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The thing about Portola that’s emerged over the festival’s three years of existence is that if you’re there, you feel like you’re in on the joke. And everyone likes being in on the joke.
Through its stylish and legit funny social channels and wry on-site messaging (“we know that music feeds your soul or whatever, but please remember to eat some actual food” implored signage), the event has developed a trait that can often feel scarce at big festivals: actual personality. Portola is your dryly funny and sort of silly, but also extremely intelligent friend with low-key style and impeccable taste in music.
“This is a festival where it’s not about spectacle, it’s about vibe,” Portola founder Danny Bell told Billboard onsite at the fest.
This appealing amalgamation of traits brought roughly 45,000 attendees a day and a motherlode of artists to third edition of Portola, which took over San Francisco’s Pier 80 this past weekend, Sept 28-29. Primarily presenting the styles of electronic music commonly grouped together as indie or alt or just non-EDM, the lineup gathered some of the scene’s biggest, buzziest and most respected artists for a show that also, like in years past, featured a powdered sugar sprinkling of pop (in the form of Rebecca Black, Natasaha Bedingfield, etc.) and a bit of hip hop.
But the emphasis was dance music, with the stature the Goldenvoice-produced festival has gained over its three years of existence emphasized by the fact that people are now flying in for it from across the U.S., Australia and Europe. Rüfüs du Sol played their only set of the year, debuting new music from their comign album and playing the hits for one of the weekend’s biggest crowds. On the mainstage, Disclosure reminded everyone that they’re simply, consistently the best, playing many of their biggest songs, bringing out a brass section for the feel-good “Tondo,” closing with the classic Flume remix of “You & Me” and giving each other a big old brotherly hug at the end. Two more of the many (many) Brits on the lineup, Chase & Status played a satisfying, tough as nails set that included their new hits (“Disconnect,” “Baddadan”) and classics like their 2008 “Eastern Jam.” (“This is for my original Chase & Status fans,” the pair’s Will Kennard announced before dropping the track.)
While often overlooked on the global circuit, San Francisco has a rich and mighty electronic history, and certainly the many locals in attendance demonstrated that the Bay Area parties hard, and also well: the crowd was loose but from our vantage point never out of control, stylish in mostly non-cliché ways and generally friendly, with none of the too cool (or too self aware) atmosphere that elsewhere can, and does, stifle the dancing.
“It’s a work hard play hard town,” says Bell. “When people here come to play, they’re out just to have a good time; there’s no agenda.”
The weather was also classically San Franciscan, with each day’s morning fog burning off for sunshine daydream afternoons that maintained enough of a chill that many attendees who didn’t bring layers were spotted buying hoodies from the merch stand. The site, an actual working shipping pier, created a built-in industrial aesthetic, with the looming crane and hulking naval ship doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of decor. The vessel even blew its horn daily, to wide applause.
These are ten of the best things we saw over the weekend.
Jesse Ware Takes a Victory Lap
Image Credit: Courtesy of Goldenvoice
One of the enduring joys of watching The Masked Singer is seeing how totally wrong judge Ken Jeong is from week-to-week. The joyful panelist is impressively confident in his often wildly off-base guesses and in a Billboard exclusive sneak peek at Wednesday night’s (Oct. 2) Footloose-themed episode the good doctor again pushes all his chips in on last week’s bold guess at the identity of the celeb inside the towering Woodpecker costume.
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“This is a clue-based guess,” Jeong says of the singer who impressed the panel in last week’s season 12 kick-off with her bouncy cover of Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers.” Admitting that “for the first time ever” he had no idea who the singer was, a cowboy hat-wearing Jeong said he was doubling-down on his previous prediction: Willow Smith.
Now, pay attention as we try to follow Jeong’s logic, which, it’s worth noting drew a subtle eye-roll from host Nick Cannon.
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“That director’s chair? Willow Smith also directs as well as performs in her own music videos,” Jeong said of the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith who first broke through in 2010 with her No. 11 Billboard Hot 100 single “Whip My Hair” and whose most recent album is this year’s jazzy Empathogen.
On the subject of bird clues, Jeong also noted that Willow has performed with past Masked Singer contestant Rubber Ducky (aka Anthony Anderson) in “perhaps the best and most precious Mother’s Day special of all time on VH1 called ‘Dear Mama.’” Fellow panelist Robin Thick says that, clue-wise, Jeong’s theory makes sense, but vocally he warned, “you’re going down the wrong tree hole.”
In an earlier clue package, season 11’s Miss Cleocatra, film/TV actress Jennifer Lewis spilled the tea on someone she said she has known “from her start. She’s been called a mogul, a chic CEO,” Lewis said as Woodpecker held up a roll of tape reading “NEXT.” Other clues: she’s friends with Beyoncé and is a “baddie.”
Woodpecker herself teased that “the only doors that open are ones you knock on” as she rapped on a gate next to a panel reading “Family” and said she is on a path to becoming the “youngest billionaire.”
Last week’s season premiere revealed the identity of Leaf Sheep, NFL legend quarterback John Elway, who was booted after singing Tim McGraw’s “I Like It, I Love It.” For the record, Jeong somehow got that one right.
Check out the preview video below and tune in to The Masked Singer on Fox tonight at 8 p.m. ET.
While it’s never gotten quite the same recognition as the U.S. electronic strongholds of New York, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, San Francisco has long been a dance music center of gravity. Think warehouse raves, sunrise parties on the beach, machine-made music colliding with the early internet and the first iterations of Burning Man. Explore […]
Sabrina Carpenter is TIME‘s latest cover star, earning a place among the publication’s 100 Next list with a cosign from another short-statured pop superstar: Christina Aguilera.
In addition to a cover story published Wednesday (Oct. 2), the 25-year-old “Espresso” singer was honored with a brief tribute penned by Xtina. “She may claim to be short and sweet, but never underestimate the mighty power behind Sabrina Carpenter’s talent,” the Burlesque star wrote. “As a fellow 5-ft. female with a similar working-adolescent Disney history, I firsthand recognize and respect what it takes to maintain clarity while delivering within the demands of this business.”
“While she is at the tender age of 25, I realize our symbolic, full-circle connection, as my own [self-titled] debut album turns 25 this same year,” Aguilera continued. “As exciting generations of pop princesses continue to emerge, I feel adoration and protectiveness, knowing the journey at hand and ahead.”
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The article comes just a couple weeks after Carpenter and the “Beautiful” vocalist met up mid-September, filming a TikTok together in which the Girl Meets World alum joked that she was Aguilera’s “favorite” child. The pair also teamed up for Xtina’s recent Spotify Anniversaries episode around the same time, singing “What a Girl Wants” as a duet.
Aguilera also came up in Carpenter’s cover story interview with TIME, with the “Please Please Please” hitmaker opening up about owning her sexuality while following in the footsteps of pop icons such as Xtina and Britney Spears. “You’ll still get the occasional mother that has a strong opinion on how you should be dressing,” she told the publication.
“And to that I just say, don’t come to the show and that’s OK,” continued Carpenter, who often sings about sex in her music and incorporates a few NSFW elements into her live shows. “It’s unfortunate that it’s ever been something to criticize, because truthfully, the scariest thing in the world is getting up on a stage in front of that many people and having to perform as if it’s nothing. If the one thing that helps you do that is the way you feel comfortable dressing, then that’s what you’ve got to do.”
See Carpenter’s TIME cover below.
Charli XCX gets the joke. The “360” singer stopped by Howard Stern’s SiriusXM channel on Wednesday morning (Oct. 2) for her first-ever visit to the King of All Media’s morning show, where the host asked her if she was offended by Bowen Yang‘s over-the-top spoof of her Brat Summer vibe during a sketch on Saturday’s 50th season premiere episode.
“Oh, no, no, no. I think SNL is iconic and Troye and I we had an inkling it was coming and so we were very excited about it,” she said of Sweat Tour co-headliner singer Troye Sivan. “I love Bowen and I honestly think he did a great job. I was very impressed with the hair texture, actually. I thought it was a really good wig. It was good, it was cool.”
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Yang, indeed, did rock a killer wavy hairpiece for the bit that featured him as Charli hosting a political-themed talk show alongside Sarah Sherman’s ab-tastic house DJ Sivan. The bit opened with Yang’s Charli introducing her Talk Talk Show — a reference to one of the songs on Charli’s Brat album — before moving on to the so Charli segment “brat or nat.”
The loving tribute included Yang’s Charli cheekily asking cast member Chloe Fineman’s CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins if she’d ever done ketamine on a set that was the same lime green color as the cover of the singer’s sixth album.
Elsewhere in her chat with Stern, Charli talked about her breakthrough a cappella performance of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” as a four-year-old on a cruise with her parents as well as revealing that she’s never met one of her absolute musical north stars: Britney Spears. She did, however, say she went to see the singer’s Las Vegas show years ago and was convinced that though Brit didn’t know she was there, she suspected she’d spotted her when the “Toxic” star spoke in a British accent during the set, only to find out from a friend that Spears does that “all the time.”
After also expressing her love for the Spice Girls, Charli surprised Stern by revealing that she thinks late punk godhead Lou Reed is “the greatest artist of all time. I think lyrically he is just… I dunno, he is just on this other level. Like you said, people probably would never associate me and him together, but I think his lyrics are so conversational,” she said.
“He paints a picture of what is in front of him, whether it’s someone pulling a rose out of a garbage can in New York, or the scene at Max’s,” she said of the famed Max’s Kansas City bar that was a gathering place of New York’s underground music, poetry and arts scene in the late 1960s and 1970s. “He truly paints this really specific picture referencing Candy and Jackie and all of these people who maybe the listener doesn’t necessarily know who he’s talking about, but you can kind of go and read [about]… I think that was something that was really inspiring to me on Brat, to kind of paint this really specific picture of people in my life, places that I go to in this very conversational way he does.”
Charlie and Sivan rocked New York’s Madison Square Garden last week on their joint tour, where she was joined by surprise guests Lorde and Addison Rae. The outing rolls on tonight with a show at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
It’s not spooky season until Megan Thee Stallion says it is. With the calendar turning to October, Megan continued her tradition of taking a pumpkin head photo shoot on Instagram Tuesday night (Oct. 1). As the countdown to Halloween begins, the Houston Hottie is one step ahead of everyone as she threw on her pumpkin […]
When the NBA returns to Abu Dhabi for the Global Game, the association will be bringing 2 Chainz to the UAE with it. The Atlanta rapper is slated to perform at NBA Fan Appreciation Day at Etihad Arena on Oct. 5. In addition to the concert, there will be three-point and dunk contests as well […]
As he works to enter his vice president era, Tim Walz is invoking the power of Taylor Swift.
At the VP debate Tuesday night (Oct. 1), Kamala Harris’ running mate gave the pop superstar a big shout-out and wore Eras Tour-inspired friendship bracelets while facing off against JD Vance, Donald Trump’s pick for his second-in-command. After 90 minutes of back-and-forth — during which strings of beads occasionally peaked out from Walz’s shirt sleeves — the Minnesota governor ended his performance by marveling at the vast array of people supporting the Democratic ticket in 2024.
“I’m as surprised as anybody of this coalition that Kamala Harris has built, from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift,” Walz said, staring into the camera to directly address the American people. “They don’t all agree on everything, but they are truly optimistic people. They believe in a positive future of this country, and one where our politics can be better than it is.”
The 60-year-old politician was standing too far away from the camera to give a clear shot of his bracelets, but it’s very possible he was sporting an official Harris-Walz accessory on his wrist. The duo’s campaign began selling the beaded pieces in September, almost immediately after Swift endorsed their cause with a lengthy post on Instagram signed “Childless Cat Lady.”
“I think [Harris] is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” the 14-time Grammy winner wrote in her message, which went live moments after the presidential debate concluded Sept. 10. “I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
Though her support has arguably been the most impactful, Swift is just one of dozens of celebrities who’ve endorsed Harris and Walz ahead of election day on Nov. 5. Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Jon, Bon Iver, John Legend and Pink have all performed at campaign events this summer, while Ariana Grande, Cardi B, Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Carole King, Katy Perry, Kesha, Barbra Streisand and more have all spoken out in the Democrats’ favor.
Watch Walz give Swift a shout-out at the VP debate below.
Olivia Rodrigo has spilled her guts all over the world this year — and now, she’s getting ready to do the same in your living room. On Wednesday (Oct. 2), the 21-year-old pop star announced that an Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour concert film is headed to Netflix at the end of the month, featuring […]
Six months after announcing her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran North American Tour, Shakira has now unveiled dates for Latin America. The global superstar will take her Live Nation-produced trek to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Peru and her native Colombia next year. Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour is in support of her […]
