A music festival ostensibly unfurls itself for music fans, but the experience of one can give lovers cause for doubt. Its contemporary format impresses, firstly, as an altar to capital. Tickets are priced at tiers that smell extortionate, and are won by either facing off with bots or succumbing to the—actually extortionate—resale market. And the sell doesn’t end there, what with the soaring concession prices and the branded outposts that one must dodge before hearing a single note. God-wrought and man-made hazards abound: bad drunks and bad trippers, theft, brawling, crowd crush, sexual assault; heat and dust and rain and their hellish coagulation, mud. For the first time in a long time, this summer, I attended Lollapalooza, a four-day event during which the sky never fails in its offering, transforming, under booted and flip-flopping feet, the manicured lands of Grant Park into sludge. My waxer told me of a client who got her foot stuck among a moving throng—her leg went snap. People get hurt at music festivals; people die. In the least worst outcome, they have a bad time and swear off returning—but may give next year’s lineup a gander, you know, just ’cause. Because music compels in that way. Call it above nature.
The LedeReporting and commentary on what you need to know today.
Music is a hard business in any era. In this one, even as live events are promoted as “experiences,” set apart from the virtuality of streaming, ticket sales—once considered a reliable means for artists to make money off their songs—seem increasingly unpredictable. This year, the struggle found a diagnosis, “blue dot fever,” after the azure daubs denoting unsold seats on Ticketmaster, the largest ticketer of live events in the world. Festivals, with their many equity pipers to pay, contend with further caprices. Two weeks ago, one of the majors, Bonnaroo, held annually in Tennessee since 2002, announced that, despite extensive—and, likely, costly—construction to improve the locale’s “resiliency to Mother Nature,” and owing to years of intense summer storms, the festival would be “taking a much-needed year off in 2027.”
The event I attended in Irvine, California, this past Saturday, then, was a work of tremendous gall. Fourteen women-fronted acts, plus a few guests, performed, for free, a benefit show to raise money for charitable organizations aiding women and girls. Not a new idea, but not easily done—and it’s been a minute. The festival, Daisy Chain Fields, reflects the mettle of Olivia Rodrigo, the twenty-three-year-old pop star. Since her 2021 début, “Sour,” Rodrigo has become a likable ambassador for her generation, awing an elder commentariat with her taste—her favorite Weezer album is “Pinkerton”—and her capable approach to celebrity. She is unshy yet unshrill about her beliefs. Amid quibbles over what ethics can reasonably be expected from stars pushing art product, Rodrigo makes music about what it feels like for girls while championing their autonomy, and the latter does not sound like lip service. Her last tour raised money for abortion funds and brought in local groups to distribute reproductive-health resources on site, a charitable act met with praise and also censure from a state politician in Missouri who said that Rodrigo “should be ashamed” for “championing abortion.”
Rodrigo, who has also expressed empathy for Palestinians and has condemned ICE, says this is what artists do. It’s an old mantle, one that has the feel of skipping a certain, once conspicuous generation. The millennials who repackaged girl power have gone rather quiet at this hour, lending credence to the suspicion that all that “run the world” talk was not for “we” but “me.” The obvious and stated precursor to Daisy Chain Fields is the Gen X mainstay Lilith Fair, the touring festival of female artists sprung from Sarah McLachlan’s justified ire over sexism in the music industry. Its nineties iteration was a riotous success (the 2010 revival, less so), raising more than ten million dollars, across the decade’s last three summers, for women-focussed charities. The 2025 documentary “Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery” reintroduces its subject as lost knowledge left to be recovered by Zoomer women. Rodrigo appears in the film as the first talking head, telling the camera she is stunned that she had only learned of the festival a few years prior, and marvels that her favorites—McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Pat Benatar, Fiona Apple, Jewel—had been there.
But Rodrigo is after something apart from a reboot. Righteous as McLachlan’s endeavor was, she asserted a firm hierarchy. “I think any social or political issues are secondary, although very important, because it is a music festival first and foremost,” she told CNN in 1998. Rodrigo has another relation in mind, something causal, catalytic. Daisy Chain Fields was “founded on the belief that joy, community, and creativity can inspire meaningful change,” she writes in the festival’s mission statement. “Beyond its philanthropic impact, Daisy Chain’s core purpose is to cultivate joy and shared understanding, creating space for meaningful moments of connection across generations and communities.”
Were philanthropy its sole end, the festival would have succeeded before it opened its doors. At a Friday press conference, Rodrigo, dressed in a pink minidress custom-made by the Palestinian brand Nöl Collective, announced that Daisy Chain Fields had already raised ten million dollars, to be shared among its ten nonprofit partners, each dedicated to the health, safety, and flourishing of women and girls: Baby2Baby, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Center for Reproductive Rights, FreeFrom, Jhpiego, Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Institute for Reproductive Health, National Women’s Law Center, and Planned Parenthood.
But there is that preposition from the mission statement, “beyond.” And another phrase, “meaningful change.” Rodrigo’s festival intends to raise consciousness alongside funds, alongside and as a consequence of the sound. But how to measure such a thing?
The question came to mind when I arrived at the festival grounds, in Irvine’s Great Park, at 11 A.M., in time for the first set, Quiet Light, the self-produced dream-pop artist and Texan who moonlights as a medical student. On time is late for getting barricade, a festival ritual that escaped my knowledge until fairly recently. You can find videos of this act, people camping for hours outside a festival’s gates, then rushing full bore across the grounds for a choice spot abutting the necessary barrier between fan and stage, then staying put until their favored headliner arrives. This is one way to enjoy a festival these days, and Daisy Chain Fields was no exception. Not for Crystal and Carley, a mother and daughter, who were seated on a blanket and sharing a handheld fan. As Coachella regulars, this was not their first rodeo. “What’s important for us is to get barricade today,” Carley, a recent college grad, who had jogged ahead in her Doc Martens to reserve a place for both of them, said.
Crystal, who is forty-seven, had been to Lilith Fair when she was her daughter’s age. “Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Indigo Girls,” she recalled. “Only women. It was just amazing.” She and Carley were there for that spirit, for the causes—“helping women, and young girls especially, because in a lot of the United States we don’t have the autonomy to make decisions for our reproductive rights,” Carley said. They were barricading for Rodrigo and her set’s guests, Stevie Nicks and McLachlan, who would not take the stage for another eight hours. “Oh, my gosh, and Doechii” (on in about five).
Performances alternated between two stages—Marigold and Dandelion—without overlap, in theory giving all forty-five thousand attendees a shot at laying eyes and/or ears on every set. In practice, this worked for a time. Walking at a motivated but not harried pace, I could reach earshot of the opposite stage within six minutes or so—a number that climbed with the hours and arrival of more bodies, each with their own idea of traffic flow. For that is another way festival people spend their time, milling about in the manicured space between stages, seeing what else, aside from music, might be worth consuming. Brooks, the running-shoe company and a festival sponsor, gave away blankets to anyone who signed up for its Run Club, while Taco Bell served free Baja Blasts in the flavor “You Seem Pretty Pink for a Baja Blast,” punning on the title of Rodrigo’s recent studio album.
Per the ad-speak that seems to have leapt into everyone’s lexicon over the years, these are “activations” and a staple of the modern music festival. These moments of commerce at the festival were contiguous with its art installations, such as “Fata Morgana (Lost & Found),” by the Angeleno artist Kelly Wall, a functional penny press that rewards participants with the customary flattened souvenir, and Yoko Ono’s “Wish Tree,” another interactive piece that asks audiences to write their wishes on pieces of paper and tie them to tree branches—“one of the many thoughtful activations,” as a review of the festival published by The Cut put it.
Lines for products or experiences or the synergy of both stretched and wound through the grounds, commingling with other lines: lines for merch, lines for photo ops, lines for food, lines for a custom hot-pink Nalgene—with a twenty-dollar donation to REVERB, a nonprofit greening concerts and festivals—and lines to fill it for free. It was not always evident what anyone awaited. I was reminded of one of my favorite jokes from “South Park,” in which the boys queue for what feels like forever in an experience that turns out to be “the Line Ride, a real-life simulator of a long line.” The weather in Irvine—shy of a hundred degrees before noon, and humid—was punishing. As I left Quiet Light’s set, I walked past someone receiving medical assistance at the Lego Editions activation.
A festival is a joyful endurance test, as are marathons. People make do. By midafternoon, no shadowy patch was left vacant; shade became a valuable resource, even if it meant swaying to Mitski from afar. One of the bill’s two millennials, Mitski supplemented officially posted cooling tips with friendly reminders of her own. “If you feel faint, no shame, just sit down where you are. It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s better than falling,” she told the audience. “And, if you have sunscreen, please apply sunscreen. . . . If you don’t have sunscreen, forget about it. It’s fine, never mind, it’s too late.” It was around 4 P.M.
Staff distributed cold, wet towels for necks—another souvenir—and tossed boxed water into outstretched hands. When someone dropped, people parted for medics. Prone to a midday jog during a heat wave, I am aware of what augurs heatstroke, and became my own bellwether. Two women introduced me to a cooling technique they called “nipple ice.” They’ve had “something” every month this year—Zara and Florence and Qveen Herby and Thot Squad, Warped Tour—with more shows on the docket.
