Where do you start with a fest whose schedule runs four days with 70, 80, who knows how many acts? How about starting at the start and ending at the end? Nice, A Fest runs four days, from Thursday, July 25 to Sunday, July 28.

Get your tickets here.

Music fests are a place to discover new music. So go in completely blind and see some bands you’ve never heard before. Or disregard that advice entirely and preview below some acts we’re excited about at Hump Day News.

Life is about choices.

Friday

Ian Sweet / Hannah Mohan / Pet Fox / Mallcops

Addie / Alright Thanks / Axel & Lolo / Bus Crush / Chris Walton / Coco Smith / Hereboy / Impossible Dog / Jobie / Jake McKelvie / Little Fuss / Noble Dust / Tiberius / TIFFY

The festival kicks off Thursday night with a show that probably approximates most closely the contours of a one-off show. Five bands, sure, but doors don’t open until the evening and all the action is in one spot: Crystal Ballroom.

On Friday the fest sneaks up a little more on the daylight hours. Doors at 4PM. Enough time to get in a standard workday, if you’re a standard worker.

But maybe you work early mornings or late nights. Maybe you don’t work at all. How should I know? I don’t know you at all. Don’t make this weird.

Two venues on offer for the evening, The Rockwell and Crystal Ballroom, which is a blessing and a curse. Yes, the set times are staggered so that you could theoretically catch the start of each set before skipping along to the other site. It’s literally a two or three minute walk from one venue to the other.

But who wants to see a quarter of 16 sets? Plus, you gotta factor in the time it takes to get through the door (and if a place is at capacity, you’re out of luck). You’re a crazy person to do that. Pick your spots, take in full sets, and hit up the artists you missed later in the year if they’re playing local. Trust us, they’re playing local.

Who to catch? The alt folk/country crowd should hit up Noble Dust early at The Rockwell. The winsome ad wily string pluckers can go big or go small – they’re probably going big for a big fest.

Axel & Lolo serve up impossibly sweet pop confections. There’s melodic complexity brewing beneath the surface, but it’s the brightest and shiniest hooks, along with the vocal duets, that grab all the attention. Catch them early at Crystal Ballroom.

If there’s a central core musical aesthetic to the festival lineup, it’s probably something in the neighborhood of your classic indie rock trio or quartet. And since this is such a local’s local fest, maybe that aesthetic is a reflection less of the organizer’s taste, and more of the innate contours of the local scene? Either way, plenty of guitar slinging alt rockers with buzzy hooks and gnarly riffs. Hit up Hereboy, Little Fuss, TIFFY, and start seriously contemplating the purchase of a pickle juice-based cocktail.

Shout out to Mallcops, who always draw a good crowd. They recorded a single with Layzi not too long ago, who’s playing the next day. So maybe she sneaks on stage for a quick hit?

Album reviews come too few and far between at Hump Day News (it’s too bad, you should contribute some). But when we wrote up Pet Fox’s full-length LP A Face In Your Life a while back, we loved it.

The post punk trio has a sound that operates with muscularity and finesse at the same time. Watch for a jazzy chord or note here and there to add some accentuating highlights to their indie rock terrain. Everything in the right proportions, just so, like a pickle juice-based cocktail.

Not a bad way to close out a Friday night at The Rockwell.

Shout out to all the artists playing Friday at Nice, A Fest, including Ian Sweet, Hannah Mohan, Addie, Alright Thanks, Bus Crush, Chris Walton, Coco Smith, Impossible Dog, Jobie, Jake McKelvie and Tiberius.