Laid Back Festival returning to Jones Beach this summer

The Laid Back Festival of music, food and drink, which debuted in 2015 at what was then the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, returns to that since-renamed venue on Aug. 8. The festival lineup includes the previously announced Steve Miller Band, Beach Boys icon Brian Wilson, blues legend Taj Mahal and more.

Promoter Live Nation said Wednesday that presales begin Thursday at 10 a.m. at Ticketmaster.com with remaining tickets on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

The Steve Miller Band ("The Joker," "Fly Like an Eagle"), along with country star Marty Stuart & The Fabulous Superlatives, and comedian and country musician Gary Mule Deer are playing the festival at Northwell Health at Jones Beach as part of their "Americana Tour." Additionally, this is one of two dates on that 40-venue tour that also includes Wilson playing with former Beach Boys Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin.

In honor of the late Gregg Allman — whose classic 1973 solo debut album "Laid Back" inspired the festival he helped found in 2015, two years before his death — Karl Denson's Tiny Universe will perform its "Eat a Bunch of Peaches” tribute to The Allman Brothers Band.

Additionally, the single-day event, which moves to the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey, the following day, will feature "America's diverse and delicious food and drink, with a variety of regional restaurants, food trucks, breweries, and wineries to be represented," Live Nation said in a statement. No specific food or drink companies were listed.

Allman and his longtime manager Michael Lehman created the Laid Back Festival in 2015, with the Southern rock star headlining the one-day event that Aug. 29 with a lineup featuring The Doobie Brothers, Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, Jaimoe's Jasssz Band and City of the Sun. Lehman told Newsday's Glenn Gamboa at the time that after the Allman Brothers Band's final show at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre in 2014, "Gregg didn't want to tour on a regular basis. He wanted to create a festival model where he could play just six or eight times a year and continue his legacy."

Later expanding to a multicity itinerary, the festival, which returned to Jones Beach in 2016 and 2017, has included such acts as America, Jackson Browne, Peter Frampton, Bruce Hornsby, Jason Isbell, Jaimoe's Jasssz Band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, The Marshall Tucker Band, Peter Wolf, Steve Winwood and ZZ Top, among others.