Indie rock band Whitney will perform as Dillo Day’s opening act, Mayfest announced Wednesday.

The Chicago-based band was formed in 2015 by Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich. They released their debut album, “Light Upon the Lake,” in 2016.

Mayfest co-chair Andrew Hunter told The Daily that Whitney’s Chicago connection made them a very attractive option for Dillo Day.

“They have a huge following in Chicago and people know who this is,” the Weinberg senior said. “They’ve got almost a million monthly listens on Spotify, which is not something that we can say for every act that gets brought to Dillo Day.”

Kakacek and Ehrlich were both members of the band Smith Westerns, which broke up in 2014. After the band broke up, they eventually reconnected to form Whitney.

“Light Upon the Lake” was released to critical acclaim and was praised by a multitude of publications, including Pitchfork and The Guardian. The band released three singles off the album, including “No Woman,” “Golden Days” and “No Matter Where we Go.”

Mayfest director of concerts Grant Pender said in a news release that Mayfest was especially excited by Whitney’s ability to perform at live shows.

“In trying to balance out the lineup more this year in terms of size across the board, they’re a significantly larger opening act than we’ve had in recent years,” Pender said. “A few days after we got them to accept our offer for Dillo, we saw that they announced a headlining show at Millennium Park this summer, which goes to show how entrenched they are in the Chicago music scene.”

Whitney is the third act announced for this year’s Dillo Day, which will take place on June 2. R&B artist Daniel Caesar and EDM artist TOKiMONSTA will also perform.

Hunter said he thought Whitney’s addition to the start of the Dillo Day lineup would improve the overall experience.

“This is a huge, huge thing for us,” he said. “In previous years, the opening act almost gets drowned out a little bit in terms of the talent of the other performers that are able to come to Dillo Day, and that’s just absolutely not the case with Whitney.”

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