Andra Day ‘Pulls a Lenny Kravitz,’ Covers Prince and Kendrick at Sasquatch! Day 1

When rising “Rise Up” chanteuse Andra Day performed Friday on the kickoff day of this year’s Sasquatch! Music festival – held at the gorgeous Gorge Amphitheatre in Quincy, Washington – she suffered a wardrobe malfunction that could have sabotaged a less unflappable performer. But when the new princess of hip-hop/soul with the old-school style split the seams of her Rosie the Riveter jumpsuit, just a couple songs into her phenomenal set, she adorably laughed it off.

“Uh-oh! We are having some technical difficulties. I think I just pulled a Lenny Kravitz,” Day quipped – referring to Kravitz’s unfortunate (if amusing) full-frontal crotch-flashing moment onstage in Stockholm last year. Thankfully, Day’s incident was much more SFW, and after covering up with a long jacket around tied around her waist, she just kept on sanging.

Photos: On the Scene at Sasquatch! 2016

While the Lenny moment may have been an unintentional “homage,” Day’s stunning sundown set on the main stage was packed with more serious tributes, including covers of Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddamn” (her contribution to 2015’s Nina Revisited all-star compilation) and Bob Marley’s “Is This Love.” The true standouts of the singularly talented Day’s hour-long set were a cover of the early Kendrick Lamar track “No Make-Up,” reimagined as a retro torch-singer ballad; a dramatically knee-dropping, dramatically drastic soul remake of Queen’s “I Want It All” (nearly unrecognizable, unless you’d already heard it in her viral Diet Coke commercial); and an audience-accompanied snippet of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U.” The latter was a more leftfield Prince cover – most artists’ go-to Purple One tribute these days is, of course, “Purple Rain” – which made the moment all the more effective.

Day’s wasn’t the only Prince homage of the day, unsurprisingly. Seattle’s own nine-piece, Stax-inspired groove collective Grace Love & The True Loves was cool, and did rule Sasquatch!’s world, by starting Friday off with a funky, spirited cover of “Kiss.” And while Kiwi-American jam band didn’t cover Prince per se, they came across as a New Power Generation for the indie-psychedelic crowd during their dizzyingly poly-genre, immensely crowd-pleasing set on the Bigfoot stage – particularly when the played “Ur Life One Night,” complete with Princely spelling.

(Grace Love photo by Suzi Pratt/WireImage)

Speaking of crowd-pleasing, hip-hop superstar A$AP Rocky did pretty much the opposite of that Friday, when he showed up an incredible 45 minutes late, leaving a DJ to keep the main stage warm while the audience grew restless. (The official explanation was he was stuck in traffic.) However, when he finally arrived, A$AP hit the stage like a horse let out of the gate and made the most of whatever time he had left – and it seemed all was quickly forgiven.

Sasquatch! day one wrapped up with a headlining set by British brotherly house duo Disclosure, who did their best to turn the Gorge into one cavernous outdoor rave. Unlike their show at Coachella last month, their set didn’t include surprise appearances by superstar collaborators Sam Smith or Lorde (apparently getting out to remote Quincy, compared to L.A.-adjacent Indio, is a little tougher for music’s elite). But guest spots by Lion Babe’s fierce Jillian Hervey (daughter of former Miss America Vanessa Williams) and jazz/soul power-belter Brendan Reilly – on the Caracal tracks “Hourglass” and “Moving Mountains,” respectively – were highlights of their groovy 90-minute show.

Yahoo Music’s Sasquatch! festival live stream continues Saturday, starting at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET, with M83, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Ty Segall & The Muggers, Lord Huron, and more. Tune in here.