All Things Go to Close Out Summer 2024’s Festival Season
Don’t You Be Afraid of Love and Affection
BY Calli ferguson 
A summer’s roster of major music festival lineups can kind of act as a cultural temperature check.
This year, at the end of a season filled with viral performances, throwbacks, surprise guests, and Chappell Roan’s small-town-sized crowds, All Things Go hosted a weekend of music in both the DC and New York City areas with a lineup on the wavelength of what’s coming (and what already is) in popular music.
ATG curated a simultaneously relevant and ‘emerging’ indie pop-leaning weekend dominated by women, queer people, and queer women. Beyond the artists themselves, my friend and I joked that the crowd was so female-dominated that any straight men there were accompanied (and pre-approved) by a woman. The theory held up. Even DC’s Sunday night headliner, Hozier, seemed almost like a welcomed (very welcomed) guest among the girls, gays, and theys. The festival’s lineup and crowd fell into place this way by simply gathering a group of artists aligned with the pulse of popular music’s next wave. It made sense. Not calculated, just in keeping with what’s around.
Experiencing the Sunday DC show was full of little highlight moments. Early in the day, Blondeshell sang her crazy Kiss City belt like it was the easiest thing in the world. flipturn moved a happy crowd on colorful new tracks from their upcoming album, “Burnout Days” as a haze rolled over the hills of freshly yellowing leaves. The Japanese House brought a sunshiney, peaceful crowd to a stage amidst wooded trees. Renee Rap proved both her vocal and expressive performance chops with a set full of attitude. And I loved Hozier’s stage. His poetic rock was brought to life with violins, incredible backing vocals, and his own powerful, raspy sound carried on an Irish accent.
Another major thing I’m left sitting with is all that we learned about the Chappell Roan-enomenon through the artist not actually being there…
There was something really striking in the way sartorial signaling (think: Pink Pony Club cowboy hats to Midwest Princess camo) to the artist’s world and fandom showed up throughout the crowd, even when Chappell didn’t. In an Instagram Story just a day before the festival she shared she’d be canceling her sets. “Things have gotten overwhelming over the past few weeks and I am really feeling it,” she wrote. There was clear support in the space for an artist who’d chosen to prioritize her health. And a definite disappointment too– Chappell Roan had quickly become the most anticipated artist on the festival lineup. That was another thing… the contrast of fans in Chappell Roan-themed outfits at the festival (all even though the artist didn’t make her set) against her name three lines down on the poster proves just how fast (and just how high) our Midwest Princess rose in the time since the festival’s announcement of the lineup.
MUNA played in place of Chappell Roan’s set in DC on Sunday. In the middle of their set, the band acknowledged, “...it wasn’t us you were expecting to see...” They expressed love for Chappell Roan and had the crowd join them in showing her a little kindness as they led into a really tender acoustic cover of Good Luck Babe. The rendition allowed for the crowd’s soft sea of voices to really carry the moment. It was so sweet. I found myself wishing Chappell Roan could’ve just seen it.
But MUNA’s set didn’t stop being emotional there. They took a moment to read a pre-written statement on politics and peace. “We want total disarmament and world peace now. And there should be nothing fucking controversial about saying that.” They then led a Free Palestine chant, and played their throwback track, “I Know a Place”. Singing lovingly, “I know a place we can run / Where everyone gonna lay down their weapon/ Lay down their weapon / Don't you be afraid of love and affection.”
Hozier brought the conversation to the stage too. Tangenting as he famously does, only this time, to call for peace, and signaling hope as well— he pointed out the change that’s happened in the past— a lot of which allowed us to be in that very space, in that particular kind of way. He urged his audience to reach out to their representatives to call for a cease-fire.
“Thank you for letting me speak from the heart,” he said, as he credited the “goodwill and solidarity from a crowd of people like this coming together to have a good time. From a place of love…” The big message he wanted us to have, as I understood it at least, was to know the power of compassion. And the influence it can have on creating change as it spreads to hearts around you like little flames catching.
“It feels like my FYP,” my friend said to me in acknowledgment of the perspectives, people, and music that surrounded us that day. It made sense. And that’s one thing to find virtually, as you numb out and tune in to a world you co-created. But it’s different to be physically immersed in that world of people who think similarly, dress similarly, and listen to similar music. A version of that happens in spaces and moments in New York City. But then you turn a corner and, well… you never know (part of the beauty!). With the density of that festival though… it was something else. In many ways, there was a safety and euphoria to it. And in little moments, a tangible strangeness too.
The cool thing was a sense of what’s possible in that particular space of a music festival— to become a platform for shared humanity. The bands who played became a gravitational pull for a tale about the community that gathered and the compassion that resonated long after the lights went down. A true cultural pulse-check, the festival brought together a world aligned by the music.
