Mountain Oasis brings Nine Inch Nails, Bassnectar and Neutral Milk Hotel to Asheville

Trent Reznor will pull double-duty at Mountain Oasis
with Nine Inch Nails and How To Destroy Angels
Photo by: Rob Sheridan

When news first broke about Mountain Oasis nobody really knew what to expect about the festival.  There was debate going on over whether or not Moogfest would get pushed to a different date (it did, April 25-27) and what kind of overlap these festival's lineups would have.  Mountain Oasis is entering a bustling North Carolina festival scene, after Hopscotch released a dazzling lineup last week it was going to be difficult to steal the thunder of the Triangle's premier festival.  But if Mountain Oasis' goal was to get people talking, they've certainly done it.

The festival seemed to be geared towards electronic music, but the lineup announcement that came this morning featured one of the most diverse and eclectic collection of groups that I've seen in recent memory.  Headlined by a re-united Nine Inch Nails, Mountain Oasis boasts EDM mega-stars like Bassnectar and Pretty Lights while simultaneously featuring indie-icons like Neutral Milk Hotel, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Animal Collective.


Yesterday Neutral Milk Hotel announced their Asheville date with Daniel Johnston and Half Japanese and the blogosphere erupted.  Those that were keeping up-to-date on Mountain Oasis' happenings swiftly realized that this meant the reunited group would most likely be joining the Asheville festival's heavily hyped lineup.  Billed as an "Evening With Neutral Milk Hotel", Jeff Mangum curated the bill that will be playing at Asheville's gorgeous Thomas Wolfe Auditorium.  Mangum's legendary group will be joining the likes of a re-united Nine Inch Nails along with Reznors new project, How To Destroy Angels at this new but bustling Asheville festival.

While the rest of the lineup will be released throughout the next couple of weeks, this initial announcement has certainly proved that Mountain Oasis will quickly become one of North Carolina's finest festivals.  Combining some of the fastest rising electronic acts with the gatekeepers of electronic music, Mountain Oasis has provided a wide array of artists on their initial lineup.  A.C. Entertainment has a strong history booking diverse festivals like Bonnaroo, Forecastle and the previous Moogfest's, so it will be exciting to see the direction that the rest of this lineup is taken.

Weekend passes for the festival go on sale on May 2 and begin at $150.  The tickets follow the tiered system that Bonnaroo has been using for years now, as Tier 2 sees the price increase to $175 and the final Tier 3 sits at $200.  Festival goers can also choose to take a payment plan route or to ball out with a $400 VIP pass.  The initial lineup announcement can be found below:

Nine Inch Nails | Bassnectar | Pretty Lights | Neutral Milk Hotel | Animal Collective | How To Destroy Angels | Gary Numan | Godspeed You! Black Emperor | Disclosure | Chromatics | Tricky | Zola Jesus and JG Thirlwell | The Bug | Jessie Ware | Rustie | Robert Delong | Bosnian Rainbows | Half Japanese | Jacques Green | Daniel Johnston | Bondax | Silver Apples