When I saw a flower crown being held aloft in the circle pit during Die Spitz’ set, I knew that there was something special happening at Daisy Chain Fields. It was a fitting image for the inaugural one-day event, as 45,000 people braved Saturday’s extreme heat in order to experience Olivia Rodrigo’s first ever music festival. With radical sets from an all-women lineup, the fest cultivated a perfect mix of loving communal energy, fundraising, and pure female rage, and let a stacked slate of performers shine.
Introduction to Daisy Chain Fields
Last year, Rodrigo appeared as a talking head in Lilith Fair: Building A Mystery, the documentary about Sarah McLachlan’s touring festival. The fest, which ran from 1997 to 1999, was a genuinely revolutionary event at a time when concert promoters often refused to book two women on the same bill and radio promoters shied away from playing songs by women back-to-back. You could perhaps see a teeny gleam in Rodrigo’s eye in that Lilith Fair doc, and less than a year later, she curated a girls-to-the-front festival of her very own: Daisy Chain Fields, a one-day event in Irvine, California with a lineup comprising both elder stateswomen (Bikini Kill, The Breeders) and fresh talent (Die Spitz, Doechii, Chappell Roan), with all of the proceeds going toward organizations that benefit women and girls.
The Festival Experience
Southern California was on the last day of a heatwave that Katseye, the girl group who had to drop out of the fest last-minute after member Megan Skiendiel sprained an ankle, might describe as “gnarly.” The temperature was already in the high 80s when I made it to Great Park, whose big orange balloon was adorned with a white daisy for the occasion. The grounds had been spiffed up to match the feminist theme of the day: a walkway painted with tidbits about figures from women’s history, two stages decorated with buttons that showed the names of the organizations for which Daisy Chain Fields was raising money, a pink mural emblazoned with a text by Jenny Holzer that made for a great photo opp.
I was just in time to catch some dreamy electronic-folk from Quiet Light, who had two backup dancers in filmy pink dresses that reminded me of ice skating costumes, as well as Eli, whose excitement at being on the bill manifested in a series of enthusiastic screams and nonsequiturs (“I’m on stage, girl!” “I need to talk to the press…”). She showed a tremendous range in a short period of time, everything from ‘00s club pop to sensitive throwback R&B to an interpolation of J-Kwon’s “Tipsy.”
Performances and Highlights
On the Marigold Stage, Rachel Chinouriri breezed through her alt-pop bangers with an enormous smile. I loved her rendition of “Never Need Me,” which gained increased dimension and power with the live band. Then, it was back to the Dandelion Stage for Devon Again, the artist who stepped up after Katseye dropped out. The lineup had no overlapping sets, which was great for the conflict-averse, but it meant a lot of hustling back and forth through the park in order to fit everything in.
I had to skip Santigold because I saw the food lines creeping longer and longer, and sensed that if I didn’t eat lunch then, I never would. Armed with a jumbo chicken skewer from a women-owned Filipino BBQ stand, I got back just in time for Bikini Kill. Now, I will be the first to tell you I think “mother” as a music artist epithet is a little overused. But when Kathleen Hanna took the stage in a pink and white dress and started yelling, I thought, “Oh… THAT’S mother.”
It was up to Doechii to bring everyone out of their collective stupor — and that she did, with the most dynamic and virtuosic performance of the day. She stepped, she vogued, she twerked, she made the audience repeat mantras like “I love money / And money loves me!,” she bent over backwards while rapping 100 miles a minute, and she did it all with her skin painted fluorescent pink.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Last was Olivia Rodrigo, whose set was exactly the triumphant victory lap you would imagine for someone who just raised $10 million (a figure matched onstage by Melinda Gates, bringing the total to $20 million) for organizations that support reproductive rights, combat gender-based violence, and more. Incandescent in a white dress and flower armband, Rodrigo treated the absolutely rabid crowd to a thrilling set — there were the undeniable songs from previous albums (“good 4 u,” “bad idea right?”), but also a nice chunk of you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, which sounded robust thanks to Rodrigo’s sizable band.
Final Daisy Chain Fields assessment? There were some logistics issues, but the overall mood in the crowd was congenial, if not ecstatic. Whether it was seeing people make room in the crowd so kids could go on their parents’ shoulders, hearing people actually say excuse me while moving past (this was the least pushy festival I have been to in years, holy shit), or watching countless groups of young women take beaming group pics at the various art installations, there was something genuinely moving about how people behaved on this day.
Pixel P. Snarkbyte, widely regarded as the “Shakespeare of Sh*tposts,” is a video game expert with a unique knack for turning pixels into punchlines.
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Pixel P. Snarkbyte: proving that life, much like a buggy open-world game, is better with a little lag-induced chaos.
