The thing about Portola that’s emerged over the festival’s three years of existence is that if you’re there, you feel like you’re in on the joke. And everyone likes being in on the joke.
Through its stylish and legit funny social channels and wry on-site messaging (“we know that music feeds your soul or whatever, but please remember to eat some actual food” implored signage), the event has developed a trait that can often feel scarce at big festivals: actual personality. Portola is your dryly funny and sort of silly, but also extremely intelligent friend with low-key style and impeccable taste in music.
“This is a festival where it’s not about spectacle, it’s about vibe,” Portola founder Danny Bell told Billboard onsite at the fest.
This appealing amalgamation of traits brought roughly 45,000 attendees a day and a motherlode of artists to third edition of Portola, which took over San Francisco’s Pier 80 this past weekend, Sept 28-29. Primarily presenting the styles of electronic music commonly grouped together as indie or alt or just non-EDM, the lineup gathered some of the scene’s biggest, buzziest and most respected artists for a show that also, like in years past, featured a powdered sugar sprinkling of pop (in the form of Rebecca Black, Natasaha Bedingfield, etc.) and a bit of hip hop.
But the emphasis was dance music, with the stature the Goldenvoice-produced festival has gained over its three years of existence emphasized by the fact that people are now flying in for it from across the U.S., Australia and Europe. Rüfüs du Sol played their only set of the year, debuting new music from their comign album and playing the hits for one of the weekend’s biggest crowds. On the mainstage, Disclosure reminded everyone that they’re simply, consistently the best, playing many of their biggest songs, bringing out a brass section for the feel-good “Tondo,” closing with the classic Flume remix of “You & Me” and giving each other a big old brotherly hug at the end. Two more of the many (many) Brits on the lineup, Chase & Status played a satisfying, tough as nails set that included their new hits (“Disconnect,” “Baddadan”) and classics like their 2008 “Eastern Jam.” (“This is for my original Chase & Status fans,” the pair’s Will Kennard announced before dropping the track.)
While often overlooked on the global circuit, San Francisco has a rich and mighty electronic history, and certainly the many locals in attendance demonstrated that the Bay Area parties hard, and also well: the crowd was loose but from our vantage point never out of control, stylish in mostly non-cliché ways and generally friendly, with none of the too cool (or too self aware) atmosphere that elsewhere can, and does, stifle the dancing.
“It’s a work hard play hard town,” says Bell. “When people here come to play, they’re out just to have a good time; there’s no agenda.”
The weather was also classically San Franciscan, with each day’s morning fog burning off for sunshine daydream afternoons that maintained enough of a chill that many attendees who didn’t bring layers were spotted buying hoodies from the merch stand. The site, an actual working shipping pier, created a built-in industrial aesthetic, with the looming crane and hulking naval ship doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of decor. The vessel even blew its horn daily, to wide applause.
These are ten of the best things we saw over the weekend.
