If there ever was an artist having “a moment” it’s definitely Chappell Roan.
Now, the question is whether that so-called moment can translate into some type of longevity in the music business.
Based on what we saw on saw on Sunday at the Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco the answer appears to be something along the lines of, well, quite possibly.
Having just drawn what many judged to be the biggest crowd in the history of Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival the prior weekend, the 26-year-old Roan dominated the discussion and anticipation among Outside Lands attendees during the entire three-day run, Aug. 9-11, in a fashion that arguably surpassed any other artist in the event’s long and storied history.
From the moments the gates opened on Friday, everybody seemed to be counting down the minutes until the skyrocketing synth-pop star took the big Lands End stage at just after 4 p.m. on the last day of the festival.
Roan’s rise has been nothing short of breathtaking, going from — on just a local level — drawing hundreds of fans to see her perform a club gig at August Hall in San Francisco just last year to becoming the de facto main attraction at Outside Lands, drawing a crowd that was many times the size of Sunday’s official headliner, Sturgill Simpson.
And the roar of interest has gotten so intense that when I just searched to find the latest on Roan, Google came back with “Did you mean: your favorite artist’s favorite artist” — which is weird because I had no idea that Bryan Ferry is such a big fan of Chappell Roan.
Could Roan live up to such hype with her actual set? No. Absolutely not. But could anyone?
Yet, she certainly delivered a fun show for her highly enthusiastic fans — proud members of what some have dubbed the star’s Pink Pony Club, with many sporting pink cowboy hats — who turned out in force, filling the Polo Field in a way that recalled the first time Metallica headlined the festival in 2012. It seemed like all 75,000 of the people in attendance had squeezed their way onto the field, even though the actual number was surely far less than that.
Still, one had to wonder if there were like 14 people watching BADBADNOTGOOD perform during the same time slot on the festival’s Twin Peaks stage — which, come to think of it, may still be too many people if indeed the band lives up to its own name.
Bounding into action alongside her solid band, Roan kicked off with an anthemic take on “Femininomenon” and proceeded to run through 10 other selections — all of which went over about equally well with the crowd — over the course of her approximately hourlong set.
Most of the tunes hailed from “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” Roan’s debut album that came out in 2023 and was initially met with meh sales figures (but ample critical acclaim) but has become a massive “sleeper hit.”
Continuing through “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl,” “After Midnight” and other numbers, Roan showcased her ability to blend a variety of ’80s-inspired sounds (dance pop, new wave, synth-pop, etc.) into her music. She conveyed a real Madonna-meets-Cyndi-Lauper type vibe, as she got into the groove and showed that she just wants to have fun.
She was performing this set on the one-year anniversary of her breakthrough hit “Hot to Go!” — released on Aug. 11, 2023 — and to mark the occasion she was wearing the same blue-and-gold majorette leotard seen in the video.
Of course, she would play that number and lead tens of thousands through the accompanying dance crazy (popularized on TikTok) — where fans use their arms to spell out “H-O-T-T-O-G-O” — in a way that one astute observer likened to a Gen Z “Y.M.C.A.” The dance went over like gangbusters in the general admission area, but the star pointed out that the VIP section definitely wasn’t keeping pace.
“It’s so weird that VIP thinks they are too cool to do this,” Roan scolded.
In all, Roan’s stage banter was pretty generic — just for one example, leading into the song “Naked in Manhattan” by yelling out to the crowd, “Are you ready to get naked in Manhattan?” Yet, her vocalis were fairly strong and she exhibited a good deal of energy as she worked the stage.
Closing up the set with a run through “Good Luck, Babe!,” “My Kink Is Karma” and “Pink Pony Club,” Roan had succeeded in delivering the signature set for the 2024 Outside Lands festival. That’s an impressive accomplishment for any artist, let alone one that basically nobody was talking about just a few months ago and went into the show as the most-hyped-up artist of the summer season.
Setlist:
1. “Femininomenon”
2. “Naked in Manhattan”
3. “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl”
4. “Hot to Go!”
5. “After Midnight”
6. “Casual”
7. “The Subway”
8. “Red Wine Supernova”
9. “Good Luck, Babe!”
10. “My Kink Is Karma”
11. “Pink Pony Club”
