For the past three years, Ryan Martin—the musician behind Secret Boyfriend and the proprietor of outsider music label Hot Releases—has curated the Savage Weekend festival at Nightlight, which brings together a downright irresponsible number of noise, electronic and unclassifiable experimental acts to play sequential 15-minute sets over the course of two weird, sweaty, exhilarating days.
The savagery continues on May 16 and 17 this year, when the fourth installment somehow crams even more acts than last year—more than 80—into a long Friday night and an even longer Saturday. Though people come from all over the country to perform, North Carolina acts are well-represented. “As usual, there’s going to be an obscene amount of underground heavy-hitters under one roof,” Martin says, “and it’s going to rule. There’s also a significant number of acts who haven’t played before, which is nice—for instance, I’m excited for the harsh stand-up comedy of T Func, among countless others.”
Anarchic and egalitarian, Savage Weekend doesn’t do headliners, and no single act can summarize the vibe of the festival. This year’s offerings encompass the performance-art drone of Cornelius F Von Straffin III, the minimal analog house of Toe Ring, the hypercolor tech-noise of Unicorn Hard-On, the experimental percussion of Ryan Jewell, the Christian harsh noise of Clang Quartet and the cheap-keyboard dub of Sagan Youth Boys. The music starts at 5 p.m. on Friday, May 16 and at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 17, and runs continuously until last call (or beyond) on both nights. $30 gets you in for the whole beautiful clusterfuck. The full lineup is here.
