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Friday Five: Minnesota music highlights from Rock the Garden

Lizzo performing with GRRRL PRTY at Rock the Garden 2016.
Lizzo performing with GRRRL PRTY at Rock the Garden 2016.MPR / Nate Ryan

by Jay Gabler

May 31, 2019

With Rock the Garden coming up in less than a month, we're dedicating a special edition of our Friday Five to great performances by Minnesota artists in past years at the summer classic. This year's lineup includes Heart Bones, Bad Bad Hats, and deM atlaS — tickets are still available!

Trampled by Turtles, "Alone" (2012)

Highlighting a largely local lineup in 2012, Trampled by Turtles inspired one of the festival's biggest singalongs when 10,000 garden rockers joined the Americana heroes for the outro of their anthem "Alone."

Low, "Do You Know How to Waltz?" (2013)

In perhaps the most-discussed set in the history of Rock the Garden, Low took the stage in 2013 just as the crowd emerged from a subterranean set by Dan Deacon. The Duluth iconoclasts took their full half-hour to play exactly one song: the droning "Do You Know How to Waltz?" from 1996's The Curtain Hits the Cast.

"It was a big show, so we wanted to do something big and different," said frontman Alan Sparhawk in a subsequent interview. "If I was there in the audience, that's the kind of thing I'd like to see a band do."

Jeremy messersmith, "Wrecking Ball" (2014)

"No one expected to hear Miley Cyrus at Rock the Garden," wrote City Pages naming 2014's Best Cover Song. "No one, that is, except Jeremy Messersmith. He jumped, never asking why. Aided by the Laurels String Quartet and his bruising live ensemble, Messersmith swung 'Wrecking Ball' at about 10,000 hearts and shattered 'em all over the Walker's grounds."

GRRRL PRTY, "Wegula" (2016)

Lizzo is pretty much a dream Rock the Garden booking...and we've been able to live that dream twice. She played the festival as a solo artist in 2014, then came back two years later for a one-off reunion with her GRRRL PRTY crew. With the Walker under construction, Lizzo, Sophia Eris, Manchita, and DJ Shannon Blowtorch brought Boom Island down with their signature jam "Wegula" as Lizzo posted live highlights on Snapchat.

Feist feat. Mark Wheat, "Century" (2018)

Leslie Feist is from Canada, but on one of her songs last year she got an assist from a naturalized Minnesotan.

A big Feist fan, The Current's Mark Wheat was very familiar with her album Pleasure and specifically the track "Century" — a song on which Jarvis Cocker contributes a spoken-word interlude. Backstage, Wheat said that if she needed anyone to stand in for Cocker, he was available. To everyone's delight, she decided to take him up on the offer.