The Pink Pony Club stormed the polo field Sunday afternoon for the most highly anticipated Outside Lands performance I have personally ever witnessed. Packed in like pink sardines and ready to dance, I braved the crowd to get the full experience.
Outside Lands made many correct decisions when they signed on Chappell Roan this year: They put her on the main stage, placed her in the late afternoon, and promoted the hell out of her around the festival. All weekend long you couldn’t miss the signs of her, people wearing her merch, people talking about seeing her, people online begging for Sunday tickets.
Festival goers even had the opportunity to win a meetup if they donated to Outside Lands Works. It felt like even the pink shirts of the festival workers were meant to signal her great arrival. Placing her in the 4 pm slot was also a good decision; The density of the crowd would have been difficult to manage in the dark and kept crowds in circulation around the park for the entire day instead of just part of it.
Chappell has been making the festival circuit this summer and has been pulling record numbers at each performance. Every festival acts like a rolling ball down a hill, picking up momentum and creating more anticipation for her next performance. Someone at OSL was paying attention.
The build-up and anticipation
My group got to the polo field a solid hour before her start time and we chose to stand left of the stage in an area that has historically been loose but would soon prove otherwise. Country singer Paul Cauthen put on an objectively great show that was sadly met with great disinterest from the crowd.
He felt a bit like a sacrificial lamb to a sea of pink cowboy hats but at least he got to perform for a big crowd. For that entire hour, the wave of people did not stop once around us, every attendant in the park was coming to the main stage. The wait was intense. Before start time we were treated to a little preshow in which Chappell rode around the perimeter of the polo field on the back of a golf cart, proceeded by a small marching band and some ribbon twirlers. We speculated whether that was Roan or a double in Roan drag.
The performance
Finally, it was time, “Greetings from Chappell Land” splashed across the back screen and the mid-west princess came out on stage, her band and herself wearing their 80s camp and marching band blue and yellow show outfits. She opened with her trending hit Femininomenon to which the crowd knew every word. Chappell runs, dances, and belts every note effortlessly — except for when she is breathing heavily between songs and taking copious sips from a pink thermos. The high energy starts with her and she is incredibly engaging with her audience, always taking the time to teach the Hot To Go dance despite the speed of her growing fame.
This participation dance has be the cornerstone of her growing fame and she demands it of everyone at her shows, “It’s funny how the VIP thinks they are too cool to do this. You’re not fun!!” she screamed at VIP. It was the first anniversary of Hot To Go and that made it feel extra special for everyone. She also played her new song Subway, a currently unreleased song dedicated to yearning for broken love.
It was only a 45-minute set but the crowd didn’t stop singing once.
Why her
Chappell dresses in drag, but nothing about her is fake, she is incredibly accessible, and everything about her creative presentation comes from her. Nothing about her is corporate or polished in the cliche way pop artists are. Last year she ran a Q&A on Reddit to answer fan questions and only recently took a step back from her personal social medias due to some intense fan obsessions.
She invites her crowd to participate and for the younger people in the audience who may have missed out on some formative concert-going years because of the pandemic, that goes a long way in changing the energy in the crowd from passive consumption to cultural participation. Her lyrics aren’t shy and if you want to sing along you can’t be shy either.
What some may not realize about Chappell’s music is that on the surface you see the familiar pink princess pop aesthetic and write her off as “girls’ music” but when you engage with her music and her performance you realize this girl has vicious teeth. It is what makes her so appealing to women of any age, the opportunity to scream out frustrations about dating, identity, and sexuality with a crowd and performer who understands you.
For uninitiated around me I could see various levels of shock when her fans screamed along to Casual, a song about car sex and being in a situation-ship with someone who won’t commit. Over the summer she has never failed once to bring the entire experience to whatever stage she graces and with this performance Chappell Roan put her canine teeth in the side of my neck. We hope she can continue to rock the foundations of pop music and that we see her again at Outside Lands as a headline performer.
The rest of Day 3
After Roan the rest of the day was a gentle wash, I had no interest in Sturgill Simpson or Post Malone and much of the crowd agreed because a large chunk of them just left after 5 pm. Completely beat from the weekend I spent the rest of my time getting in those last few festival experiences. I had my best meal of the festival at the Pink Onion Pizza booth, picked up one last boba tea, and laid out on the grass at the Sutro stage for several hours while waiting for TV Girl and Slowdive.
TV Girl was surprisingly good live and Brad Petering’s bored and irreverent comedy chops kept things interesting, I would describe him as a real bullshitter — “I was talking to Posty and I said to him, you know man you gotta give up this rap stuff and go country”. It was worth it to wait for Slowdive, a trance-heavy three-guitar rock band that helped establish “shoe-gaze” as a genre.
Shoe gaze is right: At one point the light show was so overwhelming, I had to hide behind my friend to avoid a potential medical emergency. And with that final note I made my last trek across the festival grounds and back out into the real world, taking with me so many happy memories and new friendships. I’ve got my Outside Lands fix for another year and I’ll count down the days to the next.
T. Von D. is a local museum worker and lesbian.
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More photos from Day 3 at Outside Lands 2024
All photos by Alive Coverage.
