Miley Cyrus performs at Lollapalooza in Chicago on July 29th, 2021.
Vijat M.*Teenagers aren’t typically known for being on time, but the crowd waiting to enter Lollapalooza on Thursday morning proved that generalization wrong. “By 11:30 a.m., it was already poppin’, and usually it’s dead then,” a 25-year-old woman told her friends while waiting for Jimmy Eat World to take the stage. She was right. Thousands of fans arrived early this year in hopes of staking out good sightlines, posing for photo ops, and roaming their first music festival in two years. Wearing fishnet stockings and cowboy hats galore, this crowd was eager to celebrate. Who better to lead the charge than the woman who’s given America more than one of its greatest party anthems?
For months, the thought of Lollapalooza actually taking place felt like a fever dream. Instead of delaying the event for a second time in response to growing fears around the new Covid-19 strain, organizers mandated vaccination cards and negative tests for entry into the festival and opened the gates. What appeared to be the entire festival population squished onto Grant Park’s Hutchinson Field to queue for Miley Cyrus’ headlining set on Night One, shoulders touching as they held phones and cameras in the air.
“It’s our party/We can do what we want” — the distorted vocal clip that opens “We Can’t Stop” — rang out to youthful screams from the audience, setting the tone for a carefree evening. Cyrus quickly segued into the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?,” the first of many cover songs. During quarantine, Cyrus earned a huge career break when her cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” at iHeart Festival went viral, winning over jaded listeners and classic rock aficionados alike. Say what you will about her, she is one hell of a singer. Her Lollapalooza rendition was equally sharp. Utilizing the full-bodied depth of her raspy voice, Cyrus sang like she had something to prove, sending a chill down listeners’ spines as she scaled each note in sync with Debbie Harry’s original delivery.
Miley showed off her continuing clout in the music business by bringing out a string of unexpected guest stars. Billy Idol joined her for Plastic Hearts track “Night Crawling” and a faithful rendition of “White Wedding” that energized the crowd. Next came Chicago’s own G Herbo for “Love Money Party,” followed by Wiz Khalifa & Juicy J for Mike WiLL Made-It’s “23.” She even brought out rising Australian star The Kid LAROI to perform his breakout single “Without You.” These cameos were so casual that Cyrus often introduced her guests as they exited the stage, as if they’d been too caught up in the moment to remember to exchange names.
Miley Cyrus performs with Wiz Khalifa, Juicy J, and the Chicago Bulls mascot at Lollapalooza.
Steven Nunez for Rolling Stone
Despite all the famous friends coming and going, it was the overarching power of Miley’s voice that stole the show. She can belt loud enough to fill a city skyline and slide into falsettos with ease without damaging her vocal cords. That range helped tie together what might otherwise have been the most divergent parts of her set: Covers of Cher and Temple of the Dog were authoritative, her teenage hits sounded mature and passionate, and even her pallid Wayne Coyne collaboration sounded purposeful onstage.
Midway through her performance, I found myself questioning if Miley Cyrus is underappreciated. Maybe that’s a foolish question, considering her lifelong fame and success, but it seemed to be on the crowd’s mind, too: As she kicked into each new song, onlookers let out excited gasps, as if they’d forgotten she was responsible for so many hits.
A performance filled with goosebump-raising tributes, unexpected stars, and Radio Disney staples might have been the ideal scenario for Lollapalooza’s big first night back. By hopping from cheery pop to edgy hip-hop to breezy folk, and, now, to throwback glam-rock, Cyrus has forgone what might have been a top spot on the pop ladder — but that career path has given her a deep catalog of pleasantly omnipresent singles that are perfect for a festival setting.
As she launched into older singles like “The Climb” and “7 Things,” I saw two sets of strangers on either side of me grasping their friends’ hands, squealing in unison, and recounting the precise years and places those songs transported them back to, often jumping in unison as if bouncing on their childhood bed during a sleepover. For these fans, Cyrus’ music was associated with positive memories and carefree feelings, a particularly soothing balm compared to the routine anxiety of pandemic life.
After interviewing dozens of attendees about their vaccination checkpoint experiences, one 19-year-old fan from Indiana stuck out in particular. His friend, he said, had been denied entry after she couldn’t prove that her 15-minute Covid-19 test results belonged to her; she darted across the city to find a suitable replacement test and returned, more than an hour later, with a new negative result in hand. Watching Cyrus’ performance, I understood why so many fans like her had scrambled to get into the festival as soon as possible. Experiencing an unpredictable moment in music history as a collective group, unanimously rapt with attention and joy, is a unique type of high that music fans crave. Last night, Miley Cyrus gave that crowd what it needed.
Miley Cyrus Lollapalooza 2021 Set List
1. “We Can’t Stop”
2. “Where Is My Mind?” (Pixies cover)
3. “WTF Do I Know”
4. “Plastic Hearts”
5. “Night Crawling” (with Billy Idol)
6. “White Wedding” (with Billy Idol)
7. “Heart of Glass” (Blondie cover)
8. “SMS (Bangerz)”
9. “Doo It!”
10. “Love Money Party” (with G Herbo)
11. “23” (with Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J)
12. “Malibu”
13. “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart”
14. “Slide Away”
15. “7 Things”
16. “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” (Cher cover)
17. “See You Again”
18. “Without You” (with The Kid Laroi)
19. “Midnight Sky”
20. “The Climb”
21. “Angels Like You”
22. “Say Hello 2 Heaven” (Temple of the Dog cover)
23. “Nothing Compares 2 U” (Sinead O’Connor cover)
24. “Wrecking Ball”
25. “Can’t Be Tamed”
26. “Party in the U.S.A.”
LIVE REVIEWS
Thursday nights at Heaven don’t often look like this. The London gay club is filled with messy-haired Zoomers wearing baggy jeans and heavy silver chains, who sold out the venue in seconds. They’re here to see 2hollis (real name Hollis Frazier-Herndon), who just last year was booed offstage while supporting Ken Carson on tour. Tonight, however, he gets nothing but adoration.
2hollis first became popular online for making medieval-themed trap and, alongside the likes of Nettspend and fakemink, has been a major influence on fashion and digital culture at large. And though the phrase ‘nepo baby’ has been thrown around (his mother managed Skrillex and founded a successful PR film, while his father is the drummer of American rock band Tortoise), tonight proves 2hollis is a genuine phenomenon with an undeniably organic fanbase.
As the 21-year-old jumps around on stage, his long platinum pigtails bouncing off his bare chest, he looks like a Dragon Age character that went to Central Saint Martins. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he drawls in Auto-Tune to a rapturous response. It’s the most we hear from him all night, but he doesn’t need to be too talkative when his fans react to his presence by slamming their bodies together and waving his red-and-white branded flags like a call to battle.
In a world post-‘Whole Lotta Red’, kids want to be immersed in a wall of noise to get out of their heads and throw down. But with 2hollis, it’s different. His lyrics, though somewhat cringey, actually have sentiment. ‘Sister’ has the whole crowd singing: “Girl, I love you like a sister / Cross my fingers when I’m with you / Hold back a smile ’til my teeth hurt.” They’re lines that could be lifted from a noughties Bieber album, but backed by Drain Gang beats that propel it into the TikTok age.
In response, the crowd gives each song the big hitter treatment: every word is cried back at blistering volume, there’s no break in the moshing, and there’s never a moment to pop out for a quick ciggy (everyone’s vaping anyway).
Standouts include the sugary sweet ‘Crush’, which has an 80 per cent male crowd singing sweetly while smacking into each other; ‘Afraid’, with an appearance from support act and childhood friend Nate Sib (who had the crowd riled up nicely from his earlier set); and ‘Jeans’ – which goes down so well that he does it four times.
Though it does feel like 2hollis didn’t quite have control of the crowd to start, sheer excitement has them jumping incessantly to the first few songs that it almost doesn’t matter what he was playing. By the end, he manages to wrangle them into place. He reminds them to give each other space, perches on the side of the stage for slower moments like a real teenage pop star and even gets right up against the barrier for the final rendition of ‘Jeans’ before finally declaring: “That’s it!” After doing three encores, he needn’t say much else.
‘Gold’
‘Say It Again’
‘FORFEIT’
‘Trauma’
‘Poster Boy’
‘Sister’
‘Need That’
‘Lie’
‘Two Bad’
‘Crush’
‘GOD (Live Edit)’
‘Style’
‘Whiplash’
‘Cliche’
‘Afraid (With Nate Sib)’
‘Light’
‘Ouu (Alongside Rommulas)’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
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