After a seven year sabbatical, Project Pabst reemerged once again in the summer of 2024, taking over a portion of Tom McCall Waterfront Park for the signature Portland festival thrown by the iconic working class beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon. I’m not gonna lie though, I was a bit let down last year with the lineup. It was a little soft, a little watered down from what I remembered of the lineups of olde.
But fear not, fellow festival-goers, the 2025 lineup is stacked beyond belief! Slated for July 26-27, the two days offer distinctly different feels that will appeal to the two wolves living inside us all: the punk wolf that crowd surfed for the first time when Iggy & the Stooges played Bumbershoot in 2005, losing one Vans checkered slip-on; and the other wolf that cried while on LSD when Death Cab opened for the Cure at Sasquatch! 2008. Maybe those are just my wolves though….
Anyhow, here’s a rundown of festival favorites for the 2025 edition of Project Pabst:
Saturday, July 26
Many cite Iggy & the Stooges as the inventors of punk or early purveyors of proto-punk at the very least. I mean, listen to their self-titled debut album and tell me that isn’t pure punk snarl. Released a full decade before UK and US punk fully broke, those first Stooges albums still go so hard. A true living legend, Iggy Pop's still got it. Or at least he did in 2005 at Bumbershoot….
There’s this really interesting question that’s been floating around for years: Are we not men? And the answer has always been, we are Devo! The midwestern kooks have been inciting danceable mosh pits since the late '70s, and I predict that the scene in the Devo pit at this year’s fest will not disappoint.
Damned Damned Damned is the self-titled-ish debut album from, you guessed it, the Damned, and it's a hallmark album of early punk in the late '70s. It sizzles, it’s anxious, and it’s full of that snotty brashness many of us strove for in high school. Omg, are the Damned brat??
Around for just about 10 years, Australia’s the Chats are a big part of that tidal wave of Aussie bands that’ve been blowing up lately. Gingers the world over have been picking up casual smoking and shaving their luscious red locks into mullets because of these bogan punks, heaven help us!
Philly favorites, Mannequin Pussy have been making a lot of waves lately, including having their powerful 2024 album, I Got Heaven, included in almost every major Best of Year-End List last fall. And trust me, their 2019 “Drunk II” track is the perfect anthem if you’re going through a heavy breakup.
Rounding out the top picks for Saturday are Portland punk legends, the Exploding Hearts. This band has been through so much since forming in 2001, and it's a straight-up honor to have them play in Portland. With one surviving original member, this is sure to bring out the old Portland heads who were lucky enough to see the band in their original incarnation, hopefully with stories about the band and Portland in the late '90s / early '00s.
Also on the Saturday bill are Gustaf, Gouge Away, and Nasalrod.
Sunday, July 27
It’s true, I cried while on LSD when Death Cab for Cutie started playing “Crooked Teeth” at Sasquatch! 2008. It feels like because Death Cab is one of the biggest bands to come out of the PNW in the last decades, they’ve become one of those bands who are cool not to like. Get over it; Death Cab rules! They write some of the most soaringly emotional music around and seem like nice people. I once served Ben Gibbard at a cafe and he ordered exactly what you’d expect: a small black coffee and an oatmeal cookie.
If, like me, you’ve been a midwest emo fan for a long time, then you’ve likely been noticing the massive uptick in some of your favorite bands getting back together and touring the last couple years. The fact that Cap’n Jazz is back together at all, let alone playing Project Pabst this year is huge. The band has only played a handful of shows since they broke up in 1995, so let's fucking gooooo!
The debut album, Machinery, from Portland’s Dustbunny has been on heavy rotation since its release in August last year. It’s always so powerful to see hometown bands share the stage with huge names—maybe even their heroes?—and getting some massive exposure. Also, in other exciting news, Dustbunny recently signed with Portland-based label, Pleasure Tapes, to have cassettes of Machinery cut soon!
Also on the Sunday bill are Japanese Breakfast, Built To Spill, Wednesday, Say She She, and Sam Austins.
Project Pabst 2025 is at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on SW Naito, Sat July 26 & Sun July 27, tickets here, 21+. Presale tickets are $85 single day, $150 weekend. General tickets drop February 28 at 10 am for $95 single day, $175 weekend.
