Carefully assembled by Hopscotch Director Greg Lowenhagen and Curator and Independent Weekly Music Editor Grayson Currin, the lineup spotlights the core of the Triangle's rich music scene by putting it on the same stages as some of the world's best bands.

"Several music festivals in the Triangle make it clear how strong the talent in North Carolina is, and they do it better and better each year," Currin says. "We don't want to replace that. Rather, we want to expand on it by showing that this area has the caliber of bands and listeners that can support a big music festival."

Lowenhagen hatched the idea for Hopscotch after moving to Raleigh following stints in Austin and Chicago, cities known for their support of live music festivals. He was surprised that no events in the Triangle regularly brought in a fleet of bands from outside of town.

"When I returned from being away, I realized the Triangle, with its strong music heritage and abundance of local talent, seemed ready for a different, more nationally recognizable festival to call its own," he says.

After being hired as an account executive at the Independent Weekly, he approached owner Steve Schewel and publisher Sioux Watson with his idea to start such a festival. They liked the plan. And why not?

"It's a financial risk, for sure, but we're thrilled to be doing it," says Schewel, who founded the Independent Weekly in 1983. "Hundreds of musicians from all over the country, thousands of fans flooding the bars and restaurants downtown, everybody riding the R-Line, gorgeous fall evenings of music in City Plaza in the shadow of the skyscrapers: The Triangle has been thirsting for a big-bang urban music festival, and that's why—after 26 years of writing about music in our community—the Independent is bringing Hopscotch to town."

Initial Lineup: 9th Wonder & Friends, Active Child, All Tiny Creatures, American Aquarium, Americans in France, Atlas Sound, Balmorhea, Bear in Heaven, Best Coast, Birds of Avalon, Black Congo NC, DJ George Brazil, Broken Social Scene, Brutal Knights, Richard Buckner, Burning Star Core, Cannabis Corpse, Caitlin Cary's Small Ponds with Tres Chicas, Collections of Colonies of Bees, Cults, Greg Davis, Double Dagger, Double Negative, The Dynamite Brothers, EAR PWR, ExMonkeys, First Rate People, Followed by Static, Ben Frost, f***ed Up, Future Islands, Golden Boys, The Golden Filter, Goner, Gray Young, Ryan Gustafson, Hammer No More the Fingers, Harlem, Harvey Milk, Horseback, John Howie Jr. & The Rosewood Bluff, I Was Totally Destroying It, Javelin, Jeb Bishop Trio, Juan Huevos, Kill the Noise, The Kingsbury Manx, Kooley High, Kylesa, The Light Pines, Lonnie Walker, The Love Language, Lucero, Luego, Max Indian, Erin McKeown, Megafaun, Midtown Dickens, The Moaners, The Monologue Bombs, Motor Skills, Mountains, Jon Mueller, Marissa Nadler, No Age, Ocean, Old Bricks, Panda Bear, Pattern Is Movement, Pictureplane, Plague, Pontiak, Public Enemy, The Rosebuds, Schooner, Sightings, spcl gst, Spider Bags, Thien, Tigercity, Tortoise, Treasure Fingers, US Christmas, Sharon Van Etten, Veelee, Vincent Black Shadow, War on Drugs, Washed Out, Weedeater, Whatever Brains, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Yip-Yip … MORE COMING APRIL 12TH