Oceans Calling Festival, in Ocean City, Maryland, is a festival produced by O.A.R. and C3 Presents. The three day festival is set to take place on September 27th and will run through the 29th, and is completely sold out.
The festival’s inaugural year was last year, after an attempt in 2022 that was canceled due to storm winds, and featured John Mayer, The Lumineers, Jack Johnson, and Alanis Morisette.
This year, the festival is headlined by blink-182, The Killers, and Dave Matthews Band, and features over 35 bands in total. The festival also includes chef appearances by star Food Network chefs, Robert Irvine, Amanda Freitag, and Marc Murphy.
Friday:
Friday is headlined by blink-182, who will be coming off their ‘ONE MORE TIME…’ tour, featuring shows at Citi Field and Wells Fargo Center.
Blink stopped in Maryland on their World Tour last year at the CFG Bank Arena, but if you’re traveling to the festival from New Jersey, this is a can’t-miss headliner as the band hasn’t played a solo headline show in the state as a full band since 2013. However, the band did headline Adjacent Festival in Atlantic City in 2023, which now seems like a one-and-done festival.
Day one also features a diverse set of subheadliners: Cage the Elephant, who just released their new record ‘Neon Pill’ and will be on support of it, Sublime, who are playing festivals with new frontman, Jakob Nowell, 311 to add some more alt/reggae, and finally, O.A.R., who help produce the festival.
Out of the top five bands on the lineup, only blink-182, Sublime, and OAR have not played at Sea.Hear.Now. The lineups tend to overlap, and have shared around 10% of their lineup each year.
The day continues with The Revivalists, who are subheading Sea.Hear.Now, so them being a smaller name shows the depth of this lineup. The Darkness, Sugar Ray, and Larkin Poe round out the third line, and the bottom of the lineup for Friday features Tonic, Phillip Phillips, Winona Fighter, and Vincent Lima.
Saturday:
The day continues with one of the most standard headliners in United States festival history, The Killers, who seem to be everywhere, always.
The Killers haven’t played a show in Maryland since 2013 on the ‘Battle Born’ tour. They headlined Sea.Hear.Now Festival in New Jersey in 2023.
The second line of the lineup is filled with The Offspring, who are headlining MMRBQ Festival in Camden in September, Rebelution as the standard reggae subheadliner, The Beach Boys, who feature Mike Love and John Stamos, and Young the Giant, who are touring with Cage the Elephant on the ‘Neon Pill’ tour.
The undercard is very suitable for rock fans of any kind, featuring the All-American Rejects, The Hives, Grouplove, Switchfoot, The Beaches, Tom Odell, and Trevor Hall. The lineup is rounded off with The Samples and Katelyn Tarver.
Sunday:
The final day will be closed out with Dave Matthews Band, who based on other festival performances, will probably play around 120 minutes.
If you are into Dave Matthews Band, the entire day is solid, especially the subheadliners: Mt. Joy, who are playing a few shows with Noah Kahan this year, Counting Crows, Boyz II Men, who are featured at Soundside Festival in Bridgeport, and Barenaked Ladies.
You can also catch Blues Traveler, who are performing ‘Four’ in its entirety. Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Guster, Big Head Todd, Lisa Loeb, Jade Bird, and Stephen Kellogg round off the lineup.
The festival is set to be jam packed with people and bands for its second year in Ocean City. The festival also announced a second weekend, Country Calling, which will be taking place on October 4th and 5th. The festival will be headlined by Tyler Childers, Eric Church, Lainey Wilson, and Jelly Roll, and an in depth preview of it will be published next week.
NJ Music Festivals 