Amidst heavyweight legends like Paul McCartney and Metallica at this year’s ACL, plenty of fresh-faced acts showcased their love for Texas, and a charity group helped to celebrate music as the best medicine.

Arcade Fire, Florence + the Machine, Tyler, The Creator, and others (further) illuminated Sin City on the weekend of Vegas’ biggest music and arts festival.

As the Chicago-set music festival ages, its audience appears to be getting younger.

In its fourth year, the Hundred Waters–curated weekend proved once again what sets it apart from major music festivals.

More a family reunion for the Cincinnati-bred band than an actual festival, Homecoming was a wild party with occasionally tender moments. 

In its twenty-sixth year, San Francisco’s week-long music and arts festival is louder now than it’s ever been.

St. Vincent, Nine Inch Nails, and Pussy Riot rock under gray Houston skies.

There’s a lot to take in at New Orleans’ ~sPoOkY~ Halloween carnival. And a lot of choices to make about what the festival means to you. 

A not so Coachella experience in the sand.

In typical Florida fashion, there was very little that could be considered “normal” at Miami’s preeminent arts and music fest. 

For anyone who didn’t want to be at festival so soon after the Vegas shooting, ACL offered full refunds. But the festival didn’t back down—and the result was a weekend of mutual love and appreciation. 

With a high-profile Jawbreaker reunion at its center, this year’s edition of Riot Fest further cemented the Chicago party’s identity.

It was a festival filled with dualities: that Charles Bradley is not a lone eagle, that J Mascis can blow out an amp and shred on acoustic within a matter of hours, that the pleasant Pacific Northwest can still get really freakin’ hot.

Setting sail to Randall’s Island.

Headliners were a story, as always, but they weren’t the story out of the fest’s inaugural three-day run at Expo Park.