Asbury Park, New Jersey is not just a popular shore destination, but a Mecca of music history. Home of iconic venues like The Stone Pony- where Bruce Springsteen got his start in performing- thousands of people flock just for The Pony alone...but every September, the seaside city gathers to celebrate rock and roll for Sea.Hear.Now.
Sea.Hear.Now is the perfect ending to your summer for multiple reasons. It gives you an excuse to enjoy the sun and the sand one more weekend post-Labor Day. And even better that you throw all of your favorite artists together. I've always said that festivals are the best bang for your buck as a music fan- you spend a few hundred dollars to see at least 10 artists over multiple days with general admission seating, as opposed to that $2,000 Taylor Swift ticket.
I've been to a few festivals spanning from Firefly in Dover, Delaware to the infamous Coachella in Indio, California. I've seen bands I may not have purchased single show tickets to, and I've become fans of artists just by happening upon their performances at these events. Festivals are great ways to try out new music without throwing all your money away- and there's no better way to get a feel of an artist than seeing them live.
This was my first year at Sea.Hear.Now, and it didn't disappoint. For fans of older music and new music alike, there's truly something for everyone here. Located on the actual beach (so bring sand-appropriate shoes), Sea.Hear.Now features clothing pop-up shops, local food and drink vendors, and much, much more. Here are the highlights:
The Best Performances of Sea.Hear.Now 2023
The Killers at Sea.Hear.Now 2023
Chris Phelps
I'd be crazy if I didn't start with what we all came for: the music. I hadn't seen most of these acts live before, but I have admittedly seen (and worshipped) The Killers at Firefly a few years ago. But my reviews are as follows:
Sheryl Crow- if I can look half as good as her, I will consider myself successful. My first headline thought was: Breaking News: Sheryl Crow Has Still Got It. She has a powerful voice, knows how to rock the guitar, and "Soak Up The Sun" will always be famous.
Greta Van Fleet- one word: wow. Everyone compares them to Led Zeppelin, and I was so shocked by the vocal range and witty banter they provided. I became an instant fan.
Royal Blood- not only did I get the chance to interview the lovely British duo this weekend, but also see these two rockstars. Kicking off their tour, Royal Blood did not disappoint.
The Killers- I can't say enough about this band and how amazing they are live. They opened with my favorite song of all time, "Mr. Brightside," and I astral projected to the moon. Ask anyone there, The Killers are a must-see whenever they're in town, bringing up a fan every time to play drums with them. Always electric, never a let down.
Greta Van Fleet at Sea.Hear.Now 2023
Pooneh Ghana
Stephen Sanchez- Sanchez creates story lines with his music, and to hear it seaside felt ethereal. Hits like "Until I Found You" sound better at the beach.
The Beach Boys- First of all, they brought out John Stamos as their drummer (instant win). But Mike Love and Bruce Johnston brought the house down, with Love's son also helping them out. I loved every second of it.
Mt. Joy- Philly's finest, Mt. Joy sounds just as good live as they do on your phone. Something about Mt. Joy at Sea.Hear.Now just makes sense.
Weezer- Weezer was another highlight of the festival- playing all of their hits and sounding identical to their soundtracks. "Beverly Hills" and "My Name is Jonas" were some of my faves.
The Foo Fighters- The Foo Fighter fans were plentiful, belting out every word. They didn't miss a beat, and were the perfect ending to a rock-filled weekend.
The Food at Sea.Hear.Now
At any given festival, the food looks better than it tastes. It's just a fact, no matter what they try and tell you. However, I did have my first Korean-style corn dog, which was essentially a giant mozzarella stick with a hot dog in the center and sauce on top...and it was delicious despite the fact that it would have sent a Pilgrim into cardiac arrest.
The drinks were moderately priced compared to other festivals I've been to, there were plenty of free water stations (as opposed to Coachella), and I need to give a special shoutout to the Hendricks Boat Bar. They had the best triage of Hendricks drinks (I don't even like gin and these were delicious) curated by Erik Andersson, who also gave us a great tour.
The Experience at Sea.Hear.Now
Cam Richards
Fiona Mullen
Sea.Hear.Now has a lot to offer: picture opportunities, specific drink tents like Tito's, Twisted Tea, etc., and even shopping opportunities. And for once, I want to emphasize the perks that VIP tickets could get you: your own viewing area close to the stage so it's never a bad view, access to festival merchandise (not bands, however), your own bathroom area and food/bars, TV's and a lounge. It's truly worth the upgrade.
There's even a surfing competition, which honestly worried me a bit since there was a hurricane but I'm not the professional. But what I loved about this festival is it stayed true to Asbury Park's roots, featuring everything the small city had to offer.
No matter what, it's a more relaxed vibe compared to the intense marathon that Coachella is. You have a wider age range of people, all dressed however they want (from festival chic to football jerseys on Sunday). But that's the beauty of Sea.Hear.Now: come as you are, all will be welcomed.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling a bit lackluster this week. It may be because of the raging illness I've been fighting- and I know I'm not alone here...but there is truly nothing I need more than the weekend and new music.
I'm gearing up to cover Sea.Hear.Now festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where I'll be beach-side watching bands like The Killers and The Beach Boys play all weekend. Naturally, that means I need a playlist to get me through the drive to the shore, one that will hype up me and my roommates for a great weekend.
But, let's not be selfish here, I'm sure you also have plans (and one day, I'd love to hear about them, just not now!) Here's the thing about me, and I'm sure someone can relate, I find it hard to listen to the same playlist week after week. Whether I'm pregaming for the bars or driving to my next destination, I will tire of the same songs when I overplay them.
And then there's the songs that I hyper-fixate on, listening to them on repeat until I finally scratch the itch and stop forever. Regardless, my mindset is "out with the old, in with the new" and you know what that means...
We have a whole new week's worth of music to celebrate! That's right: Drake and SZA, Demi Lovato, Chris Lake and Aluna, and more will be gracing our ears this weekend. If no one else is excited for this playlist, I am...so as always, let's get listening!
Noah Kahan, Lizzy McAlpine- "Call Your Mom"
There aren't enough sufficient words in the world to describe my love for Noah Kahan. He's one of the busiest men in music right now- touring the world, collaborating on "Dial Drunk" with none other than Post Malone, he was just spotted recording with Zach Bryan, and now has released his collab with Lizzy McAlpine on his song "Call Your Mom."
While "Call Your Mom" was already touching, Lizzy McAlpine's voice lends a different perspective to the song. When your favorite artists announces a collab, part of you is nervous because you fear the song will be ruined now...but that isn't the case with Lizzy McAlpine, whose gentle vocals enhance Noah's, melding perfectly into one of the best duos music can get.
Chris Lake, Aluna- "More Baby"
Chris Lake and Aluna are quickly emerging as the ultimate dance duo: with Aluna's sultry vocals and Chris Lake's iconic production abilities, it's no surprise that they followed up the success of "Beggin" with their new single: "More Baby." A song perfect for your pregames, your runs, or for any time you want to get up and moving, "More Baby" is classic Chris Lake.
It's been a huge year for both Lake and Aluna, who have been touring and simultaneously releasing banger after banger. You can't help but feel like this isn't the end for a budding dynamic duo like these two, and "More Baby" just solidifies that any track can be a hit if their names are attached.
Oliver Tree- "Fairweather Friends"
Ahead of his third studio album, ALONE IN A CROWD, Oliver Tree has released dynamic single "Fairweather Friends." Oliver Tree is one-of-a-kind, blending beats and genre-bending to create music fresh to your ears. With "Fairweather Friends," Tree gives us a glimpse into the new album, which is about how we as humans act surrounding pop culture - the good and the bad.
"Fairweather Friends" makes for the perfect single, exciting and refreshing, introspective and self-deprecating. It's about the friends that stick around when you're at your highest of highs, but who are not necessarily there when you need them most. Everyone has had them, but Tree's catchy beat and punchy lyrics make this song a thrill to listen to.
Shay Lia- "ON THE LOW"
If you want a song that embodies After Hours at the club, where you're just focusing on dancing all night...then try Shay Lia's "ON THE LOW." Shay Lia's crooning voice is ideal for her R&B sound, but it's also perfect for mixing up genres and stepping out of the norm. "ON THE LOW" is an example of how Lia can throw her voice into any genre- dance, R&B, pop, you name it- and it will work.
Shay Lia created this track with Kaytranada, marking their 10th collaboration together over their long-time friendship. Now 10 years later, "ON THE LOW" shows that nothing has changed for the pairing: they're still friends, they can still make a hit track, and it's always going to work for them.
DWLLRS- "This Heaven's Tall"
DWLLRS has a way of perfectly capturing nostalgia and wrapping it up into a flawless track. Their melancholic music can feel eye-opening, beautiful, and rare all at once. Their new single, "This Heaven's Tall", deals with the risks and rewards of falling in love with someone new, and, as always, the California duo puts their own spin on love that listeners will appreciate.
“This song captures a sweet ignorance of feeling close to heaven while falling in love-knowing that this love is temporary, and the fall will be devastating. Is the pain worth the thrill?”
Coachella has always been the mecca of music festivals. Yes, it’s known for its celeb spottings and boho-chic crochet outfits. But it’s also a bucketlist festival for artists. It’s a capstone show that many performers use to flex their best stuff — whether it be unreleased music or a surprise guest. Why wouldn’t you? The crowd of 100,000 people per weekend is sometimes the biggest stage these artists have seen.
As a victim of Coachella’s grasp, last year
I decided to make the pilgrimage. After spending close to my life savings on hotel, shuttle passes, a GA three-day pass, and flights, I was met with the cancellation of both my flight and Kanye West’s performance. I somehow made it to Coachella Valley, but it was not an easy battle.
The food there is overpriced and just plain awful, There are no water stations in sight (great news for those in the middle of a literal desert). And the hotels were often an hour drive away from the actual venue. It’s a lot of work to see maybe one wild James Charles, with hours spent on your feet trudging through the grounds. And here’s what they don’t tell you: most of the celebs are sequestered in VIP tents anyway, not roaming about with the likes of us.
Plus, there’s the added pressure to look like you were personally styled by Revolve when you have no brand partnerships under your belt. It’s become an influencer-driven event riddled with VIP parties and even Revolve’s own invite-only Revolve Festival…The opportunity to go to Coachella for a brand is quite different than a normal attendee’s experience.
This year,
we saw Coachella’s decline. The short performance by Frank Ocean followed by his cancellation of his Weekend 2 performance…The viral TikTok of $60 coffee breakfasts. The talks of influencers driving to Indio, California just to take photos and leave?
What I’m saying is: while Coachella is all the rage for the rich and famous, there are plenty of festivals where you get the same, possibly even better experience at a lower price. The whole thing is starting to feel a little
too privileged and there are certainly more stages across the globe where you can feel better spending your money. (Plus who wants to get sick from that desert dust?)
If you want to go to Coachella as a Bucket List checkoff, go ahead! It’s an experience that isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have fun. However, if you want to go to a music festival that isn’t Coachella…here are my recs.
Firefly Music Festival - Dover, Delaware
Owned by Coachella producers AEG Presents, you will see a lot of similar artists performing at Firefly in Delaware. A four day festival, there’s less stress but equal amounts of fun. Previous performers include Lizzo, Dua Lipa, The Killers, Billie Eilish, and Panic! At The Disco.
Reading And Leeds - Reading and Leeds, England
Simultaneous festivals Reading and Leeds are England’s biggest music festivals. It’s also a celebrity hotspot, with previous crowd attendees being One Direction’s finest: Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan. This year’s lineup includes Billie Eilish, The Killers, Lewis Capaldi, Sam Fender, and FOALS.
Sea Hear Now - Asbury Park, New Jersey
A music festival on the beach just makes sense…and in Bruce Springsteen’s hometown nonetheless. Asbury Park is iconic for music, and Sea Hear Now brings the greats like Stevie Nicks to town. 2023 Sea Hear Now includes Greta Van Fleet, Foo Fighters, The Beach Boys, and Weezer.
Musiliac Festival - Aix-les-Bains, France
If you were already looking to spend money on flights for Coachella…why not go to France instead? The Musiliac Festival draws huge crowds, with performances by Iggy Pop, Arctic Monkeys, Phoenix, and Selah Sue lined up.
Rock Werchter - Werchter, Belgium
The biggest names in the music industry are going to Rock Werchter this year. See all your fave artists like Rosalia, Machine Gun Kelly, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lil Nas X, and The 1975 all in one weekend in Belgium. Festivals are the best way to get floor seats to a bunch of artists in a row, and Rock Werchter will not disappoint.
The story of psychedelics is intertwined with the story of music, and tracing their relationship can feel like going in circles.
For thousands of years, artists have been using naturally-grown herbs to open their minds and enhance their creative processes. Since LSD was synthesized by Albert Hoffman in 1938, psychedelics have experienced a reemergence, blooming into a revolution in the 1960s, launching dozens of genres and sounds that focused on acid, shrooms, and all of the portals they opened. Around the 1960s, scientists also began studying the relationship between psychedelics and music, and even back then, researchers found that, when combined, music and psychedelics could have therapeutic effects on patients.
More modern studies have discovered that LSD, specifically, links a portion of the brain called the parahippocampal—which specializes in personal memory—to the visual cortex, which means that memories take on more autobiographical and visual dimensions. Other studies have found that LSD can make the timbres and sounds of music feel more meaningful and emotionally powerful. Today, psychedelic music still thrives, and you can hear flickers of those early trip-inspired experiences all across today's modern musical landscape.
"There is a message intrinsically carried in music, and under the effects of psychedelics, people seem to become more responsive to this," said the psychedelic researcher Mendel Kaelen. "Emotion can be processed more deeply. It's a beautiful narrative. It's like a snake biting itself in the tail."
All that said, psychedelics can be as dangerous as the archetypal live-fast-die-young rock and roller's average lifestyle. They can destabilize already fragile minds and can encourage further drug abuse and reckless behavior. Often, psychedelic revolutions have coincided with colonialist fetishizations, apocalyptic visions, and appropriations of Eastern culture.
However, sometimes psychedelics and musical talent can come together in a synergy so perfect that it can literally create transcendent and healing experiences. Hallucinogens affected each of these following musicians in a unique way, but their experiences with hallucinogens produced some of the greatest music of all time.
Harry Styles — She
In his revelatory Rolling Stone profile, Harry Styles spoke out about how magic mushrooms inspired his most recent album, Fine Line. Inspired by Fleetwood Mac, the 25-year-old apparently spent a lot of time at Shangri-La Studios in Los Angeles tripping and listening to the old psychedelic greats.
"Ah, yes. Did a lot of mushrooms here," he said in the interview during a tour of the studio. "We'd do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney's Ram in the sunshine."
Things even got a little violent, as they often can when dealing with hallucinogens. "This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue. So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place," he reminisced affectionately.
Kacey Musgraves' dreamy song "Slow Burn" was apparently inspired by an acid trip. Listening to the lyrics, you can hear the influence of psychedelics twining with country and singer-songwriter tropes. "I was sitting on the porch, you know, having a good, easy, zen time," she said of the songwriting experience, which she said happened out on her porch one evening. "I wrote it down on my phone, and then wrote the songs the next day with a sober mind."
LSD, she said, "opens your mind in a lot of ways. It doesn't have to be scary. People in the professional worlds are using it, and it's starting to become an option for therapy. Isn't that crazy?" Her affection for the drug also appears in her song "Oh What A World," which contains the lyric, "Plants that grow and open your mind."
A$AP Rocky — L$D
While A$AP Rocky's affection for LSD isn't a surprise given his propensity for writing about the drug, apparently the rapper has an intellectual approach to his psychedelic experimentation.
"We was all in London at my spot, Skeppy came through," he told Hot New Hip Hop about his experience writing LSD. "I have this psychedelic professor, he studies in LSD. I had him come through and kinda record and monitor us to actually test the product while being tested on. We did the rhymes all tripping balls."
Apparently his first acid trip happened in 2012. "Okay, without getting anyone in trouble, I was with my homeboy and some trippy celebrity chicks and…" he said in an interview with Time Out. When asked how long it lasted, he said, "Too long, man. Twenty-three hours. I was trippin' till the next day. When I woke up, I was like, Damn! I did that shit! That shit was dope. It was so amazing. It was a-ma-zing. Nothing was like that first time."
Acid changed his entire approach to music and success. "I never really gave a f*ck, man, but this time, I really don't give a f*ck," he said. "I don't care about making no f*cking hits." Instead, he focuses on creating. "It's so hard to be progressive when you're trippin' b*lls," he said. "You make some far-out shit!"
The Beatles' later music is essentially synonymous with LSD, and the band members often spoke out about their unique experiences with the drug. According to Rolling Stone, the first time that Lennon and Harrison took it was actually a complete accident. A friend put LSD in their coffee without their knowledge, and initially Lennon was furious. But after the horror and panic faded, things changed. "I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours," said Harrison.
Paul McCartney had similar revelations. LSD "opened my eyes to the fact that there is a God," he said in 1967. "It is obvious that God isn't in a pill, but it explained the mystery of life. It was truly a religious experience." Of LSD's effect, he also said, "It started to find its way into everything we did, really. It colored our perceptions. I think we started to realize there wasn't as many frontiers as we'd thought there were. And we realized we could break barriers."
Using the drug not only helped the band create some of the most legendary music of all time—it also brought them closer together. "After taking acid together, John and I had a very interesting relationship," said George Harrison. "That I was younger or I was smaller was no longer any kind of embarrassment with John. Paul still says, 'I suppose we looked down on George because he was younger.' That is an illusion people are under. It's nothing to do with how many years old you are, or how big your body is. It's down to what your greater consciousness is and if you can live in harmony with what's going on in creation. John and I spent a lot of time together from then on and I felt closer to him than all the others, right through until his death."
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Remastered 2009)www.youtube.com
Ray Charles — My World
The soul music pioneer allegedly once described acid as his "eyes." Charles was blind, but LSD is said to have allowed him some version of sight. Though he struggled with addiction, Charles eventually got clean, though his music always bore some markers of his experiences with the subconscious mind.
Actually, blind people on LSD and hallucinogens can experience hallucinations of different kinds, though it's somewhat rare. According to a study in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, this happens because during a trip, "the plasticity of the nervous system allows the recognition and translation of auditory or tactile patterns into visual experiences."
Clapton struggled with drug abuse throughout his life, and LSD certainly had an influence on him. While he was a part of Cream, he frequently played shows while tripping, and according to outontrip.com, he became "convinced that he could turn the audience into angels or devils according to the notes he played."
Before he was creating the ultimate dad rap, Chance the Rapper was an acidhead.
"None of the songs are really declarative statements; a lot of them are just things that make you wonder...a lot like LSD," said Chance the Rapper of his hallucinogen-inspired album, the aptly named Acid Rap. "[There] was a lot of acid involved in Acid Rap," he told MTV in 2013. "I mean, it wasn't too much — I'd say it was about 30 to 40 percent acid ... more so 30 percent acid."
But the album wasn't merely about acid; like much of the best psychedelic music, it was more about the imagery and symbolism associated with the drug than the actual drug itself. "It wasn't the biggest component at all. It was something that I was really interested in for a long time during the making of the tape, but it's not necessarily a huge faction at all. It was more so just a booster, a bit of fuel. It's an allegory to acid, more so than just a tape about acid," he said.
Jazz great John Coltrane was a regular LSD user who used the drug to create music and to have spiritual experiences. Though he struggled with addiction throughout his life, LSD was one drug that had a major artistic influence on him. While it's not known for sure if the album Om—which includes chanted verses of the Bhagavad Gita—was recorded while Coltrane was on LSD, many rumors theorize that it was.
"Coltrane's LSD experiences confirmed spiritual insights he had already discovered rather than radically changing his perspective," wrote Eric Nisenson in Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest. "After one early acid trip he said, 'I perceived the interrelationship of all life forms,' an idea he had found repeated in many of the books on Eastern theology that he had been reading for years. For Coltrane, who for years had been trying to relate mystical systems such as numerology and astrology, theories of modern physics and mathematics, the teachings of the great spiritual leaders, and advanced musical theory, and trying somehow to pull these threads into something he could play on his horn. The LSD experience gave him visceral evidence that his quest was on the right track."
Jenny Lewis — Acid Tongue
Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis wrote the song "Acid Tongue" about her first and only experience on LSD, which happened when she was fourteen. She told Rolling Stone, "It culminated in a scene not unlike something from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—the scene where Hunter S. Thompson has to lock the lawyer in the bathroom. I sort of assumed the Hunter S. Thompson character and my friend – she had taken far too much – decided to pull a butcher knife out of the kitchen drawer and chase me around the house… At the end of that experience, my mom was out of town on a trip of her own and she returned to find me about 5 lbs lighter and I had—I was so desperate to get back to normal I decided to drink an entire gallon of orange juice. I saw that it was in the fridge and decided that this would sort of flush the LSD out of my system, but I didn't realize that it did exactly the opposite."
The Beach Boys' mastermind Brian Wilson was famously inspired by psychedelics, which both expanded and endangered his fragile and brilliant mind. After his first acid trip in 1965, an experience that he said "expanded his mind," Wilson wrote "California Gurls." After the trip, however, Wilson began suffering from auditory hallucinations and symptoms of schizophrenia, and though he discontinued use of the drug, he continued to hear voices; doctors eventually diagnosed him with the disease. Wilson later lamented his tragic experiences with LSD, stating that he wished he'd never done the drug.
Though it led Wilson on a downward spiral, LSD inspired some of his band's greatest work—namely the iconic Pet Sounds, which launched half a century of "acid-pop copycats."
The Flaming Lips — Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" is widely believed to be the product of lead singer Wayne Coyne's LSD experimentation. This theory is corroborated by the fact that the album's cover features the number 25 (and LSD is also known as LSD-25). They also frequently reference LSD in their music, which includes an album called Finally, the Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid.
the flaming lips yoshimi battles the pink robots part 1www.youtube.com
Jimi Hendrix — Voodoo Child
While there is still some general contention on whether Jimi Hendrix hallucinated frequently, nobody really doubts that he did. According to rumors, the legendary musician even used to soak his bandanas in acid before going onstage so the drug would seep through his pores.
According to one source, Hendrix did more than just play music while tripping. He was also an expert at (of all things) the game of Risk.
"Jimi would play Risk on acid, and I never — and me personally — ever beat him at all," said Graham Nash in an interview. "He was unbelievable at it. He was a military man, you know, he's a paratrooper, and I don't know whether you know that about Jimi, but no one ever beat him at Risk."
The Doors — The End
Jim Morrison was a documented LSD user, and it eventually led him out of his mind. "The psychedelic Jim I knew just a year earlier, the one who was constantly coming up with colorful answers to universal questions, was being slowly tortured by something we didn't understand. But you don't question the universe before breakfast for years and not pay a price," said John Desmore in Riders on the Storm: My Life With the Doors.
Morrison used many different drugs during his lifetime, but apparently LSD had a special place and he avoided using it while working. "LSD was a sacred sacrament that was to be taken on the beach at Venice, under the warmth of the sun, with our father the sun and our mother the ocean close by, and you realised how divine you were," said Ray Manzarek. "It wasn't a drug for entertainment. You could smoke a joint and play your music, as most musicians did at the time. But as far as taking LSD, that had to be done in a natural setting."
Morrison himself—a visionary who was also a drug-addled narcissist—was kind of the prototypical 1960s LSD-addled rock star. Alive with visions about poetry and sex but lost in his own self-destruction, he perhaps touched on something of the sublime with his art, but in the end he went down a very human path towards misery and decay.
Like many of these artists' stories, Morrison's life reveals that perhaps instead of using hallucinogens and psychedelics as shortcuts to a spiritual experience, one should exercise extreme caution when exploring the outer reaches of the psyche. When it comes to actually engaging with potent hallucinogens, that might be best left to the shamans, or forgotten with the excesses of the 1960s.
On the other hand, we might do well to learn from the lessons that people have gleaned from hallucinogens over the years—lessons that reveal just how interconnected everything is, that shows us that music and memory and nature may just all stem from the same place.