The Forest Hills Stadium Summer Concert Lineup Is Most Excellent
April 24, 2017, 9:50 a.m.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The National, and more are coming to the bucolic stadium this year.
In recent years Forest Hills Stadium has been coming back to life, and last summer they were back in full swing with a packed schedule for the season. Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan were just a few of the big names on the bill in 2016, and now the stadium has delivered what is hands down the most excellent summer concert lineup in the city.
In 2017, the stadium will host: The XX, The New York Pops (playing the music of John Williams), The Chainsmokers (okay, we didn't say it was perfect), Jack Johnson, Daryl Hall & John Oates AND Tears For Fears, Sigur Ros, Dispatch (with Guster), John Mellencamp and Emmylou Harris, My Morning Jacket and Gary Clark, Jr., Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and in October: The National.
The best part of all of this, of course, is not having to go to that circular cement chamber in Midtown to see these bands. The open-air venue is about as perfect as it comes—planted in the Forest Hills section of Queens, it's right off the F train and surrounded by Tudor-style architecture and lush green tennis courts. Once home to legends like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen, The Supremes, Joan Baez, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Simon & Garfunkel, and Frank Sinatra, it's no surprise the booking dips into the past with performances from the likes of Petty, but they also strive to keep things aesthetically nostalgic.
"It still feels like it could be 1923 when you're in there," promoter Mike Luba told us last year. "We worked pretty hard to keep that alive." Click through the photos to see the stadium and grounds from a tour we took last year.
