Nostalgia is a very powerful thing and on Friday night at Governors Ball on Randall’s Island, Outkast demonstrated what bizarre behavior it can inspire.
Midway through their headline set, they dropped their 2003 smash “Hey Ya!” and 60,000 people instantly lost their minds. Some shook their behinds frantically, others waved their arms in the air as though they were praising rap deities and one woman was so overcome by excitement, she simply ran around in circles like a dog that’s just discovered it has a tail. The audacious brilliance of Outkast’s signature song hasn’t been dulled by the passing of time but the same couldn’t be said of the rest of their set.
At their peak, the Atlanta duo were true pioneers, putting the south on the hip-hop map and pushing the genre into a fantastic, psychedelic netherworld. But years of inaction means that now they’re finally back together, songs like “B.o.B.” and “So Fresh, So Clean” sound dated. Andre 3000 and Big Boi still showed glimpses of their furiously fast, interlocking wordplay but while it’s enough to win them a golden ticket on the reunion gravy train, it’s not enough to earn them relevance.
Elsewhere during the first day of the city’s biggest rock festival, electronic sounds and dance beats were predominant. The French outfit Phoenix have become confusingly big off the back of their overproduced and bland synth-rock and their early evening set was given an added boost as it clashed with Damian Marley. The young, reggae-indifferent festival-goers opted to watch Phoenix in their droves, and although occasional singles like “Lisztomania” provided mild flashes of entertainment, much of their show felt like an exercise in passing the time.
At the nearby Gotham Tent, it was the ladies who ruled. Grimes (AKA Claire Boucher) bewitched fans with her brew of twisted pop melodies and evil house beats. But with the help of several back up dancers and her own high-energy moves, the Canadian also incorporated a celebratory feel to balance out those brilliantly nightmarish sounds.
Immediately before Grimes came La Roux who were arguably the highlight of the entire day. Five years on from their first hits, the British act are staging a long overdue and extremely impressive comeback with new songs “Let Me Down Gently” and “Uptight Downtown,” showing that the group’s central member Elly Jackson is taking her love of electro-pop into a more sophisticated and dynamic direction. Judging by the overspill of fans around the tent trying to catch a glimpse of La Roux’s superb performance, there are plenty of willing souls who are desperate to follow her.
An earlier attraction turned out to be Julian Casablancas who made his first major public outing with his new project the Voidz on the main stage. Backed with multicolored screen projections hectic enough to induce seizures, the New Yorkers unveiled a set of material that sounded like the Cars with a spikey, cocaine-fueled paranoia. It didn’t quite fit the sunny Friday afternoon spirit, but it sounds as though the Voidz have enough ideas to make the release their debut album in September something to look forward to.
Casablancas returns to Governors Ball on Saturday to perform with his main band the Strokes and the festival closes out on Sunday with headline sets from Vampire Weekend and Axwell Λ Ingrosso.