The summer months have finally arrived, which means it's time for my time of year: Festival Season. The music festival circuit officially kicked off in fine form this past weekend starting with New York City's budding music festival, Governor's Ball.
Governor's Ball is a music festival in the heart of New York City that is quickly building a strong reputation and rivaling the elite of the summer music festival circuit. Having started only in 2011, GovBallNYC has continually seen star-studded lineups in the past 5 years including the likes of Florence & the Machine, Drake, Vampire Weekend, Skrillex, Guns & Roses, and Kanye West just to name a few. For being an independently run festival this is extremely impressive, and once again, GovBallNYC performed a major coup by securing the likes of The Strokes, The Killers, and Kanye West as the major headliners for 2016. However, the successful talent acquisition didn't stop there, as many of the weekend's best performances came from non-headliners.
On day 1 (Friday), I managed to catch performances from Bob Moses, Big Grams, Duke Dumont, Beck, Jamie xx, and The Strokes—all of which were incredible—but the one that took the cake was Jamie xx. Now I'm not usually one for DJ sets, but this is one really stuck out. While the 2016 Grammy winner only managed to play a few tracks from his most recent album, he included his own club renditions of songs by other artists like “One Dance” by Drake which led directly into the 80s-pop hit “Don't You Want Me?” by the Human League which really got the crowd going. Not many DJs I know of can pull off a mash-up of that manner. As a huge fan of 80s new wave and 80s-pop, this was definitely my highlight of day 1. Although, honorable mention to Beck, who performed Raspberry Beret as a tribute to the legend Prince.
Day 2 continued in the same vein with incredible acts stacked back to back. After arriving to the festival later than anticipated, and then waiting in line for over an hour to purchase the highly sought after Kanye West apparel made exclusively for GovBall, I missed a great morning of shows. These artists included The Knocks, Lord Huron, Catfish and the Bottlemen, and Misterwives to name a few. I was gutted to miss out on these, but the rest of the performances of the day certainly left me satisfied. The first act I saw on Day 2 was New York City's very own rap trio De La Soul. Having been producing music and performing since they were 9th graders back in 1987, they definitely knew how to work the crowd. For the track “The Grind Date,” they teased the crowd by starting the beat and beginning the opening verse several times leaving everyone begging for more. After De La Soul, I switched gears to the all-female indie rock group Haim. They performed nearly their entire critically acclaimed album “Days Are Gone,” new unreleased music, as well as a Prince cover of “I Would Die 4 U.” The beginning of a torrential rainstorm began during Haim and persisted until the final show of the night, The Killers. As expected, The Killers warmed up the crowd on this cold, rainy night by starting things off with Mr. Brightside, and continued to play all the rest of their hits. Additionally, they also performed a cover of Interpol's “Obstacle 1” as they paid tribute to local artists like they do at every show.
This show concluded Day 2, but unfortunately, the torrential downpour did not stop. Day 3 eventually had to be cancelled which was a shame as there were plenty of great shows scheduled for that day like: Vince Staples, Vic Mensa, Chvrches, Chet Faker, and of course, Kanye West. Many of these artists quickly tried to plan pop-up shows at several indoor venues around the city, which sold out in the blink of an eye. Even Kanye scheduled a pop-up show at 2am at Webster Hall (which I waited for outside for 5 hours), but due to the massive crowd that amassed outside the venue, the show had to be cancelled due to safety reasons.
Despite the universal disappointment from concertgoers that Day 3 (mostly Kanye) was cancelled, I viewed Governor's Ball 2016 as an incredible success. Tickets were affordable. The venue was not overwhelmingly large like Lollapalooza or Coachella, which made it very easy to concert hop. The food selection was top-quality, as there were over 50 local restaurant vendors. The crowds were older than most festivals, which made for a more pleasant viewing and listening experience. Finally, and most importantly, the artist lineup was top-notch. Aside from including the staple artists of the 2016 circuit, Governor's Ball was also able to secure talent that no other festival or venue can boast: The Strokes and Kanye West. Overall, Governor's Ball was one of my favorite festivals I've been to, and that's even with arguably the best day being cancelled. I was a Lollapalooza guy for the past 5 years, and this experience was a great change of pace. I'm already anxiously awaiting the announcement of the dates for next. Definitely keep this one on your radar for 2017, as the GovBallNYC team are going to do everything they can to make up for that cancelled Yeezy show.
