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Phoebe Bridgers spent a lot of her childhood in the Bay Area and attended many festivals in Golden Gate Park. Her headlining Outside Lands set Friday night was filled with emotion, anger and a whole lot of love.
Though Phoebe Bridgers grew up in Southern California, she spent a lot of her childhood in the Bay Area while visiting her grandfather, and she attended Outside Lands in San Francisco several times. She dreamed of performing at the music festival in Golden Gate Park one day.
The four-time GRAMMY nominee, 27, got her wish on Friday as she made her Outside Lands debut. She walked on stage with her beloved Danelectro 56 Baritone guitar to the sound of Disturbed’s "Down With The Sickness" as projections of pyro and other heavy metal conventions rose up behind her. Bridgers ' logo, which evokes the genre, is emblazoned on the drums.
Fans packed in close to see Bridgers, but they gave each other space, with lots of couples hugging, swaying and singing along. In between songs, Bridgers' self-deprecating sense of humor emerged that brought laughs into an otherwise serious set.
"Who has the sniffles right now?" she asked, raising her hand. "Who has a complex relationship with their dad?" The crowd roared. "That’s cool," she replied, launching into "Kyoto," a nominee for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance at the 63rd GRAMMY Awards, which touches on how she feels about her father.
"This next song is an enormous bummer!" she warned with a smile before playing "Funeral," a song about a close friend’s heroin overdose.
After "Funeral," she took a moment to comment on the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, noting how strange it was to come back to the United States to the news after performing overseas.
"I hate this f—ing s—hole," she said. "Yeah, I don’t know, I feel like America is so romanticized, it’s insane. It’s nice to have a good time while we watch the world burn around us." She directed anyone "with some dough" to donate to the Mariposa Fund in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which provides reproductive health services for undocumented women.
As she reminisced about coming to Golden Gate Park for Outside Lands over the years (and introduced her grandfather, who was watching in the audience), she recalled a time that she was very happy about her all-black outfit and thought she looked cute — until a flying can of Red Bull hit her in the head and ruined her clothes and self-esteem.
Bridgers has called "Scott Street" a song about loneliness, but when she performed it, she came out to the crowd to let them sing it for her, handing the microphone to a teary woman who couldn’t wait to hug Bridgers after screaming the lyrics, "Anyway, don’t leave a stranger!"
GRAMMY-winner SZA performed at the opposite end of the large festival at the same time, which prompted Bridgers to say that she was bummed to miss her, and suggested that they were collaborating when Bridgers took a moment to go acoustic and noise from SZA’s show could be heard in the background. The competing set times compelled some to watch half of each, a strategy that was overheard throughout the day leading up to their headlining.
Concluding appropriately with "I Know The End," she thanked the crowd and shouted out her agent, Dave Rowan, who she first met at Outside Lands several years ago during four-time GRAMMY winner Jason Isbell’s performance, for scoring this meaningful gig.
"It was a dream come true, thank you!"
Outside Lands 2022: SZA Takes Control & Makes Waves In Nostalgic, Dance-Filled Performance
Photo: NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images
Mercury Rev revisits Gentry's classic sophomore album with female guest vocalists who shine. Catch the album out Feb. 8
Indie band Mercury Rev have announced their next album, a tribute to Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete Revisited, will be available on Feb. 8.
The album features an array of guest voices. Mercury Rev's incredible selection of guest vocalists on the tracks kicks off with Norah Jones performing "Okolona River Bottom Band." Others lending their voices to the effort are Phoebe Bridgers, Vashti Bunyan, Rachel Goswell, Marissa Nadler, Beth Orton, Lætitia Sadier, Hope Sandoval, Kaela Sinclair, Susanne Sundfør, Carice van Houten, and Lucinda Williams, whose rendition of "Ode To Billie Joe" was added to the original album's tracklist.
"Bobbie is iconic, original, eloquent and timeless," said singer Margo Price, whose guest vocals are featured on "Sermon." "She has remained a strong voice and an eternal spirit of the delta, wrapped in mystery, yet forever here."
The Delta Sweete was Gentry's 1968 follow up to her debut Ode To Billie Joe, for which she won three GRAMMYs at the 10th GRAMMY Awards.
NEWS: @mercuryrevvd have announced the release of Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited! The album is a re-imagining of Bobbie Gentry’s forgotten masterpiece and features an incredible cast list of guest vocalists. More info here... https://t.co/ctfOtZ9kGb pic.twitter.com/TFfyaYdSVa— bella union (@bellaunion) November 14, 2018
NEWS: @mercuryrevvd have announced the release of Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited! The album is a re-imagining of Bobbie Gentry’s forgotten masterpiece and features an incredible cast list of guest vocalists. More info here... https://t.co/ctfOtZ9kGb pic.twitter.com/TFfyaYdSVa
For the full track list and additional details see Bella Union's announcement and Pitchfork. Mercury Rev recently concluded their 2018 U.S. tour and will be playing across Britain in Dec.
Lucinda Williams Plots 'Car Wheels On A Gravel Road' 20th Anniversary Tour
For their first performance at Outside Lands, legendary Bay Area punk act Green Day paid tribute to their hometown and local heroes, while giving the sold-out crowd what they wanted: to rock and roll all night.
Green Day finally got the chance to play Outside Lands on the San Francisco festival’s 15th annual spin around Golden Gate Park, headlining Saturday’s lineup with a bombastic set filled with rock star pyro, explosives and endearing stories about being a real band from the Bay Area — Contra Costa County in the East Bay, to be precise.
A few minutes before they came out, a text message from the festival app warned of intense lights and loud sound effects to come. Queen ’s "Bohemian Rhapsody" then prompted a singalong of thousands, and a person in a fluffy bunny rabbit costume with a demented face hyped the crowd while the Ramones’ "Blitzkrieg Bop" roared. A custom-made intro mash-up of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ "I Love Rock & Roll," "We Will Rock You" and "Also Sprach Zarathustra," a classical tone poem from 1896, ushered the band — singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool (with additional guitar support from Jason White, who largely remained side stage and off screen) — on stage, beginning with the still-relevant "American Idiot."
The multi-GRAMMY winners understood the hugeness of the moment, taking the opportunity to structure a playful show that paid homage to artists who came before them — as when they teased a quick riff of "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath before playing their own song "Hitchin’ a Ride." One of the great surprises of the set was a high energy cover of KISS’ 1975 anthem "Rock and Roll All Nite," which was accompanied with '70s-style floodlights and the Green Day logo reimagined in KISS' jagged font.
These three have been together since high school, and you can see and feel their love for each other, their music and where they grew up. At times, Armstrong and Dirnt played their guitars back to back and nestled their heads on each other’s shoulders. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the last Green Day show in Golden Gate Park — an illegal set with some hardcore bands in 1991 — resulted in their arrest, so this was a clear upgrade. Armstrong also talked about a failed attempt to play at San Francisco’s much-smaller Dolores Park back in the day, which also ended with police.
"I’m so happy right now!" Armstrong exclaimed, as "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" fired up. He asked everyone to flash their phone lights ("Just about the only thing those phones are good for," he added) and turned the stage lights off creating a powerful sparkling effect from the thousands-strong crowd.
Green Day at the Lands End stage on Saturday night. | Photo: Daniel Mendoza
Different tunes got individual visual treatments that were quite engaging, with pulsating views of the band bathed in color or black and white. The light show extended all the way around Golden Gate Park’s tree-lined Polo Field, with strobes and other effects bouncing off of the greenery in time with the music.
After inviting a female fan up to sing and get a hug, Armstrong looked out into the crowd and said he needed someone to come up and play guitar with them.
"You’re 10-years-old and you can play?" he asked a boy who raised both his hands in the air. "Do you swear you can play?"
His name is Montgomery, which Armstrong shortened to Monty for the crowd to chant. And he can play, as everyone quickly learned when he contributed power chords to " Knowledge ," a song from the Berkeley punk act Operation Ivy that was released in 1989.
The band would go on to perform even more unexpected covers, including "Shout," the Isley Brothers classic from 1959, and a snippet of Journey ’s "Lights," a song that got extra love in the Bay Area through an old radio station commercial for KFRC. The latter felt like a quick nod to the 40 and 50-somethings in the crowd who grew up on the station.
At one point, Armstrong acted like a mad conductor and waved his arms up and down ferociously to get the crowd to cheer in different sections. When he was done, he said, "You’re all suckers, except the ones from Oakland!"
"This is f—ing beautiful," he said in seriousness. "We’re all here together."
Billie Joe in a moment of eleation. | Photo: Daniel Mendoza
The only slightly unplanned moment that was detected was when a guitar string broke on "Basket Case" that momentarily deconstructed the huge and strong wall of sound that was the set’s hallmark. But that was actually a treat, like getting to hear isolated parts of a song you’ve only heard one way your whole life.
That standard moment towards the end of a concert when a lead singer introduces their band was much more fun in the hands of Armstrong. He jokingly introduced his sax player, who played a mean riff of "Careless Whisper" by George Michael , as Henry Winkler a.k.a. "Fonzie from ‘Happy Days,’" then introduced himself as "Dewey."
Green Day packed so many of their hits into the 22-song performance that we briefly wondered what could be left for the last number, since the band had already done biggies like "Welcome to Paradise," "When I Come Around" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends." But, of course, Green Day has no more perfect song to conclude with than "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," which Armstrong performed alone on acoustic guitar as fireworks shot over the stage and into the night sky.
Outside Lands 2022: Phoebe Bridgers Realizes Her Dream To Play The SF Fest
Crowd at Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival 2019
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella
GRAMMY.com digs deep into the 23 rows of the Coachella 2022 lineup — featuring Swedish House Mafia, Doja Cat, Anitta, Pabllo Vittar, Phoebe Bridgers and many more — to highlight major trends across the star-studded roster
After two long years off, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is finally set to return at the Empire Polo Club on April 15-17 and 22-24.
Goldenvoice, the producers of the festival, announced the long-awaited lineup for Coachella’s 2022 installment on Jan. 12, and there’s plenty for festgoers to be excited about.
GRAMMY-winning pop hero Billie Eilish returns, moving from the second lineup row in 2019 to the coveted top billing, becoming the youngest-ever Coachella headliner at 20. Fellow GRAMMY winners Harry Styles, Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) and GRAMMY-nominated EDM supergroup Swedish House Mafia share headliner status, closing out each night of the desert extravaganza with pop, rap, dance, plenty of fanfare, and surprise guests.
Doja Cat, Big Sean, 21 Savage, Disclosure, Karol G, Anitta and Banda MS are just a handful of the other heavy hitters on the bill, which covers just about every corner of music (even The Nightmare Before Christmas composer Danny Elfman will make an appearance).
The Coachella lineup announcement is always a major moment in the industry, as it unofficially marks the beginning of festival season. Its roster traditionally includes a mix of music’s hottest hitmakers and promising rising stars, making for a real-time reflection of what's happening now and next.
What goes down at Coachella is even more monumental, setting music, festival and fashion trends for the year ahead. Performers use the Coachella stage as a testing ground to try new elements of their live show, debut unreleased songs, reunite with collaborators, and deliver plenty more headline-worthy moments (who could forget when Billie first met Justin Bieber?).
Beyond the buzz of the biggest names, there's countless noteworthy acts on the 2022 Coachella lineup. Read on for six major takeaways from this year's stellar offering.
Hip-hop and R&B led the (ultimately canceled) 2020 lineup, with some of those artists making their way to 2022. Not only does Ye return to close out both weekends of the fest (he did a special Sunday Service set on Easter in 2019), the lineup is a treasure trove of rap talent.
Women represent, with Megan Thee Stallion, City Girls, Doja Cat, Sampa the Great and Princess Nokia all ready to throw down bars and vibes. Vince Staples, Big Sean, Lil Baby, Denzel Curry, J.I.D, Run the Jewels, Isaiah Rashad, BROCKHAMPTON, Cordae and 2022 Best New Artist nominee Baby Keem also represent a solid selection of rappers continuing to shake up the game.
As for R&B, showcasing some of the sweetest sounds coming out of the current alt-R&B wave, Amber Marks, Ari Lennox, Snoh Aalegra, Steve Lacy, Daniel Caesar, Emotional Oranges and Pink Sweat$ are sure to make listeners swoon.
Read More: 2021 In Review: 8 Trends That Defined Rap
As Rolling Stone writer Tomás Mier noted, this might be "the most Latino lineup in Coachella history."
It offers an exciting sample of the breadth of Latin music, with Mexican regional bands Grupo Firme and Banda MS, from Tijuana and Mazatlán, respectively, receiving prime billing in the second tier. Other Latin music acts include Brazilian popstars Anitta and Pabllo Vittar, Colombian reggaetonera Karol G, Argentine rappers Nathy Peluso and Nicki Nicole, Mexican corrido trap artist Natanael Cano and Mexican alt-folk singer/songwriter Ed Maverick.
Mexican-American alt genre benders Cuco and Omar Apollo, both of whom sing in Spanish and English and serve up an infectious blend of influences and styles with pop and rock, will make their Coachella debuts.
Meet the Band: Banda MS On How Their Snoop Dogg Collaboration Is Introducing Banda Music To New Audiences
In addition to the rich Latin music offerings from Mexico, South America and the U.S., Coachella attendees can also hear an eclectic mix of sounds from the rest of the globe.
You'll be able to get lost in the funky Turkish psych-rock of Altin Gün; the energetic, bright and super kawaii J-pop of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu; the hair metal rock of Italian band Måneskin; and the sublime French nu-disco of L'Impératrice. South African house music legend Black Coffee and rising Benin-born, Brooklyn-based DJ/producer AMÉMÉ will each command the dance floor with their sublime, sultry African-infused beats.
Related: Black Coffee On New Album, Subconsciously: "Music Is Life To Me And I Want You To Feel That With Every Beat And Melody"
Dance music has never been lost on Coachella, as the fest's legendary Yuma Tent — an enclosed (and air-conditioned!) disco ball-glittered and laser-streaked stage — brings the underground dance club energy to the middle of the desert. And with this year’s roster of dance and electronic acts, it’ll clearly be bumping all weekend.
Beloved EDM trio Swedish House Mafia return to the fest 10 years after their first headline set there, since breaking up in 2013 and reuniting in 2018. Major dance acts Fatboy Slim, Jamie XX, Flume and Disclosure will also get the dance party going.
As with rap, women are also holding it down in the dance category, with TOKiMONSTA, Ela Minus, Jayda G, Logic1000, ANNA, Sama' Abdulhadi, DJ Holographic, Honey Dijon and The Blessed Madonna, the latter two whom are billed together, ready to serve up house, techno and beyond. Black Coffee, Channel Tres, The Avalanches, DJ Koze, Hot Chip, Dixon, Caribou — who's also performing as his DJ alias Daphne, ARTBAT, Damian Lazarus, Richie Hawtin, Tchami, Madeon, Purple Disco Machine and more round out the dance acts.
Sunshine plus alt and indie acts always make for a perfect festival mood. While Coachella has served up a larger rock menu in the past, there are plenty of indie rock and alternative genre blenders to see this year, including Phoebe Bridgers, Maggie Rogers, Japanese Breakfast, Omar Apollo, Caroline Polacheck, girl in red, Nilüfer Yanya, and the Wallows.
Amyl and the Sniffers and IDLES will serve up some punk energy, while the always-masked crooner Orville Peck will deliver his artsy, queer brand of country. Ed Maverick, The Marías and Chicano Batman represent Latinx artists making beautiful music across the alternative spectrum from their life experiences.
What's Coachella without some big popstar headliners (Beyoncé in 2018, Ariana Grande in 2019) to serve us everything we need and more?
Harry Styles and Billie Eilish will wear the crowns this year, but beyond their mega-glow, there's plenty of alt-pop acts we can't wait to see. Billie's big brother FINNEAS will make his solo debut at the fest, and Conan Gray, Cuco, Alec Benjamin, Joji, Still Woozy, and hyperpop boundary-pushers 100 gecs will also keep things poppy.
Yet again, women are well-represented on the lineup in the ever-evolving pop genre. Carly Rae Jepsen, Kim Petras, Beabadoobee, Arlo Parks, Bishop Briggs, Japan-born, London based art-pop queen Rina Sawayama and Indonesian 88-rising act NIKKI bring so much to the art form and will bring that energy to Coachella 2022.
For the full Coachella 2022 lineup, visit coachella.com, where you can also join the weekend one waitlist and register for the upcoming weekend 2 presale (taking place this Friday, Jan. 14).
2021 In Review: 8 Trends That Defined Pop
Photo: Steve Granitz/WireImage/Getty Images
For the first time in the history of the GRAMMY Awards, every nominee for Best Rock Performance and Best Country Album is a woman or a group fronted by a woman
Now that the 2021 GRAMMY nominees have been revealed, let's take a look deeper across the categories to see which artists fared the best, who some of the first-time nominees are, who made history and more.
Beyoncé leads the pack this year with nine nominations, followed by Dua Lipa, Roddy Ricch and Taylor Swift, all tied at six nods. Brittany Howard follows with five nominations, with Megan Thee Stallion, Billie Eilish, DaBaby, Phoebe Bridgers, Justin Bieber, John Beasley and David Frost all tied with four nods.
As for Queen Bey, her nine 63rd GRAMMY Awards nods bring her total number of career nominations to 79, making her the most-nominated female in GRAMMY history. She is now tied with Paul McCartney as the second most-nominated artist of all time, only behind her husband JAY-Z (who received three nods himself this year) and legendary producer Quincy Jones, who both have 80 career nominations.
The pop/R&B icon has won 24 GRAMMYs to date, and if she wins at least four of her nine nominations, she will become the female artist with the most GRAMMY wins. If she wins eight or nine, she will be the highest number of GRAMMY wins of all time.
Inside The Song Of The Year Nominees | 2021 GRAMMY Awards
Both Stallion and Bridgers are first-time GRAMMY nominees and are in the running for Best New Artist. The Houston rapper's other three nominations come from her "Savage Remix" featuring Beyoncé, which is up for Record Of The Year, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song. The Los Angeles alt-rocker's other nods are for her sophomore solo album, Punisher, which is up for Best Alternative Music Album, and its second single "Kyoto," up for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song.
Notably, all nominees in the Best New Artist category are female and/or people of color—Stallion and Bridgers' fellow talented contenders are Ingrid Andress, Chika, Noah Cyrus, D Smoke, Doja Cat and KAYTRANADA. All of them are also first-time nominees.
Explore This Year's Album Of The Year Nominees | 2021 GRAMMYs
Other 2021 first-time nominees include BTS, Harry Styles, the Strokes, Poppy, Jayda G, Arca, Baauer, Madeon and Toro Y Moi, the latter five who are nominated in the dance/electronic categories.
For the first time in the history of the GRAMMY Awards, every nominee for both Best Rock Performance and Best Country Album is a woman or a group fronted by a woman. The nominees for the former are Andress, Brandy Clark, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde and the group Little Big Town. For Best Rock Performance, the contenders are Fiona Apple, Bridgers, Brittany Howard, Grace Potter, sister trio HAIM and group Big Thief.
More entries than ever before were submitted for 2021 GRAMMY consideration, totaling 23,207.
Stay tuned to GRAMMY.com and our social channels (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) for more 2021 GRAMMYs content, and tune in to the 63rd GRAMMY Awards on Sunday, March 14, on CBS to find out who the winners will be!
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