photo: courtesy yeah yeah yeahs
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs will play Q87.7's first-ever PIQNIQ festival in June.
If you’ve lived in Chicago for the last decade, chances are you remember rock station Q101’s Jamboree, the annual summer music festival held at the First Midwest Amphitheatre (FMBA) in Tinley Park.
Started in 1995, it was headlined by then-trending bands like Bush, Faith No More and Collective Soul. The festival played on until 2002 and welcomed a revival from 2010 to 2011. That was before the alternative station signed off for the last time, setting off a strange series of events. Now, for about a year, radio listeners have found an eerily similar station at the bottom of the dial: Q87.7.
Now, Q87.7 is putting on its first-ever music festival—PIQNIQ—at the FMBA this June.
With a line-up including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bush, Awolnation, Silversun Pickups, Atlas Genius, and Cold war Kids, PIQNIQ feels awfully similar to the now defunct Jamboree. PIQNIQ is just the latest in a list of likenesses between the Q87.7 and Q101.
Here are a few other suggestive examples:
- Q87.7 use of the same call-in letters (WKQX) as Q101 did.
- The music format is extremely similar.
- Yet the station denies a connection to Q101.
And now there's PIQNIQ. “[Music festivals] are a very common platform," says Jim Richards, operations manager for Merlin Media. "Especially for radio stations that play new music. It’s not an old 101 tactic but a way we can engage with our fans.”
Seriously? Q87.7 even got Bush to take the stage at Tinley Park.
Q87.7’s PIQNIQ is June 29 at First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, 19100 Ridgeland Avenue, Tinley Park. Tickets range from $25-95.50.