problems between a smaller crowd and vocal audio problems. Expressions of discontent were audible in the pit crowd. One unhelpful factor was a series of failed crowdsurf attempts. The crowd for the whole event struggled, especially in the first six hours. With the exception of one song, Phair’s 12-song set drew on her 90s output, especially her breakout 1993 hit Exile in Guyville. For the majority of her performance, the music was accompanied by trippy AI-generated visuals.
Bush followed up Phair with more excitement but continued technical problems. Lead singer Gavin Rossdale lost audio to his mic which caused the band to temporarily depart the stage. Bush has streamlined their aesthetic in recent years with a particularly sleek logo. Rossdale himself began the performance draped in a sweat-logged translucent rain jacket that he unsurprisingly took off in favor of a mostly irrelevant tank top. Rain, which had been forecasted to hit around 6pm, began during Rossdale’s solo performance of the hit “Glycerine”.
Incubus, who started around 7:30pm, encountered similar vocal issues with lead singer Brandon Boyd announcing that he could not hear himself on the microphone. These challenges were sorted out to give way to a set that included a cover of The Beatles’ “Come Together”, one of their recent singles, and a brief attempt at a mosh pit in the audience. The rain that had begun during Bush’s set created a particularly slick pit due to the plastic flooring material.
Image Courtesy of Dean Robbins
The festival concluded with Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service, both of which are fronted by Ben Gibbard. The former played their 2003 acclaimed hit Transatlanticism and the latter, in their final performance before an indefinite hiatus, played their only album Give Up and an encore Depeche Mode cover.
HFStival was, for better or worse, concerned with the past. Nevertheless, the book may not be closed yet. In a video message delivered after Bush’s set, Everclear lead singer Art Alexakis, Marcy Playground lead singer John Wozniak, and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack Jimi Haha expressed regret for not participating this year and desire for a 2025 HFStival. Only time will tell if the sales were strong enough to I.M.P. to return for another year.
