Written by Sam Cohen
North To Shore’s website says it all: “The only lineup New Jersey can handle.” For the third edition of Jersey’s arts and culture festival, the people behind North To Shore did not avoid the big names.
The North to Shore Festival is a three-weekend celebration of the arts in the city and on the beach in Asbury Park, Red Bank and Newark.
Unlike other New Jersey festivals like Sea.Hear.Now, N2S stands out for its combination of music, film, and comedy. In many ways, this year’s comedy lineup makes the musical acts look weak.
Starting on June 14 and running through June 19, N2S will start with Eggy, a Connecticut-based band, and end with the legend of funk, George Clinton, and his band, Parliament Funkadelic.
The first can’t-miss act of the first week is Los Angeles’s LA LOM, a trio of soulful instrumentation that perfectly ends a beach day in Asbury Park on June 15.
If you’re still at the shore on June 20, make sure to catch Cults. If you’re a city person, no worries; Third Eye Blind will bring fully charged life to Prudential Hall in Newark.
Maybe you know them from Stephen Malkmus’ infamous one-liner on Pavement’s “Range Life” or for their 1994 album Purple, but there’s no reason to miss Stone Temple Pilots on June 26.
The music lineup is great, and there are a load more names to check out, but like I said, it’s the comedy lineup that wins.
Leading off the comedy gauntlet is Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley, The Big Sick), who brings his sold-out Doing This Again tour to Victoria Theater on June 21.
The next night, SNL Weekend Update alumni Tina Fey and Amy Poehler take a leap from the Studio 8H desk to the Prudential Center. Their longtime friendship turns to comedy gold, and making it to the Restless Leg Tour is a necessity for anyone who watched NBC Thursday nights in the late 2000s.
An unlikely trio of Jon Stewart, John Mulaney, and Pete Davidson join together to close out the comedy side of things in Newark on June 27. Once again, N2S has a treat for long-time SNL fans.
The Newark International Film Festival will run through June 26-29, along with the Montclair Film Festival, which runs June 26-29.
Tickets are on sale now. Tickets are sold on an individual basis, and there are no full festival passes. Each event will have its own tickets and registration, with some events even being free! Age restrictions and refunds are at the venue’s discretion.
