MINNEAPOLIS — In its third year, the Minnesota Yacht Club festival is acting more like it’s in its 43rd year. That’s around the age when many people start relying on familiar artists instead of new names in their music programming.

Much of the lineup for MYC 2026 looks like it could have been made for a festival in the year 2006. Matchbox 20, the Strokes, Dashboard Confessional, the Black Keys, All-American Rejects, Matt and Kim, Passion Pit and the Fray were all big on FM radio or iPod playlists in the early- and mid-‘00s. Now, they’re all headed to Harriet Island Regional Park in St. Paul for the festival’s latest three-day run, Friday to Sunday.

Minnesota Yacht Club’s organizers at C3 Presents — the company behind Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and many other big U.S. festivals — know that nostalgia sells. As do $16 beers and $19 cocktails when the festival crowd is a bit older, with a little more disposable income.

However, C3’s team did not completely eschew buzzy, younger artists in this year’s lineup. In fact, they made very good picks for the few newcomers on the lineup. Here are four we’re excited to catch, plus a few old-timers with interesting story lines.

Geese

Who: This shaggy-looking, artfully rocking band of Brooklyn hipsters is the buzziest new band of the past couple years. They’ve already topped numerous other festival bills this year, including Coachella and Bonnaroo, and are headed to Lollapalooza and Hinterland after MYC.

Why the buzz: Geese’s fourth album, “Getting Killed,” landed near the top of many year-end best-of lists in 2025, including Rolling Stone’s and Pitchfork’s. Comparisons to everyone from Radiohead and the Strokes to Tom Waits and Television abounded. That range sums up how undeniably unique-sounding the group is.

Geese performs 8 p.m. Saturday.

Die Spitz

Who: The hard-blasting punk quartet from Austin, Texas, is reminiscent of Minneapolis greats Babes in Toyland and “Bleach”-era Nirvana. Jack White signed them to his Third Man Records label, and Olivia Rodrigo just booked them to play her all-female/nonbinary Daisy Chain Fields festival next month in Los Angeles.

Why the buzz: So far, it’s mostly been over their wild and intense live shows. Last fall’s Fine Line gig was one of our favorite club shows of 2025, with a mosh pit that covered half of the venue and a lot of crowd-surfing and heated delivery from the band members. Let’s see how that all translates in the blazing afternoon sun.

Die Spitz performs 3 p.m. Sunday.

Lucy Dacus

Who: OK, she’s not really a newcomer. We raved about Dacus going back to her 2016-2019 Cedar Cultural Center sets. But the Virginian indie-rock strummer is still young (31) and still on the fringes of the music biz, though her stints with Phoebe Bridgers and girlfriend Julien Baker in their trio Boygenius brought her closer to the mainstream.

Why the buzz: Last year’s album, “Forever Is a Feeling,” reiterated how Dacus wasn’t just a backup player in Boygenius but could be another songwriter for the ages. Warm tracks like “Big Deal” and “Ankles” movingly riffed on the joys and fears of being in love, and she added lovely orchestral touches, too.

Dacus performs 6 p.m. Saturday.

Heart to Gold

Who: This young pop-punk trio from the Twin Cities suburbs got its start playing all-ages shows at venues like the sorely missed Garage in Burnsville and has been hard at work ever since. Frontman Grant Whiteoak has an impressive emo roar akin to Justin Pierre of Motion City Soundtrack (who was supposed to show at Yacht Club last year, but fell ill and didn’t make it).

Why the buzz: Whiteoak and his childhood buds sold out First Avenue in February and then hit the road for a long tour, after earning music-blog raves and some viral traction from their 2024 record “Free Help.”

Heart to Gold performs 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

And here are some reasons to take note of these older acts in this year’s MYC lineup:

The Strokes

New York’s lofty scenemakers of the early ’00s have a lot to prove in 2026. After a string of ho-hum albums and years of spotty slacker existence — their last full Minnesota gig was in 2006, not counting a shoddy and short opening gig with the Chili Peppers in 2023 — the members seem to be rallying behind their new album, “Reality Awaits,” which drops next week. Not all of them are all in, though. Guitarist Nick Valensi inexplicably bowed off this tour. Recorded with super-producer Rick Rubin in Jamaica, the first two singles, “Going Shopping” and “Falling Out of Love,” have an airy electro-pop vibe that suggest the dudes may have been heavily imbibing in local herbary while making it.

The Strokes perform 9 p.m. Sunday.

The Black Keys

It’s also comeback time for Ohio’s “Lonely Boy”-hitmaking rock duo. Singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney canceled an entire arena tour and fired their management team in 2024, after ticket and album sales slumped. They then ditched the glossier, radio-baiting sounds of LPs like “Ohio Players” and returned to the Delta-blues-copping grit and grind of early-‘00s records like “Rubber Factory” on their latest effort, “Peaches!” Sounds like a peachy return-to-form.

The Black Keys perform 7 p.m. Friday.

Semisonic

The Twin Cities’ locally adored pop/rock trio of “Closing Time” fame was supposed to play the Yacht Club festival last year but had to bow out after bassist John Munson suffered a stroke. He’s back and fully rocking again, and to prove it the band is playing a warm-up gig Thursday at the Varsity Theater and issuing new music, too. Their charged single from last month, “Don’t Give Up Yet,” finds Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Dan Wilson addressing the times in hopeful and impactful ways.

Semisonic performs 5 p.m. Sunday.

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Minnesota Yacht Club 2026

When: 12:30-10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sun.

Where: Harriet Island Regional Park, 49 Harriet Island Rd., St. Paul

Tickets: $315-$2,310/three-day pass, $160-$1,105/one-day, minnesotayachtclubfestival.com.

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