Frank Ocean Makes Anticipated Live Return at Coachella (RECAP)

For the first time since 2017, the elusive and highly-praised Frank Ocean made an extremely rare live appearance at the first weekend of Coachella (April 16). Not only did Ocean close out the first weekend of the massive festival but made his long-awaited comeback to California after he canceled his appearance at the festival a few years back. This time around, Ocean kept to his promise and delivered an unforgettable setlist filled with classics, hits, and remixes to some of the best songs in his catalog. Despite the set being cut short due to a curfew conflict, no one seems disappointed by the set thanks to Ocean sharing new music and news about the long-awaited follow–up to his 2016 masterpiece, Blonde

It wouldn’t be a Frank Ocean event if there weren’t at least a bit of controversy surrounding it. Coachella has been live-streaming sets from their festival of music and art via their Youtube page. Just hours before Ocean was set to hit the stage, his live stream was promptly removed from the Youtube calendar, prompting an onslaught of concerns from fans who traveled great distances to see their favorite return to live performance. Although it wasn’t the worst-case scenario of Ocean canceling the performance as a whole, you could feel an air of disappointment on timelines across the internet. Ocean also brought zero merch with him this time around his coveted T-shirts and vinyl were asked about at Coachella merch tents so much that the staff put up a big bright sign with bold red letters that read; “NO FRANK OCEAN MERCH”. Aren’t all these caveats part of the Frank Ocean live experience though? 

As for the setlist, a number one fan couldn’t have conceived a better list of tracks. He kicked off the night with “Novacane” from his debut mixtape Nostalgia,ULTRA (which will probably never make it to streaming due to the number of covers on the tape), although this was not the “Novacane” we all fell in love with. Ocean set the standard for the night by debuting a reworking of the single, a trend you can see throughout the tracklist. Some other songs that got new arrangements were “White Ferrari” and an acoustic version of “Pink + White” from the aforementioned Blonde. The whole set was split up into three acts, the second being a DJ set from DJ Crystal Mess who played Jersey Club remixes to “Provider”, “Slide”, “In My Room”, and a mix of “Pyramids” and Ocean’s hook from “No Church In The Wild”. 

The biggest news of the night came in two different parts. The first came right after Ocean hit the main stage at Coachella as the second song of the night was a brand new track from Ocean called “Come on World, You Can’t Go!”. This marks the first hint of new music from Ocean in almost three years as 2020 saw him release a few vinyl-exclusive tracks, two of which (“Cayendo” and “Dear April”) made it to streaming. The second news came in a disjointed manner but was still enough to draw headlines and a massive reaction from the crowd. “I want to talk about why I’m here tonight”, says Ocean who performed the entire night with a big blue hood wrapping his head, “It’s not because of a new album, not that there’s not a new album but it’s not right now”. Despite the vagueness of his statement, any sign of new music from Ocean is a good sign. 

The rest of his setlist featured several first-time performances as Ocean debuted songs from his 2016 visual album Endless and more. Songs like “Florida” and “Impietas / Deathwish” were performed live for the first time since their initial release. Other songs that got the same treatment include Ocean’s touching cover of the classic Isley Brothers ballad “At Your Best (You Are Love)”, “Godspeed”, and the aforementioned “White Ferrari”. Ocean also went on to cover Aretha Franklin’s “Night Life”. 

You can watch footage from Frank Ocean’s triumphant return to live performance and check out the full setlist below: 

Frank Ocean Setlist Coachella Festival 2023 2023

 

 

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