Chemical Brothers, Four Tet + Floating Points smooth out Portola Festival’s rough grooves
The Chemical Brothers perform at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022. Chloe Catajan/STAFF.
SAN FRANCISCO — The sunshine and chaos of Portola Festival’s drama-filled Saturday were smoothed down for Sunday, which brought mellower vibes, less crowd pandemonium and the chill of evening fog. That meant attendees could focus on getting their groove on. Despite M.I.A.’s cancelation, there were still plenty of positive dance vibes with the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Four Tet + Floating Points, and newly added headliner Oneohtrix Point Never.
Despite the cold, throngs massed outside for The Chemical Brothers hardly seemed to mind. The Mancunian DJ duo came out to cheers and immediately launched into 1997 hit “Block Rockin’ Beats” to show it meant business. The DJs layered and bookended the beats with recorded vocals from frequent collaborator Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. The rapper’s disembodied voice hovered over the crowd to narrate the action from at the beginning of the set with 2015 hit “Go:” “Everybody jumpin’ out of they mind, everybody going out of they skins.” They ended the set with his vocals from 2004 hit “Galvanize.”
If you didn’t think you’d be one of those people vibing to frenetic, relentless beats on the dancefloor, you might have been surprised to realize you were one of those people by the end of this four-alarm fire of a DJ set. It seemed to have everything: hypnotic, animated visuals with apocalyptic overtones (a creepy ancient god shooting lasers out of his fingers into the crowd, day-glo drummer boys, zombie robot dancers who looked like escapees from a rave in “Tron”), smoke curling into the freezing fog amid laser lights, and two tempos—breakneck and furious breakneck. From “Hey Boy Hey Girl” to “Temptation” by New Order, the Chemical Brothers pumped out a megamix of dance beats that barely let up.
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- The Chemical Brothers perform at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- The Chemical Brothers perform at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- The Chemical Brothers perform at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- The Chemical Brothers perform at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
Four Tet + Floating Points perform at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
By the end of The Chemical Brothers’ set, half the crowd stumbled out drunk from dancing and headed for the exits, but a sizable chunk booked it over to the Crane Tent for Four Tet + Floating Points‘ mesmerizing, trance-like beats. The mellower vibe and esoteric chill of their set melded genres, but the tripped-out beats did their job.
It was a non-stop dance party from start to finish, meant for those who could’ve gone until dawn. In this back-to-back set, Floating Points came off a seasoned summer of festival highlights, including Glastonbury and Coachella, along with the recent September release of two new tracks, “Vocoder” and “Grammar.” Grammy-winning Four Tet blended everything from acid to jazz and reggae in an all-inclusive free-for-all.
We should note that Four Tet + Floating Points had one of our favorite albums of 2021.
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- Four Tet + Floating Points perform at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Four Tet + Floating Points perform at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
Earlier in the evening, Duke Dumont gave the amped-up crowd what it wanted: a pile-up of beats and quick hits of breaks, vocal snippets and drawn-out jams.
Duke Dumont performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
Silhouetted against the word “Obey” in red and black, he built up jams just to tear them down again in a set perfectly suited to the massive warehouse that could barely contain the dance party.
Duke Dumont makes music in which it’s easy to get lost, with a feast of beats and breaks on top of lyrical refrains and deconstructed disco components. The crowd that stretched all the way to the back felt like an old-school rave. The anticipation for his set was palpable from the beginning, and his knack for getting people on the dancefloor isn’t surprising. Born deaf, Dumont has an innate feel for creating the most accessible kind of dance and disco beats; the kind where everyone is welcome and anyone can join.
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- Duke Dumont performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Duke Dumont performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Duke Dumont performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
It wouldn’t be a music festival in San Francisco without the Bay Area’s own Toro Y Moi.
Toro y Moi performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
Chaz Bear took to the Pier stage with a touring band of three and opened with “Deja Vu” and “Magazine.” The crew ripped bass lines as thick as the fog, laying on some psychedelic funk that had the crowd grooving. But as longtime fans might expect, Toro Y Moi’s sound goes beyond a single genre.
When not playing songs off 2022’s MAHAL, Toro Y Moi revisited the sounds of projects past, including alt-R&B and chillwave. Though he spent much of the set on his monogrammed guitar, he stepped from behind it to dance across stage during “Ordinary Pleasure” and to go full-on serenader on “Girl Like You.”
Between songs, Bear cracked jokes and made references only locals would get.
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- Toro y Moi performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Toro y Moi performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Toro y Moi performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Toro y Moi performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
Channel Tres performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
Back at the Warehouse tent, Channel Tres showed Portola Festival attendees the future of house music with his trifecta of baritone vocals, bass-heavy, head-bobbing beats, and slick choreography. Since his previous Bay Area appearances, Channel Tres expanded his dance entourage to four members, all of whom performed synchronized routines on another level. The singer and crew’s uniform included sunglasses worn in the dark and shimmery fits—the cherry on top of their signature cool and collected demeanor. Fan favorites like “Jet Black,” “Controller” and “Topdown” all made the performance.
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- Channel Tres performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Channel Tres performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Channel Tres performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Channel Tres performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
The Pier stage an eclectic mix of sets early in the day, with Yaeji the third to perform on Sunday. The Korean American singer brought a couple of backup dancers with her who helped bring to life the emotions behind her playful electronic beats. “Drink I’m Sippin On” and the bilingual “Raingurl” both gave off strong and unbothered energy, while “WAKING UP DOWN” flipped to a flirtier melody. Yaeji delivered a performance made for a main stage at a festival.
Slayyyter performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
Earlier in the afternoon, Slayyyter proffered her nasty-Britney, proto-Peaches bops with not a lot of subtlety. Coming onstage in a flouncy pleather skirt and black bra, she stripped down to lingerie not long after as a DJ spun beats next to her and she half-sang half-whispered to the crowd, “f— me on the dance floor” or “touch my body” or “let me ride you.”
This abruptly gave way to ‘80s pop beats in the vein of Madonna’s “Holiday,” which felt weird and insubstantial, tearing back and forth between in-your-face seduction and desperate party vibes.
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- Yaeji performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Yaeji performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Slayyyter performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Slayyyter performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
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- Slayyyter performs at Portola Festival in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2022.
Chloe Catajan contributed to this report. Follow photographer Chloe Catajan at Instagram.com/riannachloe.