A month ago, Randall’s Island hosted Frieze New York. A showcase for artists from around the world, it offered up an art-based funfair replete with Velcro walls and the chance to draw a perfect black dot and be paid $20 for it.
Governors Ball replaced the Velcro with bands and the dots with a slew of alliterated corporate hang outs. You could have fun at Paypal Place or swing by the Sennheiser Silent Disco, in between checking out 52 food stalls and playing games of giant Jenga.
At times the music almost felt like an aside. LA duo People Under The Stairs opened the Gotham Tent and their boom-bap hip-hop was an anomaly on a day dominated by trap and southern styles.
Rae Sremmurd are at the fore of that contemporary scene, mixing their “Sremmlife” lifestyle brand (which loosely consists of having endless fun and getting drunk) with an energetic live show that went wrong for one half of the duo. While pogoing around to Unlock The Swag, Slim Jim slipped and got “a big-ass piece of glass in his leg”. The performance was put on hold while around a dozen medical staff and management assessed Slim Jim’s limb, before he reassured the crowd that he wasn’t dead but unfortunately couldn’t continue. That put an end to the gig as a contest.
Elsewhere, Diiv played the Honda stage with their mix of shoegaze, delays and purple haze. Lead singer Zachary Cole Smith seemed in a rush, saying: “This is a new song, followed by a new song, followed by an old song. We’re Diiv. Bye” – the festival version of a French exit. Back in the Gotham Tent, Gorgon City did their EDM-meets-Chicago-house thing, while Benjamin Booker continued to be the most energetic of the group of artists – Curtis Harding, Leon Bridges, Lee Bains III – who seem intent on reviving rock’n’roll and classic soul. His band – organ player, bassist and drummer – provided a smooth backdrop for Booker’s fairly gritty performance as he snarled, growled and smoked his way through the set.
On the main stage, Future and DJ Esco sped through the former’s trap classics such as Same Damn Time, Karate and Tony Montana, while Charli XCX injected a bit of fun: flashing the audience and swearing and staggering – swaggering? – her way through hits like Boom Clap and Fancy.
Mø was more austere In the Gotham Tent, performing against a black and white video wall that showed Gothic visuals, with capoeira dancers on a mountain interspersed with shots of storm clouds, pulsating mid riffs and Mø in a hoodie with a top knot. That’s not to say it wasn’t as fun as Charli XCX at times – her cover of the Spice Girls Say You’ll Be There stood out and people sprinted from every one of the corporate hang-outs to hear her Diplo-backed single, Lean On.
Chromeo were no less entertaining, coming out to a wall of dry ice and strobes, the effect of which was lost at 4.45 on a sunny New York afternoon. But their over-the-top shtick (everything was chrome), party-friendly tunes such as Come Alive, Bonafide Lovin’ and Sexy Socialite got people dancing for the first time and they topped it off with a cameo from Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koening.
As afternoon turned into evening Vance Joy eased the transition with a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s the Chain and his own hit Riptide, while Death From Above 1979 pulled the crowd in with their drum-and-bass rock.
Florence and the Machine were the first act to put on a show worthy of a headliner. Drenched in warm golden light, Florence hopped around on one leg as she led the crowd in sing-alongs of hits such as What the Water Gave Me and Shake It Out. Her performance felt quite reserved compared to that of St Vincent, who brought out a pink Aztex-style pyramid and two backing dancers in chrome jumpsuits before putting on the performance of the day. Tracks like Marrow felt hugely aided by her band’s saturated, chunky and almost shoddy-sounding synths, while St Vincent danced in sync with her troupe, who tottered around like Daryl Hannah’s dying replicant in Blade Runner. The crowd were addressed as “citizens of New York city” and she stopped proceedings for a Thomas Pynchon-esque short story about an imagined storm in New York in which you grab an Arthur Russell record and Susan Sontag’s diaries and hide out in a cupboard.
St Vincent’s relentless shredding was only matched on the day by Ratatat, who closed the Gotham Tent with their hits Seventeen Years and Shempi.
That left the road clear for My Morning Jacket (who played the Honda Stage) and Drake to get a free run at the 50,000 attendees. The former had a decent crowd for their emotionally charged set. Drake was similarly in touch with his feelings, although his were on a grander scale. His set started with an abridged version of his Jungle promo video as he mused about being jaded by fame and other everyday concerns. As at Coachella, the emphasis and spotlight was only on him. That might work in a club or even an arena, but despite his promise to give the crowd what they wanted, it all felt a little underwhelming. He rattled through hits like Over, 0 to 100 and Crew Love, but without any guests and limited onstage remarks that revolved around talking about his OVO festival and repeating the name of the city he was playing in, it felt like a let down after the lead-up.
You could say it was more drizzle than Drizzy.
