Neutral Milk Hotel’s Reclusive Frontman Jeff Mangum Returning to Stage
Jeff Mangum, the notoriously private frontman of the indie-folk band Neutral Milk Hotel, will play his first major live show in a decade at the I’ll Be Your Mirror festival on September 30th. The festival is being curated by Portishead and All Tomorrow’s Parties and will span three days in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Mangum’s solo set is scheduled for the first day of the festival but only audience members with three-day passes will be able to attend. Mangum is scheduled to play another non-festival show a few days later at the Paramount Theater, also in Asbury Park.
Mangum has made very few public appearances in the past 10 years despite the increasing cult popularity of Neutral Milk Hotel. Nevertheless, he has performed a few small shows in the recent past, including a Chris Knox benefit concert in Manhattan in May and a 10-song set at a Brooklyn loft in December. He has not released an album of new material since Neutral Milk Hotel’s widely celebrated In an Aeroplane Over the Sea came out in 1998.
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Other artists announced for the festival include Shellac, Chavez and Portishead themselves. This will be Portishead’s second I’ll Be Your Mirror festival in 2011, following a London bill on July 23rd and 24th featuring PJ Harvey, Grinderman and Liars.
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