HOOKED UP

Twenty-five years from now, music critics are going to look back on this decade and write lots of thoughtful words pinpointing the 2010s as the moment music festivals morphed forever. Gone is the mentality that says a festival has to cater to a specific demographic — instead, artistic diversity and opposites-attract-style programming are seen creative preferences and opportunities to sell more tickets.

As music fans, that’s OK with us. We’ll take the opportunity to see 10 (or 20, or 30) wildly divergent bands in one place any day of the week. Which is why we’re so excited about this year’s Connection Festival, sponsored by X102.9 and Community Bank. Like old-school East Coast hip-hop? Ferocious political punk? Epic emo rock? Irreverent dance music? Dreamy electro-pop? Metal, ska, jazz, hardcore, folk, and reggae? Then you’ve hit the jackpot, because all of those touchstones are on the roster July 23 at Metropolitan Park. We chose a few of the most exciting things about Connection Festival — and we’ll be there with you, diggin’ them all this weekend.

AGAINST ME! Is there a more powerful punk band operating right now? Call us biased — frontwoman Laura Jane Grace grew up in Southwest Florida and spent good chunks of time living in both Gainesville and St. Augustine — but we don’t think so. Calling out sexism, racism, capitalist conformity, and homophobia since 1996, Against Me! really hit its stride a few years back, when Grace emerged as the tall, brash, take-no-prisoners face of rock ’n’ roll’s transgender movement. Best of all? Her music (and her band’s performance intensity) only got better with each head-banging, body-moving, thought-provoking song.

ST. LUCIA Synth-pop never sounds as sumptuous as it does from South Africa-born, Brooklyn-residing producer Jean-Philip Grobler. His aquamarine musical hues are perfect for a summer festival, but don’t expect an easy-going, phoned-in set: St. Lucia made waves with critics on the 2016 album Matter, which many dubbed too maximalist and multihued. But pushing outside of electronic music’s preconceived boundaries is a hallmark of the genre, and we can’t wait to see what kind of epic live show Grobler brings to Jacksonville.

WU-TANG CLAN When it comes to hip-hop history, there’s Wu-Tang Clan — and then there’s everyone else. The Wu redefined rap music’s landscape in the mid-’90s, when a ragtag crew of MCs emerged from the dark recesses of Staten Island with what may be the most epic concept album of all time, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Immediately thereafter, they implemented a brilliant business and marketing plan that turned the yellow W into a ubiquitous global symbol that still carries legit street-cred cachet to this day. There’s no telling which of Wu-Tang’s original nine members will be at ConnectFest, but whoever it is will still spit some of the sickest rhymes over some of the hardest beats ever conceived.

BOUNCING SOULS New Brunswick, New Jersey, is a hop, skip, and a jump across Arthur Kill from Staten Island, but The Bouncing Souls came up in a much different scene. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, their fizzy pogo pop-punk came to define New Jersey’s basement scene. What’s most pivotal about Bouncing Souls? Their foresight: They started their own label, Chunksaah Records, from the beginning, and even after joining the punk-rock major leagues with Epitaph Records, they maintained a fiercely DIY mentality. That’s why, 25 years on, they’re still held up as pioneers of pop-punk and bearers of the blue-collar New Jersey torch. And with a new album this summer, they still work as hard as anyone.

BIG DATA It’s possible everyone in the world has heard Big Data’s “Dangerous” at some point. The slippery backbeat is infectious, the chorus is contagious, and the music video, which used individual Facebook timelines as fodder for an interactive, voyeuristic voyage, made headlines when it dropped in 2013. Like so many of the artists playing Connection Fest, the trio has also kept total control over its music and public persona, releasing everything on producer Alan Wilkis’ Wilcassettes label and choosing savvy collaborations with celebs like Rivers Cuomo and Jamie Lidell. And, hey, we’ll say it — when Big Data plays “Dangerous,” we guarantee everyone in Metro Park will lose it.

TAKING BACK SUNDAY, CAGE THE ELEPHANT These co-headliners (along with Wu-Tang) push rock ’n’ roll into wildly divergent directions, but each does it with bravado and unexpected left turns — all while cultivating intensely passionate fan bases. Over the course of four albums, Cage the Elephant has careened from classic funk to garage blues to psychedelic punk, but brothers Matt and Brad Shultz continue to age gracefully into their eccentricities. And, sure, Taking Back Sunday has served as the epitome of the emo crest of the 2000s (and its attendant revival in the 2010s). But chances are you won’t sit down the entire time these rousing Long Island rockers play their instruments. They bring it and, no matter the genre, you can’t argue with that.

SO MANY GREAT LOCAL BANDS From the reggae-inspired (Beebs & Her Moneymakers, Control This) to the uniquely Floridian punk-rap hybrid (Whole Wheat Bread, Askmeificare) to the lushly country-fried (Jackie Stranger, Speaking Cursive), the local undercard is stacked at this year’s Connection Festival. More bands — Colours, Moya Moya, Universal Green — are integral members of Northeast Florida’s thriving music community, so arrive early to show all of them some much-deserved support. (And props to Connection Festival organizers for naming the stage where most of them perform after Jacksonville’s original name, Cowford).

And, hey, if all this joy hasn’t ignited you, here’s the topper: This year’s festival is hosted by Pauly Shore. Yeah, that Pauly Freakin’ Shore. Here’s looking at you, buuuuud-dy.