Don’t love Lovin’ Life’s lineup this year? The founder of the event has a message for you.
As the man who helps lead the company that books the artists for Lovin’ Life Music Fest — as well as two of the East Coast’s biggest country-music festivals — Bob Durkin knows a little something about being criticized for his choices.
He knows one music fan might have looked at last year’s inaugural Lovin’ Life lineup, or at this year’s sophomore bill, and reacted by writing something on social media along the lines of, “Aw, they should have gotten Eminem. Why couldn’t they get Eminem?” Well, first, Durkin knows Eminem isn’t even touring. So there’s that.
But there’s also this: The president and co-founder of Southern Entertainment knows a second music fan might see the first one’s comment and think to themselves, Eminem? I don’t care about Eminem. Why would they want Eminem!?
“Everyone has their own opinion,” Durkin said in a recent interview with CharlotteFive, with a laugh. “I mean, music, that’s the great thing about it. It means something to everybody and something different to everybody.”
Five weeks from Friday, Lovin’ Life will return to uptown Charlotte with an entirely new slate of artists, and he’s aware there are some would-be concertgoers who aren’t impressed.
It’s nothing new to him.
“With CCMF (Carolina Country Music Fest) in Myrtle Beach, I used to get nervous when the lineup would be released. I’d wait for the comments.” Now? He’s always confident that he can change people’s minds.
Last year, for example, he says some younger music fans whined about headliner Stevie Nicks. In response, the festival used its social media channels to raise awareness of her pervasiveness in pop-culture even today — at one point posting a clip from a 2022 episode of “The Family Guy” showing Peter twirling to Nicks’s 1981 hit “Edge of Seventeen” — “then the show happened, and people were like, ‘Oh my God, she’s great.’”
Durkin also pointed out that “The Beach Boys couldn’t have gotten beat up more when we put them in the lineup,” again, by younger fans. “They were like, ‘I don’t understand. This is crazy.’ But if you were out there for the Beach Boys, you understood what they bring, and how exciting they were, and why this group is so iconic.”
What he’s basically saying is, Contrary to what you might think, the artists we put in the lineup will deliver. And for 2025, that lineup includes:
- Gwen Stefani, Friday-night headliner, who hasn’t performed here in nearly nine years: “An American icon, from fashion to (coach on NBC singing competition) ‘The Voice,’ but also she’s reinvented herself several times. No Doubt, and then her solo album, and then more recently her hits with Blake Shelton (including 2020’s “Nobody but You,” the year before they were married).”
- Saturday-night headliner Weezer: “Last year, they headlined Shaky Knees, Atlanta’s biggest festival, and we were lucky to get ’em this year. They’re one of those acts that have more (recognizable) songs than you’d think,” starting with 2005 smash “Beverly Hills.”
- Sunday-night headliner Dave Matthews Band: “He has a cult following. We had a ton of requests for Dave Matthews. And they’re coming to Charlotte to headline the festival right after getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in October).”
- Benson Boone: “You saw his performance at the Grammys, where he jumped off the piano (and where he was nominated for Best New Artist). We had a ton of requests for him, too, and his next hit is heading to number one right now” — that’d be “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else.”
- Pitbull: “He revitalized his whole career with TikTok. These young girls, 16, 18, 20-something, they know him from TikTok. They know “Timber,” they know all his hits. And they’re putting those bald caps on at his shows, so we’re trying to get with Guinness and break the world record for the most people wearing bald caps.”
- Others Durkin mentioned as worth buzzing about for this year are Teddy Swims; Third Eye Blind; The Revivalists; Ludacris; Flipturn (“the next Mt. Joy”); Lola Young (“the next Chappell Roan”); Gigi Perez; Mike.; BigXThaPlug (the rapper who is featured on country singer Bailey Zimmerman’s new song “All The Way,” dropping Friday); Dexter and the Moonrocks; and Sainted Trap Choir, the Charlotte-based group of “America’s Got Talent” fame.
“Everybody can take a shot at your lineup,” Durkin said. “There’s 50 artists (on the bill you can) tell us you don’t like. And everyone sits there and is like, ‘Ohhh, I wish they had Morgan Wallen. I wish they had Metallica.’ Well, you can sit there and wish how many people we had. But at the end of the day, it’s gonna be three nights of amazing music — trust us.”
“We’re gonna get 25,000 people together under the skyline in Charlotte listening to the best music in the world. We couldn’t be more excited.”
Lovin’ Life odds and ends
How are ticket sales? “Good. Great,” Durkin said — about where they were last year at this time. Last year, he said, roughly half the tickets were sold in the last month, and it was the weekend-of that the fest sold out. He predicts the pattern will be the same this year. “If the weather is getting nice, people start seeing what’s going on, with two weeks to go, all their friends are going, it’s all over social media, then everyone will be like, ‘I gotta go. I can’t miss this.’” As a reminder, yes, the festival is selling single-day tickets this year, and Durkin said “I think Sunday is gonna probably be the first day of the festival that sells out, with Dave Matthews being such a draw; and Teddy Swims; and BigXthaPlug being the hottest new rapper out there these days.” Lovin’ Life is expecting 20,000-25,000 to attend.
With rapper/Super Bowl halftime star Kendrick Lamar performing with SZA at Bank of America Stadium on the same Saturday as Night 2 of Lovin’ Life, Durkin said “we’re vying a little bit with that show for hotels“ — as well as, more specifically, concertgoers in seats. “It’s not optimum. The city, too, they were a little bit surprised, I guess, by that, because it’s a lot of the resources and city services. We hoped that one weekend that there wouldn’t be a show there, but if there is ... the more people in town, it’s just more hotel rooms being filled, more people spending money, I guess.”
Regarding the multi-genre music festival’s dearth of big-name country acts: Southern Entertainment produces Carolina Country Music Fest as well as Barefoot Country Music Fest in Wildwood, N.J., and have booked Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson and Rascal Flatts to perform sets at both June festivals. That’s had some wondering why Southern doesn’t attract more big country names to Lovin’ Life. “Most of the country artists come through here,” Durkin countered. “They come through PNC, they come through at the stadium, they come through at the arena. So, Charlotte does already get a share of the country music. But I mean, last year, we had Parmalee. And in the future, we talked about a couple of country bands. We definitely have plans on continuing to be multi-genre.”
Regarding long lines of epic proportions at the Bojangles’ food stand last year: “That street right there where you saw those lines, we are gonna be able to kind of expand that and kind of address that,” Durkin said. “But the thing about Bojangles — in any event we do, wherever we do it, they line up. It’s just — it’s the only thing they want. It’s like it’s in the water down here. It’s crazy.”
Among the local restaurants that will be represented on site this year: Fahrenheit Charlotte, Libretto’s Pizzeria, and Mac’s Speed Shop. The full food-vendor lineup was released Thursday morning.
Among hotels with Lovin’ Life special rates: AC Hotel Charlotte City Center, as well as SREE Hotels including Aloft City Center, SpringHill Suites City Center and Embassy Suites Charlotte.
And remember: Two more acts are to-be-announced. One within a matter of days ...
This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Don’t love Lovin’ Life’s lineup this year? The founder of the event has a message for you.."
