Frank Ocean’s Controversial Coachella Set Reassessed, One Week Later
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In these media-oversaturated times, it can be hard to form an objective opinion about a project involving Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Drake or any other similarly world-shaking artist because there’s so much noise around them at the time of the project’s release — so much “YAAASSS!” and “BOOOO!” and “MEHHHH!” that it’s like trying to avoid spoilers about a popular TV show.
For better and worse — okay, almost entirely worse — a similar uproar and much more surrounded Frank Ocean’s controversial headlining performance at Coachella two weekends ago. It was his first concert in nearly six years — years that have seen him release a few sometimes-great singles, a fashion line, a magazine and seemingly everything except a follow-up to his rapturously received 2016 album “Blonde” and a tour like his brief, equally feted run of shows in the summer of 2017 (which were filmed by Spike Jonze but are presumably, like several other projects, still adrift somewhere in Frank’s ocean). Added to that, it was at Coachella, arguably the world’s biggest music festival, where Beyonce and Daft Punk have shaped and shaken culture, which Ocean has attended many times and even name-checked in his early song “Novacane.”
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Anyone reading this knows how it all went: The building and sudden deconstruction of his onstage ice rink, the hour-long wait before the show finally started at 11 p.m. local time, the extremely limited view of the stage, the long periods of silence between songs, the random mid-show DJ set, and the subsequent abrupt end of the set due to curfew (which was actually well past curfew, leading to costly fines). The ensuing narrative — complicated by the fact that the show was not livestreamed and thus was based on eyewitnesses and janky fan videos — swerved between “What a rip-off!” and “Who the f does he think he is?” to “Leave Frank Ocean alone!” and back several times during the week. It only got worse as reports of pre-show chaos and indecision dribbled out and Ocean’s rep finally announced that his Weekend Two set was canceled due to an ankle injury he’d apparently suffered earlier in the week (which did not stop him from walking or even bouncing around the stage on Sunday night).
Amid all that, it’s not surprising that the music Ocean performed, which he admitted onstage was “fucking chaotic but so much fun,” was often overlooked.
It’s fair to wonder whether anyone could assess the actual musical performance with an unbiased view: Even the most fair-minded fan would have problems being objective watching a meandering, hour-late show after spending three days on their feet in the Coachella dustbowl, looking ahead to spending hours getting out of the festival grounds and then heaven knows how many hours or days to get home. Many of us who weren’t on-site formed perspectives based on heresay and glitchy TikTok videos — one of the worst ways to form an opinion on anything.
But over the past few days a number of reasonably well-recorded audience videos have emerged that give a relatively accurate rendering of the set. Based on four close listens to two different recordings, it’s fair to say that musically, Ocean’s set was much better than most accounts would lead one to expect, although still a mess — the first half hour in particular featured innovative, at times drastic reimaginings of some of his most popular songs and the live debut of several others, and despite their confusion, for the most part the crowd was with him. But the 15-plus-minute DJ set in the middle, followed by recordings (not live performances) of two or three more Ocean fan favorites, along with an unexpected song from Ocean’s friend Josiah, threw off the pacing even more and led to even greater confusion. A rough play-by-play follows:
For the above reasons, the audience was irked but amped by the time Ocean took the stage, after nearly a full hour’s delay, with a tight, almost unrecognizably fast, near-pop-punk version of “Novacane,” the 2012 song where he name-checks Coachella. It was a hot start, but two full minutes of onstage silence slowed things down considerably before the live debut of his 2021 freestyle “Come on World, You Can’t Go!” (premiered in a nine-minute incarnation in December 2021 on his “Blonded” Apple Radio show), in a shortened version.
Even at the biggest festival shows, it’s usually clear what’s happening onstage. But Ocean’s stage was barely visible — not only were there giant video screens on either side, but another one hanging above the stage like a giant garage door three-fourths closed — and although the onstage proceedings were projected onto the screens, there were so many people milling around, so much equipment and so many lighting rigs and video monitors that it was often hard to tell what was going on.
After another delay, the pace picked up again with a relatively straightforward “Crack Rock” before the energy came down again with a spare version of the “Channel Orange” standout “Bad Religion,” which brought out the Stevie Wonder in Ocean’s voice. Next up was a drastic rearrangement of “Blonde”’s “White Ferrari,” which featured a buzzing synthesizer hook and a percolating drum machine.
“These last couple years my life changed so much,” Ocean said after the song ended, before speaking of his brother Ryan, who died in a car accident in 2020 at the age of just 18. “My brother and I, we came to this festival a lot. I feel like I was dragged here so much of the time,” he continued, saying he hated the Coachella dust but loved dancing with his brother to a Rae Sremmurd set. “I know he would’ve been so excited to be here with all of us. I wanted to say thank you for the support and the ears and the love for all this time.”
He followed with two songs from “Blonde,” a gentle version “Pink + White” accompanied only by acoustic guitar, followed by another drastic reinvention, this time of “Solo,” giving it a slightly darker, jazzier edge than the album version.
Then, things got confusing. The DJ set began with a reworked recording of his single “Chanel” — with an apparently un-miked Ocean singing along as he walked around the stage — before delving into a full-on DJ set from DJ Crystalmess that included other Ocean songs as well as Underworld’s “Born Slippy” and Ice Spice’s “Actin a Smoochie.”
After about 15 minutes, Ocean said, “This is fucking chaotic but so much fun,” before explaining what he’d had in mind. “All I would say about that [DJ set] is … it’s like you came to see Frank Ocean and got a rave mix in the middle of the show,” he laughed. “In 2020, when I was starting to throw parties in New York just before shit started shutting down… I was having such a good time listening to so much new music and encountering DJs who are up and coming or really on their shit, and it’s become such a part of my practice my new weekly thing with Homer Radio,” his new Apple Music show. “It’s good that it’s not always about me. And so I just wanted to bring a little bit of that into this,” he concluded.
A fast, punked-up version of “Wiseman” came next — Ocean’s song that was written for but not used in Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 film “Django Unchained” — but then his friend Josiah took the spotlight for a lovely if out-of-place rendition of Willie Nelson’s “Night Life” (previously covered by the likes of B.B. King and Aretha Franklin).
“This is Josiah,” Ocean said when the song ended, adding with a laugh, “He’s playing my inner child today.”
He then played an acoustic version of “Self Control” before the beat for “Nikes,” the emotional opening track of “Blonde,” kicked in. But although his drummer and possibly a keyboardist were playing along, Ocean’s vocals were a recording of the autotuned album version. The self-mime continued through “Nights.”
Finally, he sat down for his cover of Isley Brothers’ “(At Your Best) You Are Love,” featured on Ocean’s “Endless” album. But about a minute after the song ended, Ocean said, “Guys, I’m being told it’s curfew, so that’s the end of the show — thank you so much.” And at around 12:25 a.m. local time, after just under 90 minutes, Ocean’s strange headlining set came to a close.
It’s not often that a Coachella headlining set sounds like an open rehearsal. While most of Ocean’s performances were tight, the sequence clearly was not and at times it seemed as if he was calling audibles. All of which would have been fine in a more intimate setting; the set was often like an unadvertised gig where an artist premieres new material — or, more accurately, the one-offs that an even more reclusive R&B star, D’Angelo, played in the long gaps between his tours. Frank Ocean concerts can be transcendent and we can’t wait to see the next one, but for all of the unfair abuse that’s been hurled at it, but this one was not.
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