Design by Tyler Farmer.
Fred again.., Justin Vernon, and Dijon congregate in a town you can't pronounce.
August 7, 2026
BY Millan Verma
Not only is Eaux Claires festival a quintessential midwestern experience, complete with lumberjack shows, palm-sized cheese curds, and a Paul Bunyan statue, but it is also a rather humble event, bringing in less than 10,000 attendees this year. So as we awaited Fred again..’s collaborative set with Aaron Dessner of The National on Friday night, the overwhelming sentiment in the crowd was “I can’t believe this is happening.”
How did one of the most sought after DJs in the world end up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin (pop. 69,000) with less than one month’s notice, and who graced him with the good-hearted gumption to not just phone the set in as a favor, but to spend the last few days holed away at the local University’s theater constructing all new material with Dessner and the cello-sax duo KatzPascale? The answer likely boils down to two things: Justin Vernon cashing in his surplus of good karma earned through nearly two decades of being a “good guy” in this industry, and Fred maintaining a cheeky, “sure, why the hell not?” attitude that speaks to him basking in the absurdity of his life as a superstar DJ.
This year’s Eaux Claires fest (pronounced “oh claire”) marks its return after eight years away. What was once a grandiose ode to Bon Iver’s serene hometown that drew over 20,000 people now seemed like a scramble to stitch together a serviceable lineup. With the two big name headliners—Lil Yachty and Daniel Caesar—each cancelling at the last minute, this rabbit-out-of-the-hat move to get Fred again.. served as the festival’s saving grace, turning what many had predetermined as a disappointment into a fantastic weekend.
Paul Bunyan. Photo provided by festival.
The night before, in Chicago, Brock and I were at the Puerto Rican spot in my neighborhood enjoying jibaritos and rotisserie chicken. As he detailed a rather dramatic falling out with his now-ex girlfriend, an astonishingly handsome 71-year-old man named Felipe chimed in. “You’ve got to protect your peace, man. You’ve got to stay away from the drama. Your top three priorities should be this: number one—you; number two—you; number three—YOU! Being in love is the same thing as being insane. Opinions are like assholes—everybody’s got one! That’s all I have to say.”
He kept going for another ten minutes, but the part about protecting our peace stuck with us. Our goal was to be as zenned out as possible, leaving our troubles in the big city for the weekend. We left at sunrise the next morning, arriving at the camp grounds about five hours later. I had pictured tons of hippies ripping bongs out in the open with music blasting, but instead saw maybe 50 tents pitched, and a dozen or so people in their late-30s lounging around. I asked the guy at the gate where everyone was.
“There used to be thousands of people at these campgrounds, but that was about a decade ago. Now everyone’s a decade older, so they’re at hotels with their babies, if they’re even here at all.” He said the official count was around 350-400 campers this year. We set up our campsite, opened our cooler full of iced-down beers, and waited for the shuttle to take us to the festival. A big yellow school bus pulled up and took us through deep woods and past beautiful lakes. With this being Wisconsin, just about everyone had a beer in their hand, and the wind blowing in from the unlatched windows was cold and crisp. Driving through Eau Claire, the town seemed to share a spirit with wherever Charley Brown and the Peanuts grew up: main street was full of boutique shops and chipped murals, and, come winter, there’d be no shortage of spots to ice skate on.
The festival itself took place at Carson Park, formerly the home of the Eau Claire Bears, a minor league baseball team that Hank Aaron began his career playing for. As such, the two stages were a baseball field and a football field, then a lake in the shape of a horseshoe ran along the outskirts. Everyone seemed to agree that the infrastructure of these things is terrible by nature and attendees are largely treated like cattle, but the music and community to be found make it all worth it. After my foray at Summer Smash earlier this summer, it was nice to be at an event where the crowd skewed towards the late 20s and 30s instead of the teens. There were no trashcans thrown nor any shoving; everyone was there to take a load off and enjoy the music.
Carson Park. Photo by Josh Darr.
At around 6:30, Brock and I lined up for a set under the name “BON,” which had replaced Kevin Morby’s slot just a few days earlier due to his partner Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee giving birth. Out came Justin Vernon wearing a black wifebeater with just his acoustic guitar in hand. There are some things in this life we take for granted. Of course Justin Vernon is a famous musician: in my mind, he always has been. But hearing the resounding timbre of his voice is a humbling reminder as to why. From the early Bon Iver hit “Beach Baby,” to “Flume,” to the first-ever live performance of “S P E Y S I D E,” and an unreleased tribute to John Prine, people all around us were weeping. For the majority of the midwestern-millennial-coded audience, Vernon and this festival were canonical pieces of their 20s, and hearing these songs in their rawest form, in the place they hadn’t made a pilgrimage to since 2018, while an osprey soared in circles above our heads, struck a chord deep within. As he closed with “Hayward, WI,” an unreleased track about growing out of your hometown from his folkloreish For Emma, Forever Ago sessions, we headed to the other stage to grab a spot for Fred again..’s set.
Ravers in their 20s started to appear everywhere. Fred’s name alone had brought in people who couldn’t name a single Bon Iver song because a day pass to Eaux Claires was cheaper than any of Fred’s arena-filling solo dates. A group we stood next to was bursting with excitement, telling Brock and I that we were in for the show of a lifetime, and passing out dozens of Pink Whitney shooters. I asked how they managed to sneak in such a comical amount of liquor, and a guy with a fanny pack full of it said, “Oh, they didn’t care. I think they’re just happy we’re here!”
I am not an “electronic music guy,” nor did I know much about Fred again.. past his collaborations with Skepta and Young Thug. His set at Eaux Claires fest made me feel like a fool for neglecting such a wonderful genre for so long, and it also introduced a mode of performance that I did not know existed. I expected him to push some buttons and bob his head, but no, this was the work of a maestro more than a DJ. With one hand, he winced while playing a keyboard as he was classically trained to do, then with the other he looped the melody, chopped and distorted it live, and repeated, until it became a transfixing wall of sound that we witnessed the entire construction of. Once entranced, he tore it all down by throwing skull-rattling bass on, only to erect the wall again with playful tweaks.
Aaron Dessner of The National, who is also one of the festival’s co-founders, was a nice tie-in for the indie rock fans who may not’ve known Fred again.., and his guitar added heavy texture, but this was entirely Fred’s set. About midway through, Fred paused to give Aaron, Justin, and the city of Eau Claire their flowers:
“There’s a lot of firsts today. Aaron and I have never played live together before, I’ve never gotten to play in Eau Claire before, and I’ve definitely never played before and after Justin Vernon, and that is fucked up…I just stood there twenty minutes ago like the rest of you crying my eyes out, and this is the first time I’ve gone on stage while my tears are literally still wet, so thank you, to everyone.”
Next, he brought on KatzPascale, whose cello and saxophone kicked in just as the sun began to set. For “C’mon,” Fred’s track with Brian Eno that was co-written by Aaron Dessner, Jenna Pascale put her cello down and sang a melody that Fred chopped into a staccato dream. For the last song, he sampled Justin Vernon’s deep cut “song for a lover (of long ago)” which was written before Bon Iver had even formed. It was the perfect bow to a performance I could have watched for another five hours.
Fred again.., Aaron Dessner, and KatzPascale. Photo by Theo Batterham.
At around 9 p.m., with a dark sky and mosquitoes abounding, Justin Vernon hit the stage with an 11-piece band for a tribute set under the name “Bon Dylan.” The real Bob Dylan was born about two hours northwest of Eau Claire in Duluth, Minnesota, so they kicked things off with “Not Dark Yet,” a track from Bob’s 1997 album Time Out of Mind, which he wrote while hidden away in his Minnesota farm for the winter of ‘95. To mimic Bob Dylan’s voice, Justin Vernon had to noticeably pull back his range, and during “Tangled Up in Blue” I remember thinking, There’s no way the real Bob Dylan could sing that well. Other highlights were “The Man in Me” with a choir and “Boots of Spanish Leather,” which Vernon dueted with Wisconsin singer Monica Martin.
Bon Dylan. Photo provided by festival.
We took the bus back to the campsite, doused charcoal in lighter fluid to grill some brats, then went to sleep. To my surprise, the grounds were silent by midnight save for chirping crickets. We woke up and caught the first set of the day, gash, a five-piece band from Eau Claire. To announce them as part of the lineup, Justin Vernon voiced over a video of one of their local shows: “Sometimes, everyone just knows what the best thing is. Right now in Eau Claire, that band is gash.” They played with a tightness that speaks to their years spent gigging at bars and pizza shops, and oscillated between blistering riffs, vocal shrieks, and a math-core technicality with stuttering breaks. I interviewed them in their trailer afterwards.
My understanding is that they’re at the heart of Eau Claire’s DIY scene, a town which they described to me as “basically a suburb of Minneapolis.” They said the music scene is big enough to have variety, but small enough for the genres to cross-pollinate. “We all know the bluegrass bands, the electronic guys, the butt rock guys. For a while, folk was the big thing here. When we were in high school, Bon Iver was getting big, then after high school, softer indie acts like Adelyn Rose were the thing. gash is kind of against the wave in that sense.”
gash. Photo by Eric Ruby.
In favor of protecting our peace, Brock and I headed back to the campsite for a few hours to save our energy for a late night ahead, where Samia and Dijon would be closing out the fest. As we sat in our camping chairs and zoned out, a guy in a button down emblazoned with Koalas stumbled over to us. He introduced himself as Brian and had a beer-belly the size of a keg. He was drinking a Miller Lite, and informed us that he had been drinking them since seven in the morning. He was drunk to the point that he was mumbling his words, and told us something about how his wife put him “in timeout” for a few hours so she could take a nap. We offered him some of our moonshine, which he declined, saying, “only Lite by Miller for me.” He liked that one, and kept repeating it to himself as he zig-zagged towards another campsite. Once evening hit, we got on the bus and rode back towards Carson Park.
Known MPLS, a gospel group from Minneapolis were singing their praises as we took another walk around the grounds before Samia’s set. I hadn’t heard of Samia before she was added in Daniel Caesar’s place, but she has quickly become one of my favorite working songwriters. Her 2025 album Bloodless is phenomenal, and she didn’t skip a beat live. The instrumentals are light and airy, but her soft voice sings rather gut-wrenching narratives. “Bovine Excision,” for example, takes its title from the rare phenomena of farmers finding their cattle dead with all of the blood sucked out of their bodies. Or “Sacred,” where she repeats this curse like a mantra: “You never loved me like you hate me now.” She skipped around the stage, apologized for “not being Daniel Caesar,” and put together one of the best sets of the weekend.
The final headliner was Dijon, whose huge year in 2025 off the strength of his album Baby and he and Mk.gee’s exponentially growing influence on the indie world granted him the honor. I couldn’t tell you what their technical set up was, or how they made metal clanging sounds with a piano, but he and his band sounded like the evolution of Dijon’s infamous “Many Times” live video, making the whole audience feel like we were sitting in the middle of a living room with them. Wearing a purple gash shirt, Dijon convulsed during “HIGHER!” like Prince with a stomach ache, led the crowd in a sing-a-long to “The Dress,” and ended the weekend on a sentimental note with “Kindalove.”
Dijon. Photo by Josh Darr.
Brock and I were riding a high, so we asked some guys in the parking lot if they would drop us off at The Joynt, a dive bar in downtown Eau Claire that Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie all played at. They were happy to, and the bar was slammed as we walked in. Pitchers of beer were only $8, and people kept donating theirs to us as they left. We talked to folks from San Francisco, Cincinnati, Texas, and even England. Everyone seemed to agree: Eau Claire is a fine town, and, despite all the last-minute cancellations, the festival was well worth the trip. We caught an Uber back to the campsite around 1 a.m., and heard someone belting “Free Bird” down the hill by a roaring fire. We walked over, and it was Brian, barefoot with a Miller Lite in hand.
Beyond the “quality of the music,” the beauty of the weekend came from everyone being on the same page. People were here for an escape, and the festival itself allowed that. Big name sponsorships weren’t shoved down our throats, affordable meals and drinks were just a walk away in the town, and summertime in Wisconsin—cool nights, warm days, purple sunsets—has a soothing effect on the mind. It felt like a vacation rather than an endurance test, which is something larger music festivals should definitely take note of.
Brock and Brian dueting "Daughter" by Pearl Jam. Photo by author.