Billie Eilish, The Killers, Tame Impala and Lizzo are set to headline the 2021 Firefly Festival, which was rescheduled for September 23-26 at The Woodlands in Dover, DE. It’s the same weekend as the Governors Ball in Queens, NY, which shares a few artists in common, including Eilish.
Some of the artists announced on the Firefly lineup include Megan Thee Stallion, Cage The Elephant, Roddy Ricch, Wiz Khalifa, Machine Gun Kelly, Diplo, Portugal. The Man, Sylvan Esso, Khruangbin, Phoebe Bridgers, Sofi Tukker, Caribou, Taking Back Sunday, Band of Horses, Denzel Curry, Girl in Red, Kim Petras, Flo Milli and Turnstile, among others.
Much of the 2021 lineup had originally been announced for the summer 2020 version of the festival that never took place, including Billie Eilish, Cage The Elephant, Diplo, Blackbear, Big Wild, Clozee, Dominic Fike, Grandson and White Reaper. However, most of the artists are new additions. It seems they’ve moved to include more bedroom-pop acts on the lineup as Eilish is the only of the original headliners remaining. Rage Against the Machine, Halsey, Khalid, Blink-182 and Maggie Rogers couldn’t stay on for 2021.
Eilish recently announced her sophomore album Happier Than Ever is due this July, and shared new single from it called “Your Power.” Other previously-released singles revealed to be on the new album include “Therefore I Am” and “my future.” The young pop star has been widely successful since she began releasing the singles that led up to her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? in 2019, and won Grammys for all of the ‘big four’ categories that year.
Both Eilish and Tame Impala are also scheduled to play the Life is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas earlier in September. Tame Impala recently played their debut album Innerspeaker in full during livestream. It celebrated its 10th anniversary in May 2020. In 2020, they released The Slow Rush, which is their first new album since 2015’s modern-classic Currents. They’ve been enjoying a return to normal live shows following the success of Australia’s COVID-19 prevention protocols.
Lizzo has made it onto a couple of other festival-headlining slots for rescheduled events this fall, including Bonnaroo and Outside Lands. Like Eilish, she also had very successful 2019 with the release of hits like “Juice,” “Cuz I Love You” and “Truth Hurts,” from her album Cuz I Love You. Some of those songs spawned lawsuits for alleged plagiarism and songwriting royalty disputes, but the royalty dispute was dismissed and the plagiarism allegations haven’t been judged on yet.
The Killers just sold their pre-2020 catalog to Eldrige late last year. Their 2020 album Imploding the Mirage was one of their most popular records since their most famous material from the 2000s. Although they’re easily the oldest act among the headliners, they’re still just as well-known as ever. They’re set to headline Lollapalooza Stockholm this year as well.
Photo credit: Kalyn Oyer
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