XPoNential Music Festival announces first eight acts

The 2024 XPoNential Music Festival is starting to take shape.

The first eight artists scheduled to play the annual event, produced by University of Pennsylvania radio station WXPN-FM (88.5), have been announced.

The artists, a mix of longtime XPN favorites and up-and-coming acts, will perform on two stages at Wiggins Park on the Delaware River waterfront in Camden from Sept. 20-22.

The list is topped by veteran folk rock great and country music scion Rosanne Cash, who performed last month at the World Cafe Live to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her album The Wheel.

Cash will be joined by three formidable younger generation songwriters and band leaders, all of whom go by one-word brand names.

The trio includes Phosphorescent, the stage name of Alabama songwriter Matthew Houck, whose new album, Revelator, is due in April; Blondshell, the indie-rock project of Los Angeles singer-songwriter Sabrina Teitelbaum; and Bully, the band led by songwriter and guitarist Alicia Bognanno, whose 2023 Lucky for You XPN listeners named album of the year.

The bill will also include British retro rock band the Heavy Heavy, Brooklyn singer-songwriter and Black Opry Revue veteran Lizzie No, Mississippi blues singer Cedric Burnside, and teenage Nashville guitar phenom Grace Bowers.

Those eight acts will make up only a fraction of the performers to play this year. Last year, for the fest’s 30th anniversary, 24 acts were planned, though many were forced to cancel due to a storm that brought heavy rains and winds for two days.

For the second year in a row, the fest has no plans to stage shows at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, the larger venue adjacent to Wiggins Park, where bands like the War on Drugs, Wilco, and Patti Smith played as part of the festival in past years.

More acts will be announced in the coming weeks. Single-day and three-day passes go on sale at 10 a.m. on Feb. 29 at xpnfest.com.