With new music festival Panorama, Goldenvoice pushes east

Kendrick Lamar at the Panorama Music Festival.

By Steven Zeitchik

July 24, 2016 8:20 PM PT

Reporting from NEW YORK — Several times during his politically charged set at the Panorama music festival Saturday night, Kendrick Lamar referred favorably to the host city.

“New York started some of my most dedicated fans,” he said at one point, to raucous cheers. “Do you agree?”‎

The Compton rapper, who once controversially proclaimed himself the king of New York, was a fitting exemplar for Panorama, which is also an eastward foray by a Los Angeles-area giant. The gathering is being staged by AEG Live subsidiary Goldenvoice, the company that owns the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, And over its three-day run this weekend, Panorama offered a key test of whether Goldenvoice can effectively export its just-indie-enough brand and compete with a rival to boot.

On the parcel of city land known as Randall’s Island beginning Friday, fans and industry veterans largely reported a positive experience, even if the crowd numbers were lower than organizers had hoped for. After first-day entrance delays led to fan frustration, Panorama seemed to right the ship, and even in 95-degree heat, sets from the likes of the National, Run the Jewels and the Arcade Fire came off smoothly,

In Coachella-like fashion, the festival also included a breakout performance (FKA Twigs), a red-meat set for the indie base (the Arcade Fire) and a polarizing gig (Sufjan Stevens).

Sufjan Stevens performs during the second day of the Panorama Music Festival on Randall's Island in New York.

“It’s been a good mix of bigger and lesser-known acts and a well-done event,” said Matt Blihar, 25, who ordered his wristband shortly after Panorama was announced. “It’s impressive, considering it’s their first year.”

Frequent fest-goer Holly Innocenzi, 28, noted she was satisfied too. “The lineup has been big but accessible, the scheduling is well done and the setup is better than Governors Ball,” she said, shortly before the energetic LCD Soundsystem set that closed the weekend..

That Governors Ball issue has been a matter of close scrutiny for the music-festival business. The 6-year-old festival was bought earlier this year by Live Nation, kicking Goldenvoice’s efforts into gear. After trying but failing to secure a license at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in nearby Queens for June — the attempt prompted a backlash and even a petition from Live Nation —Goldenvoice rescheduled Panorama for July, landing on Governors Ball site Randall’s Island. For all the exuberance on stage, Panorama is as much the latest salvo in the war between two promotional giants as a showcase for au courant acts.‎

Goldenvoice executives, at least, say they believe there’s room for two events.

“New York is the biggest market in the country and it has one major festival,” said Goldenvoice chief Paul Tollett. “So we definitely think there’s room for both.”

He added, “There’s always room for another good festival just like there’s always room for another good pizza place,” playing down an idea that has taken hold of some in the business of a music-festival saturation.

Tollett’s argument was supported by fans, who said that a second New York event in one summer was not too much, especially given that to otherwise see some of these acts required a Herculean undertaking.

“I looked into Coachella, and it was two grand for three days. You could take a Caribbean vacation for that,” said the Australian-born New Yorker Greg Bryant, 32, as he relaxed with a cocktail Saturday afternoon. “This is much easier.”

There’s always room for another good festival just like there’s always room for another good pizza place.”

— Goldenvoice chief Paul Tollett

Executives also said the idea of a rivalry was overstated.

“Our competitors spend time thinking about us,” said Goldenvoice festival producer Mark Shulman, alluding to the Governors Ball petition, drafted to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and in part leading to the venue and date shuffle. “We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them.”

Tollett noted that he believed future Panorama installments, whether at this or another New York site, was in the cards.

Agents in charge of booking acts said they were happy with how Panorama had come off.

‎”Anything unknown is going to come with risks. But [Goldenvoice/AEG Live] is as tried and true as there is in the concert business and it shows here,” said Sam Hunt of the Windish Agency, which had booked such acts as Major Lazer and Run the Jewels at the festival. “It’s a unified experience that has its own feeling.”

But he also said that he believed the Governors Ball kerfuffle hurt it with fans. “They lost the PR battle and never really recovered. They became the ghoul. And it didn’t have to be that way.”

Organizers declined to give attendance numbers but said that they were pleased. “We don’t have to sell out. We don’t even have to be profitable our first year, or even year two,” Tollett said. “There are other ways to measure success.”

One of those, of course, is artist buzz. Lamar’s set was one of the most talked-about of the weekend, as it offered a mix of the barbed and the reassuring. The Compton Centennial High grad dedicated his reassurance rap “Alright” to “all the victims all around the world that passed in the last three weeks.”

Stevens, meanwhile, gave a talked-about set, though the discussion wasn’t always favorable, as he went from lo-fi folk to horn-based rock to Wayne Coyne-like extravaganza via a balloon headdress. Even as he sang about dour subjects such as death and illness, neon-outfitted dancers out of a Jane Fonda fever dream pranced around him.”It’s OK we keep making those mistakes but we’re gonna learn and we’re gonna grow‎,” Stevens said at one point, in a statement befitting the experimental feel of his show.

The breakout came via the alternative R&B act FKA Twigs. A former backup dancer, she has been gaining renown in the last few years as a musical performer of almost religious intensity — equal parts show(wo)man and creative force. Dressed in a revealing outfit of architectural sparkliness and surrounded by her own elaborate dancers and choreography, the 28-year-old gave a performance to make “Truth or Dare”-era Madonna envious or blush, maybe both.‎

Sia performs onstage at the 2016 Panorama NYC Festival.

Sunday night wound down on the main stage with a durable performance from Sia setting up LCD Soundsystem, the James Murphy band continued its reunion tour with its first outdoor New York show since coming out of retirement earlier this year.

Over the course of its set, Murphy demonstrated his mastery of complex material, throwing in disco, horns and other unexpected elements for an electronic band as he sweatily led the crowd through many of its best-known songs. “Someone Great,” the band’s abstruse breakup song, served as a high point, its lyrics (“And it keeps coming/And it keeps coming/And it keeps coming/Til the day it stops”) a metaphor of sorts for the band’s own abrupt artistic highs and disappearances.

Meanwhile, the Murphy-informed Despacio music tent, featuring electronic arrangements from his collection, was also a standout all weekend. And technology, which organizers hope will be a distinguishing feature of Panorama, played a key role at the festival via a spot called the Lab, where, among other installations, under an Epcot Center-like orb, concertgoers lay out and watched an astral-themed laser show.

Tollett said that though he hoped to keep tech and art unique selling points at ‎Panorama, a version of the Lab could be brought to Coachella.

As the executive made his way around the grounds, he was stopped by well-wishers, some of them boldfaced names.

“It’s nice to have this right on our doorstep,” film director Baz Luhrmann told Tollett. “The first of its kind!”

Tollett gave a wry smile. “The first,” he said. “But hopefully not the last.”

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