Our Weekend at Dog Days Festival 2026
- Mary Beth Bryan
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Dog Days Festival made its annual return to Savannah, GA on June 5th and 6th this year, creating a space for music, community and political frustration to coexist.
Though last year’s headliners are hard to top–including Mannequin Pussy and a pre-Getting Killed, pre-psyop accusations Geese–this year’s show brought us a more manageable schedule and venue situation. Patrons of the festival could pretty much catch every set they wanted to in this condensed format, which didn’t suffer from overlapping set times or far-flung venue changes. The weather was also about as good as you can get for June in Georgia; last year’s constant thunder storming was not hard to top.
I arrived in time on Friday afternoon to catch some of Atlanta band Dinner Time on the side stage. As their set came to a close, the heavy sounds of Rosemary nods upon the grave started to bleed over from the main stage. Sets from Richmond, VA’s Drook, Los Angeles’ Winter, and local band Catzap! (who seemed to be conducting some kind of science experiment on stage, complete with lab coats and test tubes) carried us into the evening.
Upchuck, a certified favorite of ours here at Kapoorhouse, took the stage 15 minutes ahead of schedule as the first headlining act of the night. The crowd was pleasantly exhausted by the end. The integrity of the stage barrier was tested. “That Upchuck set destroyed me,” I heard a passerby say on my way back to my car at the end of the night. Per usual, they dedicated a portion of the show to telling ICE and Donald Trump to fuck off. It’s always a beautiful thing to hear cheers of agreement to these sentiments in a Southern audience. They ended the set with lead singer KT joining the crowd to sing the band’s self-titled song.
Sextile finished the night with a rave-style electro-punk set. Member Brady Keehn expressed gratitude for being a part of Dog Days, saying that Savannah is the city where he started making music. He and co-founder Melissa Scaduto created one of the best crowd energies all weekend. Everyone was moving and smiling. Even the security guards couldn’t help but dance. Water bottles were sprayed into the pit, and smoke guns went off on the sides of the stage. Scaduto flew a flag across the stage toward the end of the set that said, “No one is free until everyone is free!” before the duo ended the main set with a song written after the murder of Alex Pretti. They returned for an encore song where Scaduto joined the crowd to sing and dance to the end of DDF day one.
Hudson Freeman kicked day two off at Front Porch Improv playing songs from his upcoming album (which he very nearly let us in on the name of). In his hands, a folk guitar seemed extra dexterous, delivering the expected folk sounds one minute and meshing with the band in full-out indie rock the next. When he started the now-familiar riff to his breakout song, “If You Know Me,” instant cheers erupted in the crowd.
After his set was Esther Rose’s. She sang songs from last year’s Want, a memoir-esque album which she said a fan outside had described to her as being “like eating your vegetables.” Its sobering content about regret, relationships, and substance abuse may not go down easy, but it’s important to hear. Like Freeman, her Americana sound often slid into rock territory. “I know you came for country, but we gotta change,” she joked. Mid-set, she joined in the political outspokenness that defined the festival by having the crowd join her in a “fuck Donald Trump” sing-along during one of her songs.
Back at the main stages, artists and fans alike mingled around the main festival venue catching heavier acts like Mantra, Liquids, Portrayal of Guilt and Sword II. Sharp Pins’ midday set on the main stage was a standout for me. The sun was beating down the hardest it did all weekend, but the sweat was worth it. The well-dressed trio put forth a set of power pop perfection.
The day ended with headliner Osees. Frontman John Dwyer came on stage wearing a “Fuck Zuck” tank top, standing alongside two centerstage drummers. They played a set of high-octane psychedelic rock while tripped out projections of the stage played on the big screen behind them. As with Upchuck, security fought to keep the barrier upright against the thrashing fans in the audience. Their last song gave us 15 final, blistering minutes of DDF 26.
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