Pictured above is my T-shirt from the 1997 HFStival. That was back when 99.1 still ruled the D.C. alt-rock airwaves, and the festival was the be-all-end-all musical event of the year. Going was a right of passage for which I had to beg my parents’ permission for years. On September 18 at Merriweather Post Pavilion, local teenagers will get the chance to feel completely differently than I did about much the same lineup:

MAIN STAGE: Third Eye Blind; Billy Idol; Everclear; Ed Kowalczyk from Live; Presidents Of the United States of America; Fuel; Lit; Marcy Playground

LOCAL STAGE: Jimmie’s Chicken Shack; Jah Works; Fools And Horses; Lionize; Honor By August; Middle Distance Runner; RPM – Restoring Poetry in Music

Two of those bands are actually listed on my shirt from 1997 (Third Eye Blind and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack). Most of the others on 2010’s bill played the HFStival at some point during its heyday (Presidents of the United States of America in 1996, Everclear, Fuel and Marcy’s Playground in 1998, Live and Lit in 1999, and Billy Idol more recently in 2005).

WHFS exists as an HD radio station out of Baltimore these days, which means I have not listened to their offerings since they went off the air in D.C. in 2005. This lineup leads me to believe the new version of the station must indulge in spinning a lot of old reels of Rob Tim (Rob Tim! Yeah!) shows from the ’90s.

It’s unclear what exactly the folks behind the HFStival are trying to pull off here. If it’s sparking nostalgia among people like me… well, I won’t lie. I’m slightly intrigued. I consider myself a pretty big ’90s rock nostalgist, but even I can’t imagine devoting an entire day to seeing if Stephan Jenkins and Ed Kowalczyk still got it. Billy Idol is the clear outlier here, and could warrant the price of admission — which ranges from $25 to $40, by the way.

Tickets go on sale this Friday. What say you, local concert goers? Are the ’90s ripe for a revisit, or is this just a bizarre act of concert booking?