Festival Recap: GovBall Day 3
Words by Carson Huffer
To kick off day three of Gov Ball, I found myself exploring the grounds much more while just listening to sets from afar. While perusing through the free iced coffee at the Dunkin installation and helping a few attendees take pictures in the iconic pink furry trees that line the main walkway of the festival, I caught snippets of the afternoon sets from both Elyanna and Saint Levant. Both artists pulled sizable crowds for how early it was on day three, and I found myself bopping my head along to each new track while wandering through the other great amenities and experiences the festival had to offer.
The first full set I caught on the closing day came in the form of Kevin Abstract on the GoPuff Stage. Rocking cargo shorts and a sweater during the heat of the summer, Abstract coyly giggled with the crowd throughout his entire set of songs from both his solo work and the illustrious (and now defunct) Brockhampton project. As he joked about “getting nervous and shit” from mistaking a lyric in a Brockhampton deep cut, he then immediately spun it around to make fun of the crowd and himself stating, “I’m curious, what did you expect to happen here?”. As a long time Brockhampton and Kevin Abstract fan, the set was everything I wanted and more, so it was perfect per my personal expectations.
Chappell Roan, the world’s biggest rising star in music right now, absolutely dominated the main stage at a midday timeslot. Entering the stage in an apple bong cart dressed as a stoned Statue of Liberty, Roan’s eclectic queer pop music brought one of the largest crowds of the entire weekend to swarm the stage and sing along. The Midwest Princess proclaimed that she was in drag of the biggest queen of all while strutting down the newly installed catwalk to hits like “Red Wine Supernova” and “Hot To Go” that the crowd screamed back at her. The set including a surprise debut of a new track that felt like a perfect continuation of Roan’s debut album and mounting soundscapes that she has already built, prompting a near frenzy from the overjoyed festival crowd. It’s not often that I feel like I see a set and know that a career will truly be inevitably long lasting in its successes, but there is no denying the sheer starpower that radiates off of Roan in droves.
The much anticipated Gov Ball main stage set of Renee Rapp came in a blaze of glory with literal flames and fireworks across the stage during opening track “Talk Too Much”. Rapp is ever the engaging performer, bounding across the stage and catwalk explosively through each dance break and belting chorus. Renee let out a litany of queer jokes for the predominantly gay crowd that was living for her every move. Rapp’s set felt notable in both her sheer talent as a songstress and the production value of the added visuals and effects throughout that felt thoughtful and bold in their styling. Renee’s set marked the one year anniversary of the title track of her album Snow Angel coming out, and this set felt like a true celebration of queer joy, fury, and everything in between.
SZA brought the house down as the closing headlining set of the weekend as the SOS Tour once again landed in NYC. I’ve seen SZA quite a few times since the release of SOS at the end of 2022, and yet with each set I still find myself enthralled by her performances. The staging and design of the set feels nearly iconic at this point, and I’ll simply never get over hearing the classic “Broken Clocks” in the same hour as “Kill Bill” and “Snooze”. SZA has dominated the mainstream music space with her latest era, and ending Gov Ball 2024 on such a high note felt like the greatest conclusion to a fantastic weekend.
Tongue Tied had the best time covering Gov Ball as NYC’s music festival truly seems to get better and better each year. We already can’t wait to see who will grace the stages at Flushing Meadows Corona Park next year, but for now, we will keep dreaming of the magic of the 2024 iteration for quite some time.