Gigawatts Festival returns to Bushwick this weekend

Thousands of Brooklynites and dozens of bands will descend on Bushwick for the third annual Gigawatts Festival, but this event is smaller than the name suggests.

Although the music festival will bring 85 bands to Meserole Street this weekend, according to organizers, the performers are all acquainted.

“A lot of the bands that we book are friends of ours,” said Danny Krug, one of the organizers of the upstart event. “I live in Bushwick and a lot of the people playing the festival are neighbors of mine. I think there’s a really strong pool of talent here in this neighborhood right now, and we want to showcase that.”

This year’s festival is drawing both small, local acts and national ones, like Braid and Black Lips, to be featured across three stages: the Well, the Wick and Our Wicked Lady.

The point, Krug said, is to showcase some of the best up-and-coming musicians around, which this year include Swearin’ and Ava Luna.