Lizzo Gets Political, Aespa Puts on a Spectacle, King Kendrick Reigns: The 18 Best Things We Saw at Governors Ball 2023

If Governors Ball is back, it must be summer in New York. The annual festival returned to Queens in early June in roomy new digs: Flushing Meadows Corona Park, just down the block from its 2021-22 home at Citi Field. The sprawling, tree-lined grounds were reminiscent of Gov Ball’s years on Randall’s Island, for anyone whose memories go back as far as the 2010s, only nicer and easier to get to by public transit. With one rainstorm aside, it was a beautiful weekend made all the more welcome after several days of apocalyptic wildfire smoke earlier in the week. Oh, and the music? Incredible. The three-day, three-stage festival saw performances by some of the biggest acts in hip-hop, pop, and EDM — Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Baby, Odesza — along with tons of other highlights that included Gov Ball’s first-ever K-pop performance. Here are the 18 wildest, loudest, most-fun moments we saw.

Eladio Carrion Was at His Versatile Best 

Though he broke out in Latin trap, Eladio Carrion has been one of Puerto Rico’s most flexible rappers for years now, flipping across multiple albums between relentlessly hard bars, suave and sentimental verses, and a few forays into reggaeton. His Friday afternoon set on the main stage put his skills on display for the festival’s early crowd, who flocked over with a few Puerto Rican flags in tow. “A lot of people here don’t speak Spanish, but I promise what I’m saying is fire as fuck,” he told them at one point. He wasn’t lying: He deftly swerved from thudding trap tracks like “Mbappe” to blasts of electro on the Bizarrap-assisted “Sin Frenos,” and even included his Karol G collaboration “No Te Deseo el Mal,” a heartbroken ballad with a delightfully petty sense of humor. (Sample lyric: “I hope you run out of gas on the way to your wedding.”) In between, he packed in new releases like “Coco Chanel,” which features Bad Bunny, and his all-time biggest hits, including “Mi Error.” —J.L.

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Remi Wolf’s Unstoppable Charisma

Gleeful rule-breaker Remi Wolf showed up just after 070 Shake started a mosh pit over at the Bacardi stage, so she had to change the energy a bit for her kaleidoscopic and occasionally chaotic brand of alt-pop. Luckily, she won over the crowd immediately with her commanding stage presence, soaring power vocals, and lovable offbeat charm. (She took off a red jacket at one point to reveal a black T-shirt that read, “I love to get drunk and hump things.”) Her voice was one of the strongest of the day, ringing out in full force as she belted out bright gems like “Sexy Villain” and “Disco Man,” all songs that kept her fans screaming and dancing along. She even threw in a cover of Goyte and Kimbra’s “Somebody That I Used To Know,” in case anyone doubted that she could do it all. —J.L.

Lil Uzi Vert’s Stellar (and Safe!) Finale 

The headliners had a tough task on Friday night: Not only were they following up magnetic performances from Ice Spice, Metro Boomin, and Haim, they also had to entice a soaking-wet crowd that had just withstood the pummeling rain to see them. (Call it the Gov Ball curse.) Expectations were high, and Lil Uzi Vert tested everyone’s patience just a bit when his set kicked off late, but it was worth it in the end. The rapper bounced onstage and launched into high-energy hits from Eternal Atake and Luv Is Rage 2, igniting a mosh pit with “The Way Life Goes” and a scream-along with “XO Tour Llif3.” He even threw a few surprises in the mix: At one point in the show, he decided to share the spotlight and brought out rappers Destroy Lonely and Ken Carson to perform with him. But when things were getting too raucous, Uzi wasn’t afraid to straight up stop the entire performance and make sure everyone was being safe. When a fan tried to show him a tattoo, he flashed a smile and quipped, “Nice! Just make sure no one next to you passed out.” —J.L.

King Kendrick Closes out the Ball

Kendrick Lamar closed out the entire weekend, and as usual for one of his headlining sets, he did so in grand fashion. From the opening salvo of “The Heart Pt. 5,” Kendrick had the Queens crowd eating out of his palm. The mercurial superstar didn’t address the audience until nearly an hour into his performance, letting the stage go black for intermittent periods in between songs, stirring suspense for which classic was next to come. While his 2021 Day N Vegas set ran sequentially from Section.80 to DAMN., and his Big Steppers tour was heavily stocked with songs from his latest album, his Gov Ball setlist veered from era to era. Mood-wise, it spanned from a thrilling “Backseat Freestyle” to a doleful “Count Me Out.” A cadre of dancers delved into prolonged routines in between songs. But Kendrick could have been completely solo. He’s a master of the stage, knowing exactly when to two-step, when to spin around for emphasis — and when to bring out protégé Baby Keem for a weekend highlight performance of “Family Ties.” —A.G. 

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MICHELLE Find Their Rhythm

MICHELLE drew a sizable crowd to their early set as they brought together Motown-inspired choreography and early-2000s fashion with a dreamy blend of pop and R&B. The six-piece group are all New York natives, and the performance represented something of a homecoming as they ran through the best selections in their catalog, like “Syncopate” and “Expiration Date,” and previewed new music for an entranced audience. The traces of their hazy DIY bedroom-pop beginnings haven’t fully dissipated as they’ve grown musically — but with frontwomen Sofia D’Angelo, Layla Ku, Emma Lee, and Jamee Lockard at the helm, MICHELLE moved across the stage delivering a stellar vocal performance with synchronized harmonies, even when they weren’t perfectly polished in their movements. —L.P.

Metro Boomin’s Career-Spanning Victory Lap

“I told you we gon’ tear the roof off,” Metro Boomin told the packed crowd during his midday set on Friday. There wasn’t a roof to tear off at the outdoor festival, but plenty of fans wished there was when his set succumbed to a brief but heavy downpour. Even the dark clouds passing over Flushing Meadows Corona Park wanted to check out the famed producer’s career-spanning performance. For a full hour, he dominated the stage from his spot on a raised platform, with graphics of lighting flashing in bold reds and blues. Opening with the Migos classic “Bad and Boujee,” he ran through his greatest hits with Drake (“Tuesday”), the Weeknd (“Heartless”), and Future (“Mask Off”). Metro Boomin didn’t surprise the audience with any guests, but nearly half of his set felt like a tribute to his close collaborator 21 Savage. Their top-tier teamups, from “No Heart,” “X,” and “Knife Talk” to their current radio-dominating hit “Creepin,” all made it onto the setlist. “It’s a party in NYC,” Metro Boomin told the audience. “It’s a party in the rain.” —L.P.

Ice Spice in NYC: The People’s Princess Comes Home 

In nearly every clip from Ice Spice’s set at Hot 97’s Summer Jam last weekend, it looked and sounded like she wasn’t rapping at all. Whether technical hiccups meant that her backing track was too loud, or she really opted to lip-sync, when Ice Spice hit the stage at Governors Ball there was no question about whether her microphone was on. “They be chattin’, I don’t give a damn and I’m still gettin’ money, I know who I am,” she rapped during her opening song, “Princess Diana.” In the chaotic crowd, Gov Ball pledged its allegiance to the Bronx rapper with bright-pink flags representing the United States of Ice Spice. “Y’all feeling me?” she asked before her breakthrough hit “Munch.” The answer was obvious looking out at the audience. Some fans were dressed in orange wigs to emulate her signature style, while others took black paint to their chests to write out “Munch” in bold letters. Even Diplo made his way to the crowd for her set, getting up on someone’s shoulders during the song despite evidently not knowing the words. The real stars were onstage, anyway. Rising rapper Sexyy Red popped out with Spice to perform her viral hit “Pound Town” before the People’s Princess closed out her set with “Bikini Bottom” and “In Ha Mood.” —L.P.

Lizzo Throws a Party — and Speaks Out

Lizzo planned the ultimate girls’ night out for her headlining set at Gov Ball. She kicked it off with a relentlessly hype “get ready with me” playlist: “Cuz I Love You” followed by “Juice,” “To Be Loved,” and “Soulmate.” In between the electric energy of “Tempo” and “Rumors,” sans Cardi B, Lizzo celebrated the diverse bodies in her audience. She created a place for everyone to feel safe, seen, and loved as she pledged her support for “every woman, nongender conforming femme, [and] trans women.” There was even a midset “Bad Bitch Mediation” full of comforting affirmations. And while she stood with the bodies that are constantly being scrutinized and, in the case of trans bodies in particular, targeted by anti-LGBTQ legislation, Lizzo also put a spotlight on some more-legitimate problems that lawmakers and internet trolls should be far more concerned about. “We need to listen to our first nations, indigenous people, and we need to listen to our water protectors, because they’re trying to make sure that we have land to live on,” she told the audience — words that rang true considering that two days prior, a haze of hazardous smog from wildfires in Canada covered New York City. “Because we bad bitches,” Lizzo continued before transitioning into “About Damn Time” to close out the set. “And bad bitches love clean air — and guess what? It’s bad bitch o’clock.” —L.P.

Suki Waterhouse Seizes the Moment

Suki Waterhouse doesn’t just play a rock star on TV — she’s one in real life, too, or something pretty close. The Daisy Jones & the Six cast member brought the smoky-eyed, seductive songs from her Sub Pop debut, I Can’t Let Go, to a 2 p.m. Saturday slot, making the most of the time she was given. The crowd was smallish at first, but as Waterhouse and her band went through songs like “Bullshit on the Internet,” “Devil I Know,” and the sneakily catchy single “Moves,” more and more fans wandered over, drawn by her distinctive, Chrissie Hynde-ish vocals. “This song is about suffering in Los Angeles,” she said before “Melrose Meltdown,” and by the end of the chorus, you could almost forget it was a sunny day in New York. —S.V.L.

Snail Mail Slays in the Sunshine

At the risk of being reductive, festivals like Gov Ball are about partying. Does that mean that an artist like Snail Mail, who specializes in raw, emotionally devastating indie rock, is out of place? Nah. Lindsey Jordan and her Baltimore bandmates brought some much-appreciated realness to the second stage on Saturday afternoon, playing to fans who screamed even when she was just soundchecking the first few notes of “Heat Wave.” (“Don’t get excited, we’re not playing yet!” she said with a smirk.) When she actually did open her set with that perfectly concise summer bummer, the crowd went wilder. Sipping “warm Guinness from a bottle” between songs, Jordan tore into wailing, punk-y guitar parts and sang her heart out on highlights from her 2018 debut and her revelatory 2021 follow-up. “It’s always nice to play outside,” she said. “Usually it’s a dark, dingy cave-type thing.” Her show was a drastically scaled-down production compared to most other Gov Ball acts, but that didn’t matter — Jordan is a magnetic enough performer to deserve a main-stage spot next time. —S.V.L.

All Hail Rina Sawayama

Rina Sawayama’s eclectic arena-pop (and nu-metal, and disco, and neo-trance, and …), on the other hand, could hardly be more clearly suited to a festival setting. She delivered on Saturday with one idiosyncratic banger after another, absolutely commanding the stage through dramatic costume changes and some of the crispest choreo of the weekend. The Japanese British singer is a big thinker — “I studied politics and psychology and sociology, so I’m quite used to thinking and talking about big ideas and how everything is interconnected,” she has told Rolling Stone — and she really knows how to put those ideas into effect onstage. She had the crowd howling with first-album standouts like “STFU!” and “Comme Des Garçons,” and she got them floating with her ecstatic Charli XCX collab “Beg for You.” But she saved the best serve for last, with the biting cowboy-camp singalongs of “This Hell,” from her 2022 pop breakthrough, Hold the Girl. Funny, sharp, and always on point, Sawayama is a star, period. —S.V.L.

Aespa Get the K-Pop Party Started

On Thursday, Aespa were in the Bronx to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium; on Saturday, they popped up in Queens for a memorable performance just down the road from Citi Field. The newly minted New York sports legends were down a member this week — Giselle stayed home due to health issues — but Ningning, Winter, and Karina didn’t let that slow them down as they became the first K-pop act in Gov Ball’s history. The three-member version of Aespa breezed through a set that began with pyro for the first song and only got bigger and noisier from there. All three of them were comfortable in the middle of the circus, with Ningning’s vocals particularly shining. The over-the-top pop spectacle of it all was impressive, though Aespa arguably sounded even better when they eased up a little for “Welcome to MY World,” from their new EP, My World. For many fans, this set was all they were dreaming of, and by the time the girl group left the stage, it was hard not to get swept up. —S.V.L.

Odesza Turn It Up to 11

What, exactly, is Odesza’s deal? Many have tried to answer this question and those that go with it: How does this relatively anonymous EDM duo without any notable pop hits to speak of keep headlining major festivals? Are they really that big? All became clear when they closed out the second night of Gov Ball. It turns out that under the right circumstances — when you’re standing in a field full of weekend ravers, and the big beats are banging, and the light show is going nuts along with several kinds of fireballs — Odesza kind of rules. The two main members stand in the middle of it all on two futuristic platforms, both of them surrounded by drums and electronic instruments. There are also horn players and a full-size drum line marching around the stage with light-up drums and freaky masks. Did we mention the light show? There’s so much of everything at an Odesza show, like a Hollywood blockbuster version of Disclosure, or like the Chemical Brothers if the only chemicals involved were 100 percent vibes. Don’t think about it too much, just grab a glow stick and go with it. —S.V.L.

PinkPantheress Commands With Casual Charm

The casual approach is PinkPantheress’ whole thing. Barely any of her songs run over two minutes, she seems as if she’s always got a bag on her shoulder and ready to leave, and her Gov Ball debut was a laid-back Sunday afternoon hang. She strolled onto the stage shortly after her scheduled 3:15 p.m. start time as though she were just running a quick errand. As she settled in, performing “Break It Off” and “Pain,” PinkPantheress momentarily set her bag down. She even made casual small talk about the weather with the thousands-deep crowd. “It’s gray, but it’s hot,” she observed. “I’m from London. It’s not hot over there.” Amid her Weather Channel moment, fans had been roaring every time PinkPantheress so much as walked across the stage. By the time she reached “Boys a Liar” on the set list, the crowd was feral — even without Ice Spice (who had performed on Friday, and did not appear this time). When they finished swallowing her voice whole with their own recital of her lyrics, PinkPantheress grabbed her bag and went on with her day like it was all no big deal. Another day, another slay. —L.P.

Ari Lennox Polishes Her R&B Crown

Ari Lennox has the R&B lane on lock. The three backing vocalists she brought along to her midday performance kept their harmonies tight, leaning into intimate call-and-response tangos with the singer on songs like “Gummy” and “Stop By.” And her sultry strutting across the stage while singing about whipped cream and vivid dreams tapped into the genre’s most-classic motifs — and her overall presence in the space was nothing less than regal. “What y’all know about this?” she asked the audience, gauging who was really ready to delve into grown-folks business. “Talk your shit,” she encouraged them. Giveon, an R&B maestro in his own right, would take the same stage an hour after she left it, and even he couldn’t convincingly command the space with the type of old-school approach she so effortlessly wielded. —L.P.

Lil Nas X’s Dancers Steal the Show He Didn’t Want to Be at Anyway 

“I want to leave so fucking bad right now,” Lil Nas X told the crowd during a technical-mishap-riddled set on Sunday. Nas expected the audience to be excited to be there, even though he clearly wasn’t. “Some of y’all need to fix your face,” he said. “I’m doing my best, give me a break.” When his attitude was directly contradicting the energy exuded from songs like “Scoop” and “Old Town Road,” the rapper’s saving grace was his crew of eight dancers. When they dropped low for Ginuwine’s “Pony” and shook ass for Lil Nas X’s unreleased Saucy Santana collab “Down Souf Hoes,” there wasn’t a single step out of sync. And when the rapper popped offstage for moments at a time, perhaps to handle whatever tech issues were responsible for his bad mood, they held him down, inadvertently becoming the stars of the show. During their solo showcases, the dancers dropped into splits and death-dropped to self-selected songs from Beyoncé, Rihanna, Megan Thee Stallion, and others. When Lil Nas X said, “Shoutout to all the gay people, fuck everybody else,” after wishing everyone a happy Pride Month, he meant it. —L.P.

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Pusha T Welcomes Us to the Snow Ball 

Gov Ball is a pop paradise, but Pusha T had every starlet beat with the Day Three performance he deemed the Snow Ball. It’s a testament to his dedication to coke rap that everyone there knew exactly what the giant snow globe and white mound onstage were referring to. Bars like “This boy been throwin’ that D like Rich Boy,” from his a cappella rendition of “If You Know You Know,” made it clearer for anyone who just so happened to be unfamiliar with the vet’s catalog. Push delivered a highlight reel of his recent solo exploits, mostly performing Daytona and It’s Almost Dry tracks at the outset. At one point, he let the crowd know that Sunday was his son’s birthday, and he was missing out on his party in New Jersey to be at the festival. That’s why it was plausible to believe Push left everyone 15 minutes early to be with his son, letting his DJ play “Just Wanna Rock” to a raucous, jigging crowd. But the moment merely turned out to be one of the most-clever encore routines ever, as Push tore through highlights from his early G.O.O.D. era, including “Runaway” and the “Don’t Like” remix. —A.G.

Central Cee Delivers Drill From Across the Pond

U.K. rap can be polarizing: Some fans in this country can’t get past the accent, while others are all in on what’s going on across the pond. That dichotomy of sentiment was present throughout Central Cee’s set, where he offered his steely brand of U.K. drill to fans who were reciting every word, as well as Gov Ball attendees getting their first introduction to him. Cee told the crowd he flew all the way from London for the performance, which he started with an inspirational video detailing his journey as an artist. He had a strong command of his set, starting with high-energy drill, then transitioning to a trifecta of romantic songs before noting, “None of that lovey-dovey stuff, let me see some movement.” He got exactly what he sought with set closer “Doja,” smartly whetting fans’ appetites with Eve and Gwen Stefani’s “Blow Your Mind” before letting the crowd belt out one of the bars of the moment: “How could I be homophobic, my bitch is gay.” —A.G.