Foo Fighters, OutKast & Jack Johnson lead Firefly ’14

After years of being spotted by surprised fans during his annual vacations in Rehoboth Beach, Dave Grohl will finally perform in Delaware this summer on the state’s biggest stage.

His rock band, 11-time Grammy winner Foo Fighters, will headline Firefly Music Festival in Dover on the first weekend of the summer alongside the reunited hip hop duo OutKast and chilled-out folk rocker Jack Johnson.

Other than a Feb. 1 concert in New York tied to the Super Bowl, the Firefly date is the only other Foo Fighters concert currently scheduled.

The festival, which runs June 19-22, announced its 100-plus act line-up for the third incarnation of Firefly on Tuesday morning, making it the largest music festival ever held in Delaware.

Also on this year’s bill: British indie rockers Arctic Monkeys, electronic dance music DJ Pretty Lights and folk rock band The Lumineers, which canceled its appearance at last year’s Firefly with little warning due to a band member’s illness.

The rootsy five-piece, nominated for a pair of awards at the Grammys later this month, promised at the time to be back in Dover “as soon as humanly possible,” and will make good on that promise this year.

This year’s festival remains rock-heavy with Weezer, Band of Horses, Cage the Elephant, Portugal. The Man, Iron & Wine, Young the Giant, Tegan and Sara and Jake Bugg all announced as acts.

“Expectations are supposed to be greater because every year the festival gets bigger,” says Matt Van Belle, 29, of Wilmington, who has attended all of the Firefly festivals. “It looks like the headliners take them to that next level, for sure.”

Above: The reunited OutKast, one of Firefly’s headliners in 2014.

Two of Delaware’s most popular acts — the pop-flavored Mean Lady from Newark and Wilmington roots act New Sweden — will also perform, making it the first time in the festival’s three-year history to have more than one Delaware band.

Four-day general admission passes, which cost $249, will go on sale Monday at noon at www.fireflyfestival.com. Four-day VIP passes ($699) and four-day Super VIP passes ($1,999) are on sale now.

The Super VIP tickets include access to the artist lounge where musicians gather before and after their sets, stage deck viewing for some main stage shows and golf cart transportation between stages.

If you don’t have a golf cart, you better wear comfortable shoes to the festival, which is graduating from three to four days this year.

The festival area, known as The Woodlands, will cover 154 acres this year — a jump from the 87 acres Firefly used in 2012, its first year.

The extra space and additional day will allow the festival, which drew 65,000 people last year, to possibly host up to 85,000 people this summer, which would land Firefly alongside America’s largest rock festivals like the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee and Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California.

It also means more music. Firefly featured 48 bands on four stages in 2012 and 73 acts on six stages last year. About 105 acts have been announced to perform across seven stages this summer.

“This line-up continues to show the commitment that [organizers] have to making this the best music festival on the East Coast,” says Mike Tatoian, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Dover Motorsports Inc., which leases the festival site to Chicago-based Red Frog Events.

Above: Singer/songwriter Jack Johnson, pictured performing at last year’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, will headline a night at Firefly this year.

This year’s Firefly will mark the return of a few bands that have played the festival before, like alternative rockers Grouplove and mash-up artist Girl Talk.

But the returning act with the most buzz is Las Vegas rockers Imagine Dragons, which performed an 11:45 a.m. set at the very first Firefly festival, before its debut album was even released. The band has since skyrocketed in popularity, and is nominated for a pair of Grammys this year.

One thing is certain: The days of Imagine Dragons playing to a sparse crowd of yawning and hungover music fans is over. The band is sure to get a prime performance slot this year.

Van Belle was one of the fans who woke up early in 2012 to see Imagine Dragons, a band he had never heard of at the time. For him, that’s another Firefly draw — seeing unknown bands just before they break.

“They blew us away and now they are international superstars,” says Van Belle, whose friends took pictures with the band after the performance. “That kind of stuff is legendary.”

Fresh from performing at last year’s Philadelphia Folk Festival, the six-piece Americana act New Sweden is gearing up to play its biggest festival yet after more than a month of keeping its Firefly selection secret until this morning’s announcement.

Last year, the band pushed for its inclusion and never got the call, making this year even sweeter, says James “Jimmy Dukes” Dukenfield, a vocalist and banjo player in the band.

Above: Wilmington’s New Sweden will be one of two Delaware bands performing at Firefly this summer. (Photo: Joe del Tufo)

“Everyone’s really excited about it. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be,” says Dukenfield, 32, of Wilmington. “You’d have to be a real Scrooge to find the downside.”

For Foo Fighters frontman Grohl, set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April as a member of Nirvana, the summertime trip to Delaware will be nothing new.

Each summer, the Washington, D.C., native and his family fly into Georgetown’s Sussex County Airport and stay in the Rehoboth and Dewey Beach area for two weeks.

Those fans who bumped into Grohl, Delaware’s own rock ‘n’ roll Bigfoot of sorts, have taken photos with him everywhere from Funland on Rehoboth’s Boardwalk to Rehoboth Avenue’s Bandstand.

And while he once stopped on the sidewalk in front of Irish Eyes in Rehoboth Beach to watch Lower Case Blues play — flashing them the sign of the horns in approval while sticking out his tongue — Grohl himself has not yet performed in Delaware.

IF YOU GO

What: Firefly Music Festival

When: June 19-22

Where: The Woodlands near Dover International Speedway, Dover

Tickets: Four-day general admission passes, which cost $249, will go on sale Monday at noon at www.fireflyfestival.com. Four-day VIP passes ($699) and four-day Super VIP passes ($1,999), are on sale now.

THE FULL LINEUP

A Great Big World

A-Trak

Aer

The Airborne Toxic Event

American Authors

Amos Lee

Andrew Belle

Arctic Monkeys

Asaf Avidan

Bad Things

Band Of Horses

Basic Vacation

Bleachers

Breach The Summit

Bronze Radio Return

Cage The Elephant

Cash Cash

Chance The Rapper

Cherub

Childish Gambino

Christian Porter

City And Colour

Courrier

Courtney Barnett

Cruiser

Dan Croll

Foo Fighters

G-Eazy

Gemini Club

Geographer

Girl Talk

Goldroom

Gregory Alan Isakov

Griswolds

Grouplove

Haerts

Hey Rosetta!

High Highs

Holychild

Hunter Hunted

Imagine Dragons

Iron & Wine

Jack Johnson

Jake Bugg

John & Jacob

Johnnyswim

Kaiser Chiefs

Kodaline

Kongos

Little Comets

Little Daylight

Local Natives

Lucius

Magic Man

Martin Garrix

Mean Lady

Misterwives

MS MR

New Politics

New Sweden

NONONO

Outkast

Phantogram

Phosphorescent

Pigpen Theatre Co

Portugal. The Man

Pretty Lights

RAC

Royal Teeth

Saints Of Valory

Salva

San Fermin

Shakey Graves

Sir Sly

Sky Ferreira

Sleeper Agent

Sleigh Bells

Smallpools

Son Lux

Step Rockets

Stop Light Observations

Tegan And Sara

The Ceremonies

The Colourist

The Lumineers

The Mowgli’s

The Weeks

The White Panda

The Wild Feathers

Third Eye Blind

Tune-Yards

Twenty One Pilots

Typhoon

Unlikely Candidates

Vance Joy

Vic Mensa

Walk Off The Earth

Washed Out

Weezer

White Denim

Wild Child

Wild Cub

X Ambassadors

Young The Giant

Ziggy Marley