Lil Wayne’s hometown festival in New Orleans, Lil Weezyana, was set to go down this Saturday, August 27th. It would have marked the one-day festival’s first edition since 2019. Lil Weezyana serves as not only a celebration of hip-hop and New Orleans, but also a benefit that supports educational initiatives for young people in the city. Unfortunately, it’s going to have to wait, as Lil Wayne himself made the announcement on Instagram yesterday that the festival — featuring performances from Moneybagg Yo, Coi Leray, Babyface Ray, and Rob 49 — is being postponed until later this year due to “unforeseen circumstances.”
“It is with my sincerest apologies that I must announce…due to unforeseen circumstances, Lil Weezyana Fest will be postponed until Oct 29,” Wayne wrote. “To my fans, you know I always want to deliver the best show possible and we hope this has not inconvenienced you in anyway. The festival was sold out thanks to you. Please hold on you to your tickets and I will see you in October. I promise to make it up to you and to my city. Love.”
For Wayne, who just appeared on DJ Khaled’s track “God Did,” alongside Jay-Z, Rick Ross, John Legend, and Fridayy, it’s not entirely bad news, since there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for Lil Weezyana in 2022. The new date is set for October 29th at the same venue, Champions Square.
One of the benefits of all the advancements in technology we’ve seen over the years is that nearly everything has become more convenient. Even music festivals have seen the benefit of adopting a hybrid streaming option, because not everyone can always make it out in person. While my experience in this respect is limited – usually, I’m either there or I’m not, as watching a stream on TV just doesn’t appeal to me as much – I got the chance to compare the live and streaming experiences side-by-side over the weekend thanks to 88rising’s annual Head In The Clouds festival.
Held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena this year (moving from Los Angeles State Historic Park), you’d think this would make the festival extremely convenient for me as I headed over after watching the Drew League playoffs in Torrance. But that’s only because you don’t know those LA County logistics (Angelenos read “Pasadena” and “Torrance” in the same sentence and involuntarily cringed on the inside). It wasn’t that bad of a drive, though! It took less than an hour to actually get to the Rose Bowl and I was excited to catch acts that I’d only heard peripherally like Jay Park or that I’ve nurtured a burgeoning affection for like Audrey Nuna, who was billed for a joint set with Deb Never (a clever combination that I secretly pulled for, for like a year before they teamed up).
However, after running into a snag with parking, which was at least partially my fault, my girlfriend and I wound up running behind. Fortunately, this was the first time that the hybrid experience came in handy. While sorting out our passes, we were able to watch Audrey Nuna and Deb Never’s energetic set from my phone even as we could sort of hear their stage’s sound from just outside the Bowl. Watching them bounce around and trade sarcastic bars in their matching skate punk outfits on the stream, we still felt included, and the experience only amplified the excitement of getting in.
Once we were inside, we quick-marched to the 88rising stage to catch Jay Park. Park’s a name I’ve seen a bunch, but I’ve rarely had the opportunity to check him out and since I knew I was coming to see him in his element, so to speak, I decided it’d be fun to go in fresh. The eclecticism he exudes is genuinely fascinating to me as someone who grew up with hip-hop in the musically stratified ‘90s. My brain is wired to separate genres like rap and rock and pop into separate categories; it’s incredibly interesting to me to see how folks who grew up experiencing pop culture through a different lens synthesize those experiences and styles as if the differences were nonexistent. Park, who grew up B-boying in Seattle and spent a significant chunk of his adulthood as a K-pop trainee, has a completely different musical perspective that took me a minute to adjust to but was very enjoyable.
A fun aspect of going to festivals live is checking out all the food options. Here, because the target audience’s palates are a bit more diverse than usual, it appeared (to me, at least) that there were more interesting options than the usual pizza and fries. And while most festivals will have maybe a KBBQ bowl place or a Sweetfin pop-up, I’ve never seen squid skewers at a festival before. We opted for kalbi skewers and bulgogi bowls due to our orthodontic needs and snacked while listening to Filipino crooner Yeek from a distance. Next up was Mxmtoon, who I found charming. She reminded me of the sort of twee pop stuff that had a moment in the 2000s and 2010s, but with a bit more bite. It probably helps that her upbeat, infectiously sweet anthems are backed by chunky, four-on-the-floor, honest-to-goodness get-down beats.
The in-person drawbacks reared their heads as we left, though. Because the parking was set up on the massive golf course next to the Rose Bowl and there were few markers left to help guide attendees back to their cars in the dark, many of those heading home could be seen wandering the endless-seeming rows of vehicles with bewildered faces, doubling back, and even walking in circles trying to figure out where they parked. There weren’t too many parking attendants either, making the process to exit much more chaotic than it has been at comparable festivals like Camp Flog Gnaw.
That was something that we took into consideration on Sunday as the Drew League Championship Game wrapped up. Did we want to risk getting stuck in another situation like the one from Saturday night? Another consideration that I hate to bring up but must was the security check as we entered. You’d think that after multiple highly publicized incidents at festivals – including a fatal one less than a year ago only a 20-minute drive down the same freeway that goes to Pasadena – festival security companies would be hypervigilant about what all attendees are carrying into the fest. Considering that we were waved in without so much as a cursory glance in our bags on Saturday, I didn’t like what that assumed about the crowds or about the potential safety situation.
Which is why I loved that we could simply put the festival on via Prime Video and catch the remaining sets that we wanted to see, including Rich Brian, Raveena, and Teriyaki Boyz. Of course, we missed out on the excellent food and the shared sense of community that comes from being in the crowd rubbing shoulders with fellow fans. Experiencing it both ways, though, allowed that perspective to come through. Usually, by day two, I’m grousing about the dirt and dead foliage filling up my shoes and getting a little sunburnt from being outside all day. This time, I was able to miss the feeling of being outdoors and among crowds of like-minded individuals all looking to have a good time.
It turns out that there are pros and cons to the streaming experience, just like everything in life. Head In The Clouds is definitely a festival I’d want to visit again, but if I don’t, I know exactly what I’ll be missing out on – and what I won’t. Considering it’s still a relatively young festival, perhaps the kinks that kept me on the couch Sunday will be worked out enough to warrant hanging out in person for both days.
88 Rising’s Head In The Clouds fest is set to takeoff this weekend in Pasadena, CA, but one of the music festival’s headliners won’t be appearing. Niki, the Indonesian singer and songwriter whose name was firmly entrenched atop the celebration of Asian representation in the music world, has tested positive for COVID-19 and announced via Twitter that she won’t be able to perform at Head In The Clouds.
“I’m SO very sorry to disappoint,” she wrote in a message to fans. “Those who know me know I cannot STAND not following through with a commitment & I was truly looking forward to putting on the best show for you all this year. But alas, life is unpredictable.”
Niki continued, “A very exciting silver-lining: My dear friend Keshi has decided to save the day & join the line up!! Please go shower him with the warmest welcome.”
While the Vietnamese-American alt-R&B singer will replace Niki on the lineup, it’s actually Joji’s Yebi Labs DJ set that will fill Niki’s headlining slot.
Taking place at the Brookside at the Rose Bowl venue, Head In The Clouds is a two-day festival on August 20th and 21st. Other acts who will be performing include Rich Brian, Jackson Wang, Dumbfoundead, Jay Park, Audrey Nuna & Deb Never, and more.
When I arrived at Outside Lands festival in San Francisco last weekend, I was skeptical of whether Post Malone would work as a Sunday night headliner on the main stage. This is the same stage that acts like Stevie Wonder, Metallica, and Arcade Fire have closed down before and now this guy was gonna follow suit?
I’ll admit, I haven’t been the biggest fan of Post Malone over the years. He always struck me as an artist who benefited from being white (he did), sliding from hip-hop to rock to country and back seemingly on a whim. But now, as he has become one of the biggest pop and hip-hop stars in the world, the challenge is to present himself with authenticity.
It’s hard to be at a concert these days and not wonder what the “new normal” is that we’re living in. With COVID rates still all over the map, what are we risking by being at a concert, let alone a festival with tens of thousands of people around you for a headlining set? I’ve found that you really need to surrender to the circumstances to be able to approach the connection we used to feel with artists before March of 2020. Surrender to the music, surrender to what might be in the air, and just let go. It’s a slippery proposition, but we need live music right now more than ever. And there’s not a more powerful concert moment lately than when an artist helps get you over that hump of anxious energy so you can be in the moment.
As Post Malone walked out onto the stage, with a red cup in hand, one of the first things he said to the crowd was, “I’m here to play some sh*tty music and get f*cked up!” The crowd of tens of thousands roared. I sorta rolled my eyes and wondered if this was just a shtick. But what I soon came to realize about him, is that he was absolutely wrapped up in the moment the entire time.
You see, the thing that’s the most fascinating about Post Malone on stage, is that he’s up there by himself in front of a wall of lights and the occasional pyrotechnics that erupt around him. There’s no DJ, there’s no hype man, no band, etc… So it really raises the stakes because the attention is always focused entirely on him.
He stood there in white Chuck Taylors, a T-shirt with Cameron Tucker’s face from Modern Family emblazoned on it, and cut-off jean shorts that showed off all of his lower body tattoos. He opened with “Wow,” from 2019’s Hollywood’s Bleeding, then went into “Wrapped Around Your Finger” from the newly released Twelve Carat Toothache, followed by “Better Now” from 2018’s Beerbongs & Bentleys. It struck me just how much the Post Malone discography had grown and when I looked around during “Better Now” especially, the most diverse crowd of the weekend was easily the biggest, too. And everyone was moving. The crowd was gripped.
Justin Yee
As Posty’s performance kept going, I found myself increasingly interested in everything he was going to do next. On “I Fall Apart,” he bent over and straddled the mic with his mouth, hands behind his back, while singing as loudly as he could. When that song ended, he grabbed an acoustic guitar and took a seat to sing “Stay” and “Go Flex,” a cigarette in between his fingers the whole time. It was a pure display of emotion.
I loved the way he danced and moved and worked the crowd; losing himself, his happiness was galvanizing. When he played “White Iverson,” the song that first put him on the map eight years ago, it felt like a real moment of togetherness for the crowd. And even if it has its limits sometimes, his leaned-out Gen Z falsetto was endearing and pure.
But it was the way that he was unapologetically himself that stuck with me the most. He sings about getting f*cked up (and sometimes about the ramifications of it, too) and he presents himself like he’s in the same mind-state as the crowd when he’s on stage. He’s beaming, he’s partying, but he reflects on his insecurities, too. “Thank you so much for your love and support over the years,” he told the crowd. “The world has been such a sh*tty place and it just feels so beautiful to be out here with you to have a good time. I feel like I’m the luckiest f*cking guy in the world. How everyone was so patient with me and supportive of me. You know…this long stretch we’ve had.”
He presented the notion that he needed this just as much as we did and in that moment, the stage sort of disappeared. By the time he closed with “Rockstar” and “Congratulations,” it felt like we were all there getting f*cked up together, except one of us was singing and their gratitude showed. Here was an artist who had to be misunderstood before he could be accepted. Surely we can all relate.
And I came around to Post Malone that night. When he smashed his guitar and then set it afire in a controlled blaze, then smashed it some more to extinguish it and gave the pieces to the crowd before walking off? I felt that. And there was something especially powerful seeing it all with 20,000 other people. Because we’re all still trying to figure out what the new normal is in this world and Post Malone’s wild performance made so much sense in its own chaos.
Because it’s ok to party your face off and lose your mind for a while. This generation has been privy to way too much BS and it’s not stopping anytime soon. But if we can just let go, and surrender together, we might still make it.
There’s an architectural adage that explains how the sign of a healthy city is an ever-evolving skyline. In San Francisco, the colorfully reflective Salesforce Tower replacing the iconic Transamerica Pyramid as the most prominent pillar in Downtown’s lineup of buildings is a prime example of this concept. A permanent fixture signifying a period of growth.
Lasting music festivals are similar in their nature. The sign of a healthy festival is one that also flashes an ever-evolving landscape and more importantly, one that continues to reflect the city where it takes place in new and exciting ways. Outside Lands, San Francisco’s most significant pop music festival, operates like a city within a city, one that welcomed 225,000 people to an unusually sunny Golden Gate Park this past weekend for its 14th edition. But unlike a skyline, a lot of those changes — besides the new light-up windmill which replaced the double wooden mills of old — can’t be seen from a distance and are only fully appreciated when traversing the festival’s bountiful paths and walkways to “Lands” within Golden Gate Park, one of America’s quintessential music festival venues.
Justin Yee
It’s nothing short of a privilege to be coursing through Golden Gate Park’s meadows and fields for the weekend. It’s an easy walk to the end of the Polo Field to catch Green Day, Post Malone, or SZA’s headlining sets, but walk beneath the cypress tree-coverings of McLaren Pass, and you might just stumble into DJ’s Q-Bert and Shortkut of the famed Invisbl Skratch Piklz turntablist crew throwing down a world-class display at a pop-up stage in a cocktail-themed corner of the fest. Stroll through the festival’s outer edge along the North entrance and you can cross the street into Marx Meadow for the electronic music-focused SOMA Tent. While last year’s 1,000 capacity area was an overpopulated mess, this year’s tent had double the capacity for DJs ranging up to Tokimonsta and Claude VonStroke. Pull open the door to Outside Lands’ only indoor stage and you’re transported into a strikingly large space akin to one of San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood underground clubs, complete with LED cubes encrusting the stage. Fine-tuning an indoor electronic music component to the festival was long overdue for Outside Lands and for the club kids and ravers who want to dance in a warehouse-like setting all weekend, it’s a swell function that also funnels away traffic from the rest of the fest.
Justin Yee
You see, every corner of the footprint is built to showcase the beauty of the grounds. At the sweeping, sunken meadow of the Sutro Stage — where Faye Webster dazzled, Wet Leg roused, and Robert Glasper proved once again that he’s one of this summer’s must-see festival acts — unsightly porta potties that lined the outer edge were removed this year in favor of a more concealed and functional facility on the opposite side of the field. To say it improved aesthetics is an understatement and it was one of many functional improvements that Outside Lands is beginning to deploy as it becomes increasingly well-oiled.
Justin Yee
Walk through a tunnel beneath the Polo Field bleachers and you slide into the flowering Grasslands, a legal cannabis wonderland with dispensary booths selling every variant of cannabis product imaginable. Over the last handful of years as cannabis laws have become relaxed, Outside Lands has worked to perfect this unique music festival experience. There are newly expanded “consumption areas” where folks can lounge and puff. A stoner jam band played on Sunday while carving up tiki idols as dispensary hacks hucked “buy one get one” deals like your typical pot shop experience. One dispensary even offered a “FREE GUNNA” t-shirt with the purchase of an eighth (I support this, #FreeYSL).
And for as much of a marketing-palooza as any music festival experience can be, Outside Lands’ corporate interests blended seamlessly into the background, with the exception of the new Music Den by Toyota stage. But to be fair, this was hands down the best addition to the festival’s overall music offerings. Acts who played earlier in the festival got an opportunity to appear again in a natural amphitheater-like setting. If you didn’t get in between noon and 2pm, you could still catch indie acts like The Beths, L’Rain, and Cassandra Jenkins later in the day. It proved a welcome respite to lay on the grassy slope looking at the obscure reflections of ourselves on oversized ornaments perched above on the cypress branches, while the artists played intentionally lowered volume sets.
Justin Yee
And while the transformation of Golden Gate Park into this colorful community is always the star of the show, the music was better than I anticipated compared to last year’s sublime lineup over Halloween Weekend. Green Day broke through across the Bay as an Oakland punk trio in the ’90s and here they were, closing down Saturday night’s slate with the #hits that got them here. “I remember one time we tried to play in Dolores Park. There were a lot of punk bands and then the cops came and shut it down,” singer Billie Joe Armstrong said to the crowd. “Well, they didn’t shut this one down!” The set was also a reminder of how under-appreciated Mike Dirnt is as a bassist. His grooves on “Longview” and “Welcome To Paradise” belong in whatever the equivalent of the punk rock Louvre is.
Justin Yee
Green Day as a local headliner was part of a bigger theme for Outside Lands 2022, one that saw a bigger commitment to Bay Area artists than ever. San Francisco rapper Larry June put down the best party set of the weekend with a prime 5:30 pm slot on the Twin Peaks Stage — the festival’s second largest. The chill, weird, lit Bay Area ethos was blowing through the diverse crowd in clouds of smoke all the way to June rapping “Bitch I feel like I’m dreaminnng…” on set closer “Smoothies In 1991.”
Justin Yee
EDM producer Illenium, who went to St. Ignatius High School in the nearby Sunset district, closed down Twin Peaks Stage on Sunday. But the weekend felt like a true showcase for emerging Bay Area talent too; a “risk” that Outside Lands wasn’t always willing to take. In building this true ecosystem that reflects its locale, sets from Bay Area-bred acts like rising pop singer Thuy, Atlantic Records rapper Symba, flamboyant empowerment pop group Planet Booty, indie stalwart Spellling, and the biggest surprise of the weekend, Odie, bridge the great divide of the stratification of festival crowds. In effect, it hits different when we can all score more than one for the home team.
And then there’s the big ticket stars. the artists most people end up remembering the most. And it’s hard to begin this conversation without bringing up Pusha T first. King Push is bar none of the best lyricists in the game and he proves it every time on stage. Incredible energy, no bells and whistles, just a non-stop flow and series of poised death stares delivered while standing in the cleanest pair of coke white Yeezy Boost 350s you’ve ever seen. He’s the type of dude who can shout sweeping statements to the crowd like, “It’s Almost Dry! Rap album of the muthaf*ckin year. Easy!” And then perform with such conviction that you can’t help but think how right he is when it’s over.
Justin Yee
SZA’s Friday night headlining set was evidence of Outside Lands’ growing continuity in booking. The singer, who came out standing on an elaborate lighthouse erected on stage, first graced the noon slot at Twin Peaks stage in 2015. And even without that long-awaited new album in tow, the crowd was still wrapped around her finger on all of the Ctrl jams, a Doja Cat-less rendition of “Kiss Me More,” and an explosive set-opening “All The Stars.”
The largest crowds of the weekend felt like they were (weirdly) for Weezer and Jack Harlow, but largely a function of people preparing for headliners Post Malone and Green Day, who played right after them, respectively. On Saturday, Harlow made a rare performance backed by a live band, commanding the youngest crowd of the weekend that gradually became older as folks started positioning themselves for Green Day. Weezer playing a sing-along set on the main stage’s penultimate slot of the entire festival Sunday night was a masterstroke of understanding what works and what doesn’t at a music festival in 2022. Organizers Another Planet Entertainment learned from 2016’s debacle of a Lionel Richie closing set that was very sparsely attended. Sure, it’s the legacy act, but look, you can’t please everyone and acting as such is important. So send the aging hipsters home early along with Rivers Cuomo and the Microsoft ball cap he took off (facts only, you can’t make this stuff up) so they can make it to work on time on Monday, and let the rest of the crowd vibe out to Post Malone.
Justin Yee
For those who stayed, they’d have seen an artist on top of the music world showing the crowd exactly why he belongs there. You might’ve not known it right off the bat though. “I’m here to play some shitty music and get f*cked up!” Malone told the crowd at the beginning of his set; red cup in hand. Make no mistake about it, this was a galvanizing performance for easily the most diverse crowd of the weekend and Posty kept us guessing the entire time.
At one point, he straddled a mic with his mouth on the ground to sing “I Fall Apart” (surely making Karen O proud) then got up to take a seat, grabbed an acoustic guitar to play “Stay” and “Go Flex” while never putting his cigarette down. “The world has been such a shitty place and it just feels so beautiful to be out here with you to have a good time,” Malone said, radiating a message of love that was a resounding theme for just about every artist on stage over the weekend. And you know what? This is music to get f*cked up to. And this day and age, when we have no clue what virus is floating in the air around us when we’re surrounded by tens of thousands of people, surrendering to the music is the only way to enjoy ourselves in this environment. And nobody did surrender better than the guy who set his guitar on fire and smashed it, after performing alone on stage for the last hour and a half of an unforgettable weekend.
Justin Yee
Check out some photos from this year’s festival below.
On Saturday, November 5th, the third annual Dia De Los Deftones Festival is coming back to San Diego and the Deftones have a history of booking talent for their music festival that’s on the way, way up. The diverse bash brings together heavy rock, hip-hop, and more to the Gallagher Square at Petco Park venue. This year’s lineup is no joke, with Freddie Gibbs, Turnstile, and Phantogram joining Deftones at the top of the bill for 2022.
For context, previous editions of the festival have included performances from an emerging Doja Cat in 2018 and Megan Thee Stallion in 2019, so it’s a good bet that somebody from this year’s lineup is headed for the top. Joining the headliners for the all-ages affair are rapper Audrey Nuna, punk band Destroy Boys, post-punks Provoker, and hardcore band ColdGawd.
“We’re hyped to be bringing back Dia de Los Deftones this year,” Moreno said in a statement. “We take a ton of pride in curating it; it’s a chance for us to put forth and showcase some artists that we love and respect, and put on an amazing day of music and culture for our fans. We’re excited to see everyone again out at Petco in November.”
Tickets go on sale on 08/05 at 10 am PST here with a pre-sale on 08/03 at the same time/link.
After effectively riling up the audience with nostalgic hits, Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong took a moment during the band’s headlining Lollapalooza set to reflect on how much the festival has meant to him over the years. To a sea of tens of thousands of screaming fans spanning generations, Armstrong said attending an early iteration of the then-traveling festival gave small-town kids like him a chance to see all their favorite bands in one place. It affirmed his decision to start Green Day, who got their first chance to play the festival only a few years later in 1994.
Lollapalooza has changed a lot since its early, traveling days. Now a massive event that beckons nearly 400,000 people through its gates every year, Lollapalooza has found a permanent home in Chicago’s downtown Grant Park. With a 360-degree view of the dazzling city skyline, eight stages with minimal sound bleed, and thoughtful amenities, Lollapalooza is an example of a big city festival done right.
Lollapalooza’s lineup has also evolved a lot since the ’90s, but this year’s bill paid tribute to its early days by inviting bands like Metallica and Green Day to headline. Billy Corgan, who headlined with the Smashing Pumpkins in 1994, even made a guest appearance on stage with festival founder Perry Ferrell’s band Porno For Pyros. But the four-day event’s eclectic bill had something for everyone to enjoy. One stage was dedicated to EDM fans raging all day long to artists like Kaskade and Rezz. Hip-hop heads found a home at the festival too, getting a chance to see J. Cole, Big Sean, BLXST, and Lil Durk. Pop artists big and small like Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, and The Regrettes, took the stage and K-pop icons like Tomorrow x Together and BTS’ J-Hope were greeted by thousands of screaming fans. Even the kiddos weren’t left out at Lollapalooza, with a stage dedicated solely to interactive sets for children and parents to find respite from the massive crowds.
The giant crowds are definitely something Lollapalooza has earned a bit of a reputation for, though huge signs reading “fence jumpers will be prosecuted” may have deterred anyone thinking of sneaking in without a wristband. Due to Lollapalooza’s sheer size, the festival effectively takes over the entire city of Chicago each year. It’s located on a one-mile stretch in Chicago’s downtown Grant Park, but the festival manages to set the whole city in motion. Public transportation is jam-packed with excitable festivalgoers sometimes ignorant of the disruption they cause to the average commuter. Main streets like Michigan Ave are shut down and cars get re-routed to account for the hundreds of thousands of people flocking to the park. While Lollapalooza brings many out-of-towners, many who actually live in Chicago are used to avoiding the weekend like the plague. Even those who forget about it are subject to its aftermath, left to wonder things like: “Why are the trains so delayed?” and “Why does everyone downtown look like they were downloaded directly from the Shein website?”
And while the yearly festival may cause a headache for those not in attendance, it’s more than clear why Lollapalooza is one of the most-talked-about music festivals in the country. For one, every performer continually brings their A-game. Dua Lipa put her refined dance moves on full display and Charli XCX transformed an entire field of people into a euphoric, daytime club. It also wasn’t uncommon for artists to surprise guests on stage. During his Saturday set, Big Sean brought out his very pregnant partner Jhené Aiko for a few songs. The two shared some very tender moments on stage, like when Sean lovingly kissed Aiko’s belly before leaning in for an intimate embrace. But that wasn’t the only surprise appearance: J-Cole invited Bas and J.I.D to the stage during his headlining performance, Still Woozy was joined by Remi Wolf to sing their collab, and Sunday closer J-Hope had Becky G make a surprise appearance during his penultimate song.
Speaking of J-Hope, the BTS member’s performance was history in the making. Not only was the K-pop star’s set reportedly the highest ticket selling event in Lollapalooza’s history, but it also marked the first time a South Korean solo artist has headlined a US festival. The momentous occasion was more than tangible, as the entire festival was seemingly flooded by the BTS fandom. From the grounds, J-Hope’s performance would at times be washed out by the ear-piercing screams of the crowd.
Along with bigger artists going all-out, Lollapalooza also offered a space for up-and-coming musicians to shine. Gen Z favorite PinkPantheress managed to start a mosh pit when performing the short-but-sweet hit “Just For Me.” Newcomer GAYLE, who has gained a notable following thanks to an uber-viral TikTok song “Abcdefu,” showed off her rock-star status on stage. She had the crowd on their feet before ripping through an electrifying cover of Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ “Bad Reputation.” Indie pop trio MUNA also fired off a fun cover during their set, getting the entire audience to shout along to a rendition of The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside.” Meanwhile, pop singer Fletcher played a main stage set for her first time ever and took the opportunity to lead the crowd through a cover of Billie Eilish’s popular song “Happier Than Ever.”
Most of Lollapalooza’s four days were accompanied by awe-inspiring sets and appreciative artists. But like any festival of its ilk, there were a few drawbacks. For one, many of the on-site amenities felt like corporate cash grabs in disguise; an intriguing art installation tent turned out to be an NFT gallery that implored you to sign up for an NFT minting service. Another installation designed to look like a haunted house ended up being a scheme to get your email address in exchange for a free can of water. Thankfully though, none of the drawbacks had anything to do with safety measures, other than an unforeseeable accident Lil Durk had involving pyrotechnics during his set. Efficient water stations were conveniently located near every stage and EMT volunteers were constantly on the lookout for anyone in need of help. After one attendee fainted just a few feet away, two medical professionals were on-site within seconds, handing them water and carrying them safely out of the crowd.
Overall, Lollapalooza 2022 lived up to its reputation in nearly every way. Yes, there were massive crowds and lots of rowdy teenagers, but there were also outstanding performances accompanied by breathtaking city skyline views. And after four days of music, dancing, and meeting new friends, I was left with a sense of gratitude for the festival, a camera full of unforgettable memories, and very sore feet.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
so sorry 
