While Chappell Roan’s Friday night set was indeed a highlight of this year’s Capitol Hill Block Party, the president of the Pink Pony Club wasn’t the only star of the weekend. Remi Wolf, Becky Hill, and tons of local artists, including TeZATalks, Linda from Work, and THEM, also put on memorable performances that wowed anyone brave enough to withstand the crowds and the summer heat.
Read on for recaps and more photos than your eyeballs can handle.
Chappel Roan
By now, you’ve probably seen videos that document the massive crowds at the queer pop princess Chappell Roan’s performance at Capitol Hill Block Party. Roan was booked in 2023, before the stratospheric rise of her now-ubiquitous breakthrough hit “Good Luck, Babe!” and many expressed concerns that Block Party was not equipped to handle the legions of fans she was sure to draw. The crowds were no joke; I was jostled and shoved as festivalgoers tried to hustle their way to the front and saw multiple people ushered to the medic tent. At one point, the mob compressed suddenly, and I had a moment of realizing just how fragile my internal organs and ribs really are and how little it would take to crush me. Much to my relief, my friends and I finally found a reasonably spacious spot near Neumos and watched from the screen, though elbow room was still scarce.
In the moments before Chappell came onstage, the enthusiasm was palpable: The place had more hot pink than a Barbie Dreamhouse and enough drunk bathroom girl compliment energy to power a small continent. Finally, it was time. As an intro played on the speaker, skateboarders zoomed around on the stage doing kickflips, and Chappell herself emerged to thunderous applause in a sk8r boi outfit, complete with a green vintage ’90s Alien Workshop tee, baggy JNCO jeans, a studded belt, and faux bruises and scratches, and launched into “Femininomenon,” her recognizable cherry cola curls blowing in the artificial wind.
During “Hot to Go,” attendees simultaneously hoisted their arms in the air to the viral dance. Chappell was joined onstage by a surprise guest, RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 winner and Miss Continental 2012 Sasha Colby, who inspired Chappell’s oft-repeated Coachella line “I’m your favorite artist’s favorite artist” with her own catchphrase “I’m your favorite drag queen’s favorite drag queen.” (Chappell has been vocal about her admiration of Colby in the past.)
Throughout the set, Chappell exuded star quality and displayed her powerhouse vocals, reaching angelic, window-shattering notes on her poignant unreleased track “The Subway.” Thousands of situationship-scorned women screamed out their pain in unison to songs like “Casual,” “My Kink Is Karma,” and “Good Luck, Babe!” The performance ended with the queer anthem “Pink Pony Club,” which imagines “a special place where boys and girls can all be queens every single day,” and sapphic couples swayed in each others’ arms and waved rainbow fans as the sun set behind the stage. JULIANNE BELL
Remi Wolf
The mass exodus of attendees who deserted Block Party after Chappell’s set missed out on an incredible performance by headliner Remi Wolf, the Californian “funky soul pop” singer-songwriter who’s recently supported Olivia Rodrigo on her European tour and who released her sophomore album Big Ideas earlier this month. For one thing, there was actually room to move around. “Drop It Like It’s Hot” began playing, which activated every millennial in the vicinity like a sleeper agent, and Remi made her entrance, looking eclectic and glamorous in a trucker hat, rhinestone tee, and flouncy tulle petticoat.
After her opener, the carefree summer bop “Cinderella,” she announced that Capitol Hill Block Party was her first time headlining a festival, joking, “I can’t believe I get to say that Chappell Roan opened for me.” She also declared, “We’re gonna get our bodies even warmer than they are now!” and led the crowd through her “own routine of personalized exercises,” which included arm shakes, hip gyrations, and twerking. Her swagger served to loosen up the stereotypically stiff and staid Seattle audience and got everyone dancing. In between songs, Remi bantered and flirted with the crowd, made a cheeky reference to her new album’s 8.0 rating by YouTuber Anthony Fantano, and sang a few bars of “360” by Charli XCX.
Remi performed a cover of Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson’s iconic version of “Valerie,” which showcased her smoky, velvety vocals perfectly. Her formidable voice ranged from sultry to plaintive to playful as she sang a mix of new songs, including the Big Ideas tracks “Soup” (which joins MUNA’s “Crying on the Bathroom Floor” in my ranking of “most devastating yet danceable songs”) and “Toro” (a horny ode to a hotel sex marathon), alongside older ones, like the smooth grooves “Sexy Villain” and “Photo ID.” Finally, she brought the house down with the finale, her suave banger “Disco Man.” JULIANNE BELL
Becky Hill
English singer and songwriter Becky Hill likely played to a crowd of Chappell Roan stans in her set preceding the pseudo-headliner, but Hill definitely earned some new followers after her highly danceable performance. She asked who in the crowd knew her music and a less confident performer might have blushed with embarrassment over the underwhelming response, but not Hill. She said she loves crowds that “don’t know who the fuck” she is because then she gets to show fresh ears what she can do.
The icon from across the pond told the Capitol Hill Block Party crowd that she’s plotting world domination, but it’s hard for her to capture the American audience, particularly in the male-dominated genre that is dance music. While the crowd didn’t know the words to her new tracks “Outside of Love” and “Believe Me Now,” she had the Pink Pony brigade wiggling their hips and chanting her name. HANNAH KRIEG
COBRAH
For the uninitiated, COBRAH is the stage name of Clara Blom Christensen, a Swedish elementary school music teacher turned cunty queer underground pop icon who rose to fame amid Stockholm’s BDSM club scene. I could tell her set was about to begin when hordes of stylish queers began to flock toward the mainstage, dressed in various shades of camo, mesh, and Brat lime green. COBRAH pranced out in a corseted black bodysuit, latex gloves, and sheer black tights, flipping her platinum blonde mane around aggressively enough to break her neck.
She served face and oozed confident sexuality, purring suggestive lyrics like, “Healthy juices flow like fjords/And when I cum I waterboard” over pounding beats on the song “Suck” while writhing around on all fours. During her track “BANG” she established a call-and-response with the audience, chanting, “Beat go hard with a bang, I just—” as the crowd screamed, “Bang my way to the bank!” She finished with her hypnotic hit “GOOD PUSS,” repeating, “I just wanna feel good/Gotta lay down with some good kush/Got a good girl, a real good bush/Come and go get a real good puss.” JULIANNE BELL
We’ll be posting tons more pics and video on Instagram all week!
Cool