Last year, we had the opportunity to cover Salt Lake City’s iconic music festival, Kilby Block Party, for the very first time. The festival has been a staple in Utah’s music scene since 2019, originally inspired by Kilby Court, Salt Lake City’s longest-standing all-ages music venue.
Many big names in the indie space have performed at Kilby Block Party over the years, including Death Cab For Cutie (2019), Young The Giant (2021), Phoebe Bridgers (2022), The Strokes (2023), and most recently, LCD Soundsystem, The Postal Service, and Vampire Weekend in 2024.
Kilby Block Party returns to Salt Lake City from May 15-May 18, and this year’s lineup boasts even more heavy hitters, with headlining performances from Weezer, Beach House, and Justice.
As always, we’ve come prepared with lineup highlights across the poster that we think you should check out: four days of live music has a lot of potential!
Note: Thursday’s lineup is smaller, with only six acts playing, so we omitted that from this coverage.
Siblings Brian and Michael D’Addario have been playing music together as The Lemon Twigs for just over a decade now, and in that time have released six studio albums. The duo’s most recent, A Dream is All We Know, delves deeply into the band’s 1960’s influences, feeling reminiscent of some of the Beach Boys’ most upbeat songs.
The album, which was released in 2024, feels like a fun throwback, while also simultaneously contemporary. But it’s not the most recent release for a D’Addario sibling. Brian D’Addario unveiled his solo album, Till the Morning, earlier this year. Good news for The Lemon Twigs fans, Brian doesn’t branch out too far sonically—sticking to his trusted, and beloved for good reason energetic, 60’s-inspired, power pop. – Erin
Sure, we’re only a few months into 2025, but I think Momma’s album Welcome to My Blue Sky is definitely going to be among the best of the year. The indie band that’s based out of Brooklyn, by way of Calabasas, released the album on April 4, and will be touring in support of it throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, for most of the rest of the year, including a stop at Kilby Block Party.
The band’s been together for a decade, first formed by friends Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, who met attending Viewpoint School in Calabasas. Over the past decade, Momma’s put out four albums, including its most recent release. The band, who is clearly inspired by ’90s alt-rock, is also well-known for its energetic and raucous live shows, making them a can’t-miss set at Kilby Block Party. – Erin
Fresh off the release of their ‘Queer Country Album,’ Send A Prayer My Way, Julien Baker & TORRES have begun their tour across North America with stops at Kilby Block Party, Green River Festival, and a couple festivals along the way. Both Julien Baker and TORRES are touring novices, each with their own history performing as solo artists as well as bands: Baker is well known for her work in the supergroup, boygenius.
A country album for these two artists may seem odd at first glance, but their synchronicity within the project comes quite naturally: Baker grew up in Memphis and TORRES has an innate twang to her voice that works quite well in the country genre. It also helps that they first met back in 2016 after performing together and quickly coming to the realization that they should, in fact, collaborate on a country album together. So with an album nine years in the making, it’s safe to say that this will be a performance work seeing. – Kristin
Kilby Block Party is known for putting together a lineup of some of the best artists that indie rock has to offer year after year. It only makes sense that the Salt Lake City festival would feature Built to Spill. The Boise-based band has been going strong for more than three decades, and have become pillars of the genre with albums including Keep It Like a Secret, Perfect from Now On, and Where’s Nothing Wrong with Love, all of which were on Pitchfork’s Top 100 Albums of the 1990s list.
The storied band is about to embark on a limited tour with fellow indie icons Yo La Tengo later this summer through the Midwest, so the Utah festival offers a great opportunity to see them outside of the short tour. – Erin
Chicago natives FRIKO have had a chaotic last two years: they released their debut album, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, in February 2024, and have been pretty much touring consistently ever since: they’re also set to tour with Modest Mouse and The Flaming Lips later this summer.
The indie rockers have been making waves since the release of WWBWWGFH, receiving praise from critics and music fans alike for their contemporary take on early 2000s rock that pays homage to the Chicago and the bands that have come before them. If you’re a fan of artists like Wednesday, Geese, and MK Lenderman, you’ll find yourself at home when you visit the Lake Stage on Saturday for Friko’s early afternoon performance. – Kristin
Sasami has just started her North American tour in support of her third studio album, Blood On The Silver Screen, which dropped this past March via Domino Recording. The album is a sonic departure from Sasami’s previous work, integrating more pop and dance production elements than her sophomore album, Squeeze, which features more indie rock and even alternative metal influences.
I had the chance to catch Sasami on the opening night of her tour this past April to a sold out crowd in Los Angeles and was impressed with her stage presence: she’s weird, endearing, and engaging all at once. If you’re looking for a theatrical performance that seamlessly weaves various genres together, I suggest you check out Sasami on Saturday afternoon. – Kristin
A few years ago, one of Staged Haze’s writers was throwing her hat in the ring for a little known indie act by the name of Bartees Strange: his 2020 album Live Forever ended up on our Best of 2020 post, landing at #9: an impressive feat, considering none of the other team members had ever heard of him prior to this album.
Fast forward to current day, and Bartees Strange just released a new album and has toured with artists like boygenius and The National and has collaborated with Kacy Hill, Bleachers, and Lucy Dacus (to name a few). Bartees’ music blends a variety of genres into something unique: referencing indie rock, hip hop, and singer-songwriter. – Kristin
Kilby Block Party is great at featuring newcomer artists and giving them a spotlight on the festival’s lineup. But they also succeed at recruiting legendary acts, like British post punk band Gang of Four. The band’s been together intermittently—from 1976 to 1984, then 1990 to 1991, 1993, 1995, 2004 to 2020 and now 2021 through to the present. Over the past five decades, Gang of Four has released 10 albums, including 2019’s Happy Now, an art punk album that sees the band continuing to remain politically relevant.
Throughout their career, the band’s had a frequently rotating lineup, and that’s no different now. Original vocalist and percussionist Jon King and drummer and backing vocalist Hugo Burnham are joined by bassist Gail Greenwood and guitarist Ted Leo, who joined in 2024 and 2025 respectively. – Erin
It’s not super often that there are artists out there that I truly enjoy listening to that I haven’t had a chance to see live, but sadly, Dublin-born, London-based musician Orla Gartland falls into that very small category. Gartland is currently touring in support of her 2024 album, Everybody Needs a Hero, and will be making stops at festivals across the country, including Kilby Block Party, Lollapalooza, and Outside Lands, as well as touring as support for Glass Animals on select dates.
Gartland’s music has been consistently vulnerable and autobiographical, tugging on the heartstrings with Woman on The Internet, her debut album from 2021: a project that landed on Staged Haze’s Best Albums of 2021 list. So yeah, we’ve been fans for a while. And if you don’t check her out at Kilby Block Party, we may take it a bit personally. – Kristin
If you were in high school in the late 2000s, like I was, there were few bands cooler than The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They’re like the quintessential band that the cool older kids were really into, and so you’d try to download their discography on Limewire. The indie pop/shoegaze-inspired band released four albums (and a Tom Petty cover album) before breaking up in 2019, but thankfully reunited last year, offering fans another opportunity to see the eternally-cool band live.
Why else should you go check the band out at Kilby Block Party? It’s the band’s only show in the United State on its upcoming tour dates, with a string of shows in the U.K. later this year. – Erin
Last year, I traveled to Kilby Block Party, flying from Chicago to Salt Lake City. I was so excited to see a lot of bands that I’ve loved for a long time, like Vampire Weekend and The Postal Service. But another highlight of the festival were all the new discoveries that I made throughout the weekend. There’s a lot of bands on this year’s lineup that I absolutely love (RILO KILEY!!!!!!!), but there are some blind spots that I’m a little embarrassed to admit.
Real Estate was one of those blindspots, and that’s a real shame, because the more that I listen to the indie pop band, the more that I love them. The band’s released six albums, and they’re all solid, including 2024’s Daniel. I’ve also heard that they’re also a pretty great live band, and have a unique knack for mixing up their setlists, making them worthy of a watch at this year’s Kilby Block Party.
– Erin
Indie pop duo Tennis, comprised of husband and wife Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore, have been releasing music together since 2011 (the two met in the philosophy department at the University of Colorado in 2008). I lead with this, because the duo announced earlier this year that their 2025 album, Face Down In The Garden, is the last project they will release as a band and are planning to retire.
The duo’s decade-long project has been a successful one, and they’ve been a mainstay in the indie pop landscape, releasing album after album and touring consistently to their dedicated fans. With just a few months left of live shows to perform, it’s safe to say that this will likely be your last chance checking out this duo live before they move on to other projects. TAKE THAT CHANCE! – Kristin
See you in Salt Lake City!
Check out all of our festival coverage here.
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