Blink-182, Weezer Top Lineup for Free Virgin Mobile Festival

This year's Virgin Mobile Festival has a ticket price recession-minded music fans will love: none at all. Billboard reports the August 30th event at Maryland's Merriweather Post Pavilion will be free for 35,000 fans. Tickets will first be distributed to Virgin Mobile users and those who have attended past Virgin fests on June 25th and 26th; starting June 27th, the general public can pick up passes at the venue or Washington, DC's 9:30 club without incurring any additional charges, or order tix through Ticketmaster and pay delivery fees. Blink-182 and Weezer will headline the fest, and the lineup also features Franz Ferdinand, Public Enemy, Jet, the National, Girl Talk, the Hold Steady and St. Vincent, Billboard reports. The event will also have a public-service message: attendees will be encouraged to text-donate $5 to homeless shelters, and a VIP area will be reserved for those who have completed 13 volunteer hours at specific shelters nationwide.

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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