Over the course of 4 days in late March, it seemed as if the center of the experimental music world was positioned in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee, at Big Ears Festival. Started in 2009, Big Ears Festival held in Knoxville, Tennessee, has developed a reputation for curating impressive lineups of some of the most exciting and eclectic avant-garde and experimental music artists across genres all in one place.
The 2025 Big Ears lineup was filled with genre fluidity and included artists such as Explosions in the Sky, Tortoise, Tigran Hamasyan, Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz, SML, Still House Plants, David Grubbs, clipping., Water Damage, Michael Rother performing the music of Neu!, William Basinski, and many more artists who made up the 200 concerts held at Big Ears from March 27th – 30th that was attended by 40,000 festival attendees.
The venues for Big Ears Fest are scattered around Downtown and neighboring Old City in Knoxville, and the shows are curated meticulously as venues are placed close together where the whole festival feels walkable and a feeling of closeness. There is a real sense of community when walking around Big Ears akin to many European festivals like ArcTanGent and Roadburn, where the festival never feels quite “too big” and getting to see most of the acts you want to see is quite manageable. When you are walking around the festival and in the crowd at shows, you will see artists who are playing the festival everywhere. It’s pretty cool when you keep running into Alan Sparhawk at the same coffee shop around the corner from your Air BnB every morning.
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A large part of what makes Big Ears feel like such a unique festival experience is the varying settings of venues. The festival’s largest venues are the beautiful Tennessee Theater and Knoxville Civic Auditorium, which are seated theaters and give traditional concert vibes, but most Big Ears venues are smaller more intimate spaces including hip rock clubs like Mill and Mine and The Standard, a few art galleries, a handful of churches hosting shows, a former railroad station converted into a venue, a glass blowing company with live demonstration, etc.
It’s a pretty incredible experience to venture from show to show and see U.K. art rock powerhouse Still House Plants play to a standing room crowd at a loud rock club and then walk a few minutes to see Bill Frissell, of John Zorn and Naked City fame, play to 3,000 people in the state theater of Tenneessee, and then go see Thor Harris lead an improv jam for live glass blowing in an incredibly hot room in the back of a glass blowing company connected to a brewery. An amazing group of ambient artists including William Basinski, Laraaji, and Steve Roach did shows in churches throughout downtown Knoxville with live visuals containing 3-D mapping done by the art group Age of Reflections.
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The quaintness of Knoxville nestled within the mountains on the cusp of Appalachia mixed with the energy and excitement of unique show performances with eclectic performers creates a very surreal almost ‘Lynchian’ atmosphere where it feels like Big Ears is separated from the rest of the world for the time you’re here and creatively almost anything can happen at any performance. Getting to see Michael Rother of Neu! performing with a live band the music of Neu! and Harmonium, was an entirely surreal experience getting to see the music of influential krautrock band Neu! performed lived by a founding member of the band. Some of that energy and excitement that percolates throughout the festival comes from the live collaborations that happen only at Big Ears. You get these memorable moments like John McEntire of Tortoise coming out and joining Yo La Tengo mid-set before Tortoise played a headlining set showcasing a lot of new songs, which were all bangers, and off their highly anticipated new album coming out later this year.
One of the most interesting collaborations of musicians this year occurred not in a huge theater, but in the patio of a brewery. Joyful Noise Recordings presented an improv set of Joyful Noise artists who were at Big Ears this year playing together in the back patio of Pretentious Brewing, and it was an impressive set to witness. The band consisted of Thor Harris (ex-Swans) on Clarinet, Melodica, and keyboard, Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) on drums, Shahzad Ismaily (Secret Chiefs 3, Ex Eye, Ceramic Dog) on moog synth, Wendy Eisenberg on guitar, Macie Stewart (Finom) on violin, Kramer on ukulele bass, Tall Tall Trees on banjo, and a few more added in the last minutes before their set began.
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Their set seemed to really catch the spirit of what Big Ears is all about, and showcasing the spontaneity of creativity in the building of community. Witnessing that caliber of musicians improving together and seeing lots of smiles and laughs across the stage as the music flowed from one musical passage to the next over the course of an energetic set of a jam packed back patio, it was a truly unique had-to-be-there moment that would be hard to emulate at another music fest of this size and recognition. Another interesting musical collaboration was Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz that had Stanton Moore (Galactic, Corrosion of Conformity) on drums and Moore’s New Orleans jazz drum style mixed with Claypool’s bass worked to create some really funky prog jazz that was pretty different from other Les Claypool related projects. They also have more than just music at Big Ears, and they hosted a sizeable film program this year including music documentaries on Brian Eno, Swamp Dogg, and Fugazi.
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Big Ears is also a great place to discover new music and the festival features many emerging artists on the rise. LA new jazz supergroup SML played a barnburner of a set that showed why they are one of the hottest jazz bands around right now. It felt very much like watching a band on the cusp of even larger success. I’d seen multiple Thor Harris acts over the weekend and kept being told to go see Thor Harris’ new-ish band Water Damage. After seeing Thor Harris live score glass blowing and playing an amazing improv noise drone set with Greg Saunier on drums, I was very intrigued to see Water Damage.
Nothing could have prepared me what I witnessed when 13 musicians come out on stage, including David Grubbs of Gastr del Sol and Bastro on guitar, who was also performing at Big Ears and joined Water Damage for their set. Two drum sets up front facing each other, like the classic Tortoise double drum set up, five guitarists, three bassists, two violinists, and someone who appeared to be playing dulcimer, the stage set up alone was impressive and immediately made the group appear as a kind of music force that resembled the large stage ensembles Boredoms used to tour with in the 90’s.
Water Damage performed a single song for their set that over 45+ minutes long, and it was a wonder to behold. It was noise rock at its core, but the sheer mass volume of the all the musicians eventually revved up to a large, sustained drone that pulsated the music forward in an exercise of repetition and pay off with brooding minimalist drums keeping everything together that felt like what would happen if Philip Glass wrote minimalist music for a noise rock band. Water Damage’s performance is something I’ve continued to think about in the days after the festival, and was just one of the many unique performances at this year’s Big Ears. It was fitting that the fest ended with one of the weekend’s most powerful performances in Explosions in the Sky, which feature some amazing accompanying visuals. The cinematic post-rock shimmered and washed over the crowd and ended the fest with a bang and not a whimper. From the ease of traversing downtown Knoxville to the different shows of the fest, the unique venues for certain shows as well as the one-of-a-kind collaborations between fest performers, Big Ears has created a community that fosters an unique festival experience and would highly recommend checking out the 2026 lineup once it’s announced later this year.