Chappell Roan performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2024. Mariana Garcias/STAFF.

SAN FRANCISCO —The buzz about pop phenom Chappell Roan’s Outside Lands set was impossible to ignore. It grew in the weeks ahead of the fest, and even more Friday and Saturday. By Sunday it was easy to see who many were there to see. The crowd was considerably younger and many were decked out in pink; especially pink cowboy hats. There was even a pink parade around the polo field that preceded the set, complete with marching band.

Drone shots showing the sea of people crushing into the polo field made it clear her performance was THE event of the weekend.

Still, it’s one thing to get the hype and another to live up to it. So did Chappell Roan deliver? Yes.

The singer, Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, designs a new outfit and aesthetic for each of her shows. In Golden Gate Park, she donned a French-military-inspired sequined blue and gold unitard with a gold belt, red and silver stripes and epaulettes, and matching gold boots.

Chappell Roan, courtesy Alive Media.

If it sounds familiar, it should.

“It’s the one-year anniversary of my song “Hot To Go,” to the day,” Chappell Roan said when introducing the song early in her performance. “This is actual outfit I wore in the video. It’s hot as fuck.”

The crowd was indeed hot to go from the start, enthusiastically shouting back the lyrics of the anthemic “Feminomenon.”

The singer’s ability to command a stage at such an early point in her career is a pretty stunning accomplishment in itself. She moved around the stage with purpose and delivered stunningly powerful vocals. It would be understandable for an artist to become a victim of such a large crowd, but Chappell Roan simply didn’t. A little bit Madonna, a little Lady Gaga, and a lot of her own personality, she took charge immediately.

Chappell Roan performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2024.

She continued her set with “Naked in Manhattan” and the bombastic power pop of “Super Graphic Modern Gril.” Her all-female band, whose members matched her own color scheme of gold and blue, hit hard as well, striking rock star poses on power chords and tom toms. Bedroom pop this was not; the performance was wonderfully maximalist.

Chappell Roan then led the crowd in a practice round of the H-O-T-T-O-G-O dance, but it wasn’t like most people didn’t already know it. They were, themselves, hot to go.

“VIP thinks they’re way too cool to do the dancing,” she said, chiding those in the expensive seats as she moved into the song of the summer.

Chappell Roan performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2024.

As if everything else wasn’t enough, she stretched out to pull off the splits on “After Midnight.”

The hits like “Good Luck, Babe!” ignited the crowd. That song got one of the loudest responses in the set.

Chappell Roan slowed things down for the synth-led “Casual” and new track “The Subway.” She was playing the latter for just the second time and it was extremely impressive there were already plenty of fans who knew all the words.

She then requested all the girls wearing pink—and there were plenty of them—to raise their pink objects over their heads. The amount of pink of the polo field may have been picked up by satellites overhead.

After “My Kink is Karma,” the singer closed out with her first major hit in “Pink Pony Club.” The song was the perfect finisher, and it’s a pretty safe bet that Chappell Roan will bet filling other Bay Area arenas on her own headlining tour very, very soon.

Follow photographer Mariana García at instagram.com/marianagphoto.