Edgefest, despite the demise of its namesake station, will celebrate 25 years of alternative rock’s most radio-friendly unit shifters this Saturday at Frisco’s Toyota Stadium, the long-running festival and your new rock alternative now both under the broad wing of 97.1 FM The Eagle. The lineup for this weekend is a sort of highlight reel of bands from Edgefests past: Blink 182, The Offspring, The Nixons, the Toadies, Chevelle, and so on.
Looking at just the 2017 lineup is a comfortable nostalgia trip. Looking at the past 25 Edgefest lineups, helpfully listed on iHeartMedia’s website, is like being strapped to the outside of a rocketship shooting down alt rock memory lane.
The first Edgefest lineup, in 1992, is both impressive—Pearl Jam at its peak, right after Ten!—and totally baffling: Who the hell are The Origin? More impressive: Dinosaur Jr., Jane’s Addiction, Beck, Violent Femmes, and Weezer! More baffling: How has Papa Roach played five Edgefests, more than any other band? (The Nixons will tie the record this year.)
You can almost track the development of the last quarter-century of mainstream rock music by scrolling through that list of lineups, from the grunge wave of the early ’90s to some truly dark times in the aughts, when Nickelback, Creed, and 3 Doors Down all got top billing. (Equally shocking is the presence of Limp Bizkit in 2010, at least 9 years after Fred Durst mercifully lost his cultural cachet.) There’s the theatrical rock of the mid-2000s, where the Killers and My Chemical Romance are represented, and in the last few years, an increasing reliance on the legacy acts and big names of the past.
Which Edgefest lineup resonates with you is entirely a matter of personal preference. In my case, at least, it also seems to be a matter of when I was a teenager listening to modern rock music on the radio.
As we prepare for yet another Edgefest, the first without 102.1 KDGE as it once was, let us reflect on what came before, and argue over which Edgefest lineup is the best. The following best-to-worst rankings are, for the record, definitive:
EdgeFest #16 2007: Killers, My Chemical Romance, A.F.I., Muse, Blue October, Jet, Papa Roach, Bowling for Soup, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Kaiser Chiefs, Sparta, Saosin, Bullet for My Valentine, Say Anything, Placebo, Finger 11, Ataris
EdgeFest #8 1999: Collective Soul, The Goo Goo Dolls, Toadies, Marvelous 3, Eve 6, Dovetail Joint, The Nixons, Blink 182, Lit, Stabbing Westward, Local H, Tin Star, Sponge
EdgeFest #6 1997: INXS, Beck, Matchbox 20, Moby, Ben Folds Five, K’s Choice, Cake, Cowboy Mouth and Vallejo
EDGEFEST 2015: The Offspring, Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, AWOLNATION, New Politics, Banks, Hozier, Yelawolf, Dirty Heads, Vance Joy, Joywave, The Kooks, Robert DeLong, Andrew McMahon, Girl Talk, Marquis de Vaudeville and Hour Band
EdgeFest #3 1994:Violent Femmes, Crash Test Dummies, The Indians, Eve’s Plum, Possum Dixon, Dig, Material Issue, Crowed House, Tripping Daisy & Charlatans UK
EdgeFest #1 1992: Pearl Jam, The Origin, Sugar Cubes, Charlatans UK, Dramarama and Psychefunkapus
EDGEFEST #24 2014: BECK, Avett Brothers, Cage The Elephant, Bastille, Grouplove, New Politics, The Neighbourhood, Switchfoot, Chvrches, Ms Mr, J Roddy and the Business, Kongos, Bear Hands, Small Pools
EDGEFEST #21 2011: Jane’s Addiction, Weezer, Social Distortion, Seether, Neon Trees, A Day to Remember, The Airborne Toxic Event, Electric Touch, Young the Giant, Panic at The Disco, Flogging Molly, Dirty Heads, Middle Class Rut, New Politics, AWOLNATION, DYNAMITE WALLS, North of Autumn (local band web winner)
EDGEFEST #22 2012: The Black Keys, Garbage, Evanescence, Cake, Cage the Elephant, Blue October, Arctic Monkeys, The Ting Tings, Neon Trees, Civil Twilight, Foxy Shazam, Switchfoot, Dead Sara, Aranda, The Features, Chomsky
EdgeFest #2 1993: Gumball, Dinosaur Jr., Pop Poppins, Tragically Hip, Gene Loves Jezebel, Belly, DADA, 808 State and Jellyfish
EDGEFEST #23 2013: Phoenix, Bush, Deftones, Paramore, A Day To Remember, AWOLNATION, The Gaslight Anthem, The Airborne Toxic Event, Twenty One Pilots, Fitz & The Tantrums, Robert DeLong, Atlas Genius, The Neighbourhood, Capital Cities, The Mowgli’s, Youngblood Hawke, Falling In Reverse, Kitten, A Silent Film, IAMDYNAMITE
EdgeFest #14 2005: Jimmy Eat World, Sum 41, Chevelle, Billy Idol, Papa Roach, Breaking Benjamin, Crossfade, Alterbridge, Unwritten Law
EdgeFest #10 2001: Weezer, The Cult, Lifehouse, Fuel, Dexter Freebish, Everlast, Oleander, Orgy,
EdgeFest #5 1996: The Verve Pipe, Poe, Dog’s Eye View, Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills, The Nixons, Ruby, Lush, The Refreshments and Modern English
EdgeFest #4 1995: Adam Ant, Letters to Cleo, Veruca Salt, Blues Traveler, Sponge, Deep Blue Something, The Nixons, Hagfish and POL
EdgeFest #18 Fall 2008: STP, The Offspring, Staind, Toadies, Rise Against, Papa Roach, Seether, Alkaline Trio, Saving Abel, Gaslight Anthem, Drive A
EdgeFest #9 2000: 311, Everclear, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Nixons, Splender, Oleander, Dynamite Hack, Bowling For Soup, Stir and Dollybraid
EdgeFest #13 2004: Evanescence, Seether, Finger Eleven, Three Days Grace, Saliva, Breaking Benjamin, Lit, Blue October, Burning Brides, The Vanished
EdgeFest #17 2008: 3 Doors Down, My Chemical Romance, Blue October, Seether, Story of the Year, Fair to Midland, Puddle of Mudd, Atreyu, Theory of a Deadman, 10 Years, Chevelle, Billy Talent, Finger Eleven, Sick Puppies, Red, Filter, Drive By, Revelation Theory, Miser, Drive A, Play Radio Play!, Spoonfed Tribe
EdgeFest #15 2006: Staind, Trapt, Shinedown, Three Days Grace, 10 Years, Evan’s Blue, Flyleaf, Hoobastank, Hawthorne Heights, Seether, Blue October, Buck Cherry, Non-Point, Drowning Pool, Revelation Theory, 30 Seconds to Mars, Atreyu, The Toadies
EdgeFest #12 2003: New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, MxPx, Evanescence, Riddlin Kids, Seether, Maroon 5, All-American Rejects, the Fags, Socialburn, Blue October, South FM, Rocket Summer
EdgeFest #7 1998: Creed, Fuel, Crystal Method, Everclear, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Brother Cane, God Lives Underwater, Econoline Crush, Bobgoblin
EdgeFest #20 2010: Limp Bizkit, Three Days Grace, 30 Seconds to Mars, Deftones, Flyleaf, Switchfoot, Hole, 10 Years, Phoenix, Metric, Cage the Elephant, Violent Soho, Crash Kings, Neon Trees, Two Door Cinema Club, Unfathom ( local band web winner), Ishi (local band – local contest)
EdgeFest #19 2009: Korn, 311, Blue October, Papa Roach, Shinedown, Taking Back Sunday, The Used, Red Jumpsuit, 10 Years, Drive A, Electric Touch, Anberlin, Framing Hanley, Aranda, Veer Union
EdgeFest #11 2002: Nickelback, Jerry Cantrell (Of Alice In Chains), Default, Papa Roach, Trik Turner, Unwritten Law, Lit, Course of Nature, Goldfinger, Zac Malloy
