Sound Advice: Ohio Is For Lovers Festival Returns to Cincinnati Next Month

One of the biggest bands to come out of Ohio is once again gracing Cincinnati with an unforgettable night. Popular emo act Hawthorne Heights is hosting their now-annual Ohio Is For Lovers Festival at Riverbend Music Center on Sept. 7. The single-day event will host a plethora of acts in genres ranging all across the alternative music spectrum.

The host act may not be headlining, but the engine behind the festival is Hawthorne Heights. The group is native to the Dayton area, but multiple members once called the Cincinnati region home. Hawthorne Heights hit its stride in 2004 with the release of their album The Silence in Black and White . The album featured the namesake of the festival, the song “Ohio Is for Lovers . ” Since then, the group has sustained success with other tracks such as “Saying Sorry” and “Niki FM . ”

As a continuation of their legacy and a way to celebrate alternative rock music from the early 2000s, Hawthorne Heights established the festival in 2022. The original festival only consisted of three cities, but since then the festival has expanded to multiple locations nationwide. The one thread between them? Cincinnati is always the grand finale to it all.

This year’s lineup includes other popular 2000s post-hardcore acts such as Silverstein and Senses Fail. Spectators can also watch energetic pop-punk acts like Knuckle Puck and Real Friends. Ultimately, the show will be headlined by possibly one of the most notable emo act from the early 2010s, Hot Mulligan.

Aside from the national acts, the festival will feature multiple local acts. Bands like Better Anyway, Touchdown Jesus and Glassworld will also perform for the hundreds in attendance. When asked what this opportunity means to them, Better Anyway’s guitarist Cody Eanes described how it feels to CityBeat .

“Hawthorne Heights was a band that I grew up with from my brother bringing home their CDs when I was in middle school/early high school and I couldn’t get enough. To me, they were the epitome of emo and highly regarded in that era. Them asking us to play this festival means so much because they’re inviting us into their world of playing with so many of their friends.”

The Ohio Is For Lovers Fest takes place Sept. 7 at 1:30 p.m. Info: riverbend.org .

This story is featured in CityBeat's Aug. 21 print edition.