- Josh Bis
M.I.A.âs main stage performance wouldâve been damn near perfect if both her beats and mic werenât in need of a serious volume boost for nearly the entire set. Her hard-hitting, world-sampling instrumentals demand to be cranked high as possible, and the sound guy apparently missed that memo.
- Josh Bis
But even with the sound setbacks that were no fault of hers, Maya Arulpragasamâs show had plenty of highlights. Her backup dancers and neon-patterned background visuals were on point as always, her fuck-it-all, anti-diva-diva demeanor was in full effect (at times she seemed t be trolling the crowd â getting them to do that racist âindianâ hand-over-mouth whoop thing, stopping everything at one point to reapply her bright red lipstick, singing the lyrics to Lordeâs âRoyalsâ over her âPaper Planesâ beat), and her setlist stuck to almost entirely her well-known older stuff. Fans bounced along to âSunshowers,â âGalang,â and âBucky Done Gun,â and she even brought a bunch of ecstatic young women on stage to dance along to âBoyzâ (and take hella selfies) before the stage security kicked everyone off.
- Josh Bis
The best part, though, was the final two songs from Matangi â âDouble Bubble Troubleâ and âBad Girlsâ â for which she brought out two motherfucking DRONES that had LED-light peace signs on them that hovered around the stage. There was an actual drone that flew around my campsite earlier during the day, sounding like a distant swarm of bees as it hovered up there with its stupid camera pointing down at everyone. The fuck? As the just-released, drone-heavy video for âDouble Bubble Troubleâ said, â1984 is now.â