Credit: Abby Bergeron

Join WSPN’s Mack Young, Abby Bergeron and Grace Zocco as they break down the annual music festival, Boston Calling, which took place May 23 to May 25.

Passing the signature arch, food carts line the perimeter, over 40,000 people cheer on the opening artist and freebies are handed out by sponsors of the music festival. For three nights, and three nights only, Harvard Athletics Complex transforms into Boston Calling.

Boston Calling is an annual live music festival, with many popular singers that come and perform in those days. Headliners played on the “green stage”, which is located on the turf, along with being surrounded by several Boston-owned restaurants available to buy food and drinks. With the non-headliners playing on the blue or orange stages, spectators had the ability to transition from one area to the next, based on their interest in the artist.

On Friday, May 23, the festival hosted popular artists, like Bebe Stockwell, who performed in the early afternoon, at 1:30 p.m.. Shortly after, the Boston-based band Dalton and the Sheriffs went on as a replacement for TLC who had dropped out just hours prior to the show due to an “unexpected medical problem”. Going on at 2:30 p.m., they helped kick off the weekend with covers of Zach Bryan’s “Oklahoma Smokeshow” and Ed Sheeran’s “Galway Girl”.

Later into the night, the lineup included various artists, like T-Pain, who paused during his cover of “Kiss, Kiss” by Chris Brown to admit he could feel his voice beginning to give out. In order to resolve this issue, he pointed the mic toward the audience during verses to give his voice a break.

Before the headliner Luke Combs took the stage, Megan Moroney performed as the first headliner of the night. Moroney encouraged fans to put their arms around each other during the song “The Girls”. To wrap up the night, the two artists joined the stage together and ended the night with a duet of “Beer Never Broke My Heart” by Luke Combs.

“A lot of people my age were there for Megan Moroney,” freshman Lily Quinn said. “I think she’s definitely more popular with [current high schoolers] than some of the other bands.”

On Saturday, punk rock star Avril Lavigne and Fall Out Boy headlined the evening. Avril Lavigne brought out the band All Time Low for the song “Fake As Hell.” All Time Low performed earlier in the day as well as bands like Cage the Elephant and The Black Crowes. The Black Crowes were one of the last performers of the night, singing at 8:45 p.m..

“I’m a huge Avril Lavigne fan, so hearing her do a collaboration with All Time Low live was amazing,” freshman Paxton Rothschild said. “All together, it was an amazing time as a music fanatic.”

On Sunday, Sublime’s lead singer Jakob Nowell revealed to the crowd that his father, Bradley Nowell, was the original lead singer of the band. Norwell talked about how meaningful this concert meant to him because the date of Boston Calling marked the death of his late father, as he had passed on May 25, 1996. This year marked 30 years of his passing.

Along the edge of the stage, Sublime set up large inflatable Dalmatians resembling the dog adopted by Bradley Nowell in 1990. Ever since, Sublime has featured this mascot in their concert setups, honoring the dog who used to come with the band to shows like these.

“My favorite performance was Sublime because of the big dog inflatables and cool graphics they had,” junior Addison Voight said.

On Sunday, May 25, was the closure day for Boston Calling. With headliner Dave Matthews Band, Sunday was more popular with the older generations than some other days. Dave Matthews Band is a “jam band”, so the festival shortened the second headliner spot (Vampire Weekend) down to only an hour, giving the final headliner, the Dave Matthews’s Band, a full two hours to play.

Security guards were located amongst the entire venue, provoking spectators to not congregate at one stage, in order to prevent the issues that occurred last year.

In 2024, attendees of the festival were consistently passing out from heat or dehydration. On Sunday alone of last year, paramedics responded to around 800 medical incidents during performances and faced many complications with reaching them because of the difficult layout. This year the scheduling of performances and positioning of the stages, like the removal of the red stage, was altered to prevent this from happening.

“They changed the whole layout this year and there was a lot more space for each stage,” Voight said. “Last year, the blue and green stage were right next to each other, which made it hard for people to transition from one singer to the next.