Memorable Moments from Governors Ball 2023, Day 1

Lizzo

Kendrick Lamar, Odesza, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Baby co-headlined Governors Ball 2023 before tens of thousands of music fans at the annual music festival’s new location, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, on June 9 to 11. The 12th edition of the weekend spectacular featured more than 60 artists performing pop, hip hop, electronic and indie rock. Attendees also had opportunities to visit dozens of art installations, corporate activations offering freebie souvenirs, and a wide range of take-out restaurants.

Kim Petras, Aespa, Giveon, Sofi Tukker, Pusha T, Central Cee, girl in red, Lauv, Oliver Tree, Finneas, Rina Sawayana, Ice Spice and Metro Boomin’ were among the rising artists that performed before their largest-ever New York City audiences. This year’s programming may have been the most culturally-diverse ever, introducing Latin trap rapper Eladio Carrion and K-pop singers Aespa, among others, to a wider audience.

Days before Governors Ball 2023, however, New York City was engulfed in an orange haze from the Canadian wild fires. Open-air events throughout the city were canceled. The poor air quality seemed to threaten the coming weekend’s Governors Ball 2023. The air quality improved daily as the weekend approached, and on the Wednesday before Governors Ball, Founders Entertainment, promoters of the annual three-day music festival, announced that, after consulting with “weather experts” and “city officials,” the festival remained on schedule. The statement stirred a bit of controversy, with objectors arguing that the festival should be rescheduled to protect the health of attendees. In the end, city officials lifted its air quality alert before the weekend, none of the festival’s scheduled performers canceled, and the festival took place under near-prefect weather.

Founded in 2011, Governors Ball is perhaps New York City’s largest weekend music festival, competing in magnitude only with Electric Zoo’ EDM festival at Randall’s Island over Labor Day weekend. This year, the Governors Ball had three stages instead of four and usually staggered its start times, making it possible for revelers to taste every performance before deciding to stay or go to another stage. Only the weekend’s closing performance by Kendrick Lamar had no competing performance.

Every artist put on their best performance, although several were hampered by technical difficulties. Playing to such large crowds, each artist performed their best-known songs. Here are some of the festival’s memorable moments and photographs.

Lizzo

Lil Uzi Vert (photograph by Charles Reagan)

Day 1:

Lizzo headlined on Friday night yet earlier Lil Uzi Vert, Kim Petras, HAIM, Joey Badas$$ and Diplo also attracted similarly large crowds. Davido and Omar Apollo canceled in the weeks prior to the festival; Ice Spice and Metro Boomin’ were later additions to the bill and drew considerable audiences. Substantial rain fell for several minutes while Kim Petras and Metro Boomin’ played, but both artists continued performing without a pause.

Lizzo was all abut promoting messages of self love and body positivity. She addressed these messages in how she dressed (at one point, in a silver leotard), the plus-size of all her dancers, and her retort to her recent “body shamers” before covering Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman.” She pledged support for “every woman, nongender conforming femme, [and] trans women.” She also supported environmentalists by proclaiming, “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.” Her flute solos also were impressive. Plus, a fan by the front barricade called out and successfully persuaded Lizzo to sing her the “Happy Birthday to You” song.

Tai Verdes

Lil Uzi Vert

Lil Uzi Vert played at a distant stage at the same time as Lizzo, and so the festival audience chose pop versus rap. Vert was among the many rappers who asked the audience to create a mosh pit, but he might be the only performer who threw himself into the audience to crowd surf. The rapper was performing a string of his hits, yet he paused the show when he noticed that a fan in the crowd needed medical assistance. As the rapper was instructing the nearby audience, security and medical team to care for the ailing fan, another fan near the barricade called out to Vert repeatedly that he got a tattoo of Vert’s face. Vert replied, “Nice! Just make sure no one next to you is passed out.” Vert later welcomed on stage rappers Ken Carson to duet on Carson’s “Freestyle 2” and Destroy Lonely for Lonely’s “if looks could kill.”

070 Shake

Joey Bada$$

Joey Bada$$ performed “Fallin’” live for the first time and covered XXXTENTACION’s “infinity (888)” in tribute to the late rapper.

Alexander 23

Kim Petras

Kim Petras was well into her set when the rain began, first as a drizzle, then as a brief downpour. She told her soaked audience that some of her favorite shows of all time happened in the rain.

Saba

Metro Boomin (photograph by Roger Ho)

Metro Boomin’ was a late addition to the festival schedule, and performed many of the hits on which he collaborated for other hop hop artists, including Future, Migos, Drake, 21 Savage and the Weeknd. His performance also got caught in the rain. “I told you we gonna tear the roof off,” Boomin told the audience. His soaked fans might have wished he had instead built a roof. “It’s a party in the rain,” Boomin’ said.

Maxo Kream

Ice Spice (photograph by Alive Coverage)

“Y’all feeling me?” Ice Spice asked her packed audience during her eight-song, 30-minute set. The 23-year-old rapper from the Bronx is relatively new to the rap scene, but she already has rabid hometown fans. Two fans held homemade posters of the American flag emblazoned with her image as other fans lined up to pose for photographs between the flags. Other fans wore orange wigs resembling Spice’s hair. Others wrote the title of her hit song, “Munch,” in large black letters on their bare chests. The audience was so packed in front that security asked the fans to step back. Even Diplo reportedly watched part of her show upon the shoulders of someone in the audience. At one point, members of the audience charged into the photo pit. Rapper Sexyy Red joined Spice on stage to perform “Pound Town.”

PJ Morton

Haim

HAIM performed at Governors Ball once before, in 2016, under pouring rain. The skies were sunny this time, allowing the three sisters to wear black bralettes on stage to match their black leather trousers. HAIM’s black leather was indicative of the harder pop-rock sound that the group would perform.

KayCyy (photograph by Okay Nicolita)

Remi Wolf

“I’m wearing a New York Knicks jacket,” Remi Wolf told her New York audience. She added, “It’s funny because I didn’t know who they were until this morning.” She paused and added “I only play hacky sack!” If her jacket questioned the veracity of her messaging, she may have raised more eyebrows when she removed the jacket and revealed that she was wearing a black T-shirt with white lettering that read, “I love to get drunk and hump things.” Her set included a cover of Goyte and Kimbra’s “Somebody That I Used To Know.”

Matt Maltese (photograph by Mickey Pierre-Louis)

Diplo

Diplo returned to his electronic dance persona after releasing two country music albums under his given name, Thomas Wesley. After his rousing EDM performance on one of the main stages, Diplo performed a pop up set at one of the corporate sponsors’ kiosks.

DJ Bella De Leon

Eladio Carrion

Two festivals ago, Governors Ball introduced Latin music to the festival by booking J Balvin, and the most recent festival hosted Karol G. This summer, Eladio Carrion spoke Spanish most of the time between songs and presented Latin trap and electro, a bit of reggaeton, and a whole lot of emotional ballads.

DJ Marty Rock

MICHELLE

MICHELLE did not exist as a group when its debut album was released in 2018. Two producers recorded the album using various vocalists. The success of the album led to the creation of the six-member New York City-based vocal group. The two producers, Julian Kaufman and Charlie Kilgore, and the four vocalists, Sofia D'Angelo, Layla Ku, Emma Lee, and Jamee Lockard, have turned into a viable song and dance act.

Awfbeat (photograph by Paigge Warton)

School of Rock Queens (photograph by Deanie Chen)

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The Manhattan Beat covers New York City's live music circuit. All articles are written by Everynight Charley Crespo. All photographs are taken by Everynight Charley Crespo, except when noted otherwise.

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