A festival on the beach breeds lax dress code standards. Nobody was nude at Hangout Fest but they left little to the imagination by way of flashy outfits and minimal thought to the conventions of fashion. Or common decency. The bigger topic of discussion seems to be the ban of the selfie stick, whose consequences I saw played out when one renegade fan thrust their plastic stick to the sky during Zella Day’s afternoon set. She was reprimanded faster than a SnapChat and appeared to talk down security enough so that the pseudo-officer wouldn’t take the stick, unless he happened to collapse it. No, far more egregious was the odd prevalence of Native American headdresses atop the heads of shirtless bros. A growing number of festivals have banned the garb but so far Hangout hasn’t responded and not a single fan I saw milling about seemed to take notice, either. It’s a bizarre place of pseudo-inclusion where my own outrage seems to be an outlier.
It was a festival of taking risks, which newcomer Zella Day met head on. One of the only artists so explicitly show appreciation for BB King, whose peaceful death still resonates just the same, the singer dedicated “1965” to the bluesman. She did her damnedest on guitar towards the end of her set but the awkward strumming felt just as forced as her stage banter, sadly. Day’s strength is in her voice, which she expertly used in a slow burn cover of the Zombies’ “Time of the Season” as well as hits “Sweet Ophelia” and “High.” Though still a month away from the release of sophomore LP Kicker, Day’s fans had clearly done their homework, singing along to nearly every tune. Bonus points to the guy with the under-rubbed in sunscreen dead center hugging the barricades and singing along to everything.
After the first act, bits of the festival began to unravel. Apparently there had been security issues so my photo pass had its designation circled with a ballpoint pen. There’d also been a drastic change in line-up. No one could say for sure why Lupe Fiasco hadn’t shown up and why Break Science returned for a second day after playing the Thursday night kickoff party, (which had its own host of security issues) but there they were after a lengthy delay. Production staff kept it light. A stage manager with a super-soaker won the award for happiest man on Gulf Shores for running through the photo pit and up towards front of house, soaking fans as he passed. The fact that fans instead chose to sing along to the music pumped through the PA and just roll with Break Science while the few photographers who stayed griped over the set change speaks to the shift of the festival from a FOMO-inducing act of seeing very particular acts to its wider appeal as just a thing to do with music on the side.
There was aggressive corporate sponsorship — ubiquitous, I know — to the point that various Pizza Hut marketing staff targeted me multiple times. Pizza Hut sponsored the volleyball courts, you know, just across from Bud Light’s House of Whatever, which has to be the most apathetic cover of an Animals tune if ever there was one. Pricey Super VIP sections came with hot tubs and pools, which did literally nothing in terms of enhancing watching performers on the main stage. It’s hard to get a greater vantage point in a below ground pool or a hot tub just under the viewing decks. Spoon refreshingly called them out, asked if they’d been in the pool the whole time, and surmised it was all just beer at this point. Their hit-spanning set further echoed the distance between fans and musicians, though if you want an intimate take on “The Way We Get By,” I suggest seeking out the kids holding up their house keys because they’re most certainly snorting cocaine off of them. That bit of juxtaposition seemed to lost to everyone but me.
For sheer sincerity and earnestness’ sake, there was nothing quite like Macy Gray’s set with Galactic. Sure, Cold War Kids’ performance came close in terms of brotherly excitement and all-out energy, but it was Gray who owned the Palladia Stage. Clad in a jewel-encrusted gown, feather boa, and backed by experimental funksters Galactic, Gray took the stage after Galactic had breezed through two tunes and more than warmed up. Gray’s time on stage felt all too abrupt, as if the handful of songs she was willing to perform had expended all her energy. Singer Erica Falls picked up the slack with the killer “Dollar Diva” and Galactic were rock solid throughout. Trombonist Corey Henry’s Trumpet Black shirt drew cheers from those in the know and, aside from the Foo Fighters’ New Orleans love fest in which they proclaimed the crescent city their favorite out of everywhere Sonic Highways had taken them, Macy Gray and Galactic’s set were the closest to NOLA you could get and surprisingly authentic. For that, they were an anomaly.
Acts like Spoon and Jenny Lewis encountered the strange problem of catalogs so widespread that those in attendance who weren’t steadfast, lifelong fans prepared to disengage rather than learn the material. Even the Foo Fighters kicking things off with “Young Man Blues” shocked the crowd with confusion rather than adulation. Their parade of guests, (Pres Hall for “In The Clear” and Zac Brown Band’s Clay and Coy for “Stay With Me”) and recounting of their previous Hangout Fest appearance prompted some surprising covers that at least most people knew. “Miss You” and “Under Pressure” were jubilant but not so Dave Grohl frenetic as the beginning of the set. They even joked about the “Big Me” video before playing the quintessential tune, which surprisingly most people seemed to know. Grohl’s opening address to the audience was that they’d play until they were kicked off the stage and they held up their end of the bargain. Like the tiers of ticket-holder designations, fans were along for the ride in varying levels. Some were there just to be there, which, judging by Hangout Fest’s ethos, is perfectly fine.
