A MEMORABLE DITTY, the kind of song that pings around your noggin for days or weeks at a time, has a way of "mastering the build." You know the build, if you know music, and we don't even need to spell it out or go into too much excruciating and unnecessary detail: It's the part of the ballad or the jam that revs up, in sound, strength, and beat, and your heart revs with it, through several seconds or joyful minutes. Not every song possesses build, but those that do? They're classics, or at least they mean a lot to certain forever fans. Likewise, major music festivals, the ones that nab a large and devoted fandom and grow and grow through the years, also possess some of the exciting elements of the classic build, too. A build-boasting festival will begin to roll out announcements, and reveals, and hints, and those all-important pass on-sale dates, months ahead of the event, and the build-a-tude begins in earnest, capturing fans' fancies. And few modern-day tune-rocking spectaculars have mastered build like...
BOTTLEROCK NAPA VALLEY, which is already in full rev-it-up mode at the beginning of the year, which is a number of months ahead of its traditional late-May date. It's a Memorial Day Weekend happening, in fact, and while that three-dayer is still over a third of a year away, fans can land on those sweet single-day passes beginning on Wednesday, Jan. 17 at 10 o'clock iin the morning, Pacific time. Yep, the three-day passes are gone, gone, gone, as expected, but you can find your way to your dream day at the fest for $139. As for the headliners in 2018? Muse is up on Friday, May 25, The Killers vibe-it-up on Saturday, May 26, and Bruno Mars is at centerstage on Sunday, May 27. So many other starry acts and performers'll play a part — The Chainsmokers, Snoop Dogg, Bleachers — that your best bet is to study the schedule now, to make sure you plan your day pass around when you've got to be there. Feeling the build toward late May? It's happening, for BottleRock Napa Valley, like the journey to the peak of a perfect song.
