Osheaga 2024 Highlights — Stewart Wiseman

As originally published on Northern Transmissions.

Rain thankfully arrived on the final evening of Osheaga. There was an initial false alarm for “severe weather” in the late afternoon that interrupted the bulldozer of yelling energy that is Melbourne’s Amyl and the Sniffers, but a brief squall followed by a pleasant, relaxed spitting to accompany Hamza’s understated performance at dusk. Heat was the theme of the weekend. Yes, the weather – even Noah Kahan complained about feeling “disgusting”. Don’t worry pal: we were right there with you. But what was even hotter was the performance of Chappell Roan, the Midwestern princess who literally brought ALL the girls to the yard. A sea of pink cowboy hats and all the sparkle fast fashion can muster was enraptured from the first notes of “Femininomenon” to the last choral shouts of “Pink Pony Club”. Northern Transmissions’ Erin MacLeod and Stewart Wiseman were there throughout – dealing with the great music, the not so great lack of balance between bars (too many) and food trucks (not enough), and the scorching sun.

Chappell Roan – Ok, more on the femininomenon that is Ms. Roan. Her songs are catchy, her voice particularly impressive when she leans into the Kate Bush (see “Good Luck, Babe!” for details), but I do think that Roan could up the ante on her act if she were able to access some of the teaches of Peaches. Send the woman into Berghain for the weekend and see what happens as a result. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy her 45-min set that thrilled the enormous Pink Pony Club crowd in the middle of Saturday afternoon and got me to join in her Village-People-esque “HOT TO GO!” dance. Yes, she should have been a headliner, but that isn’t how festival booking works. It’s really tough to know when an artist is going to hit the stratosphere, and it is to the Osheaga team’s credit that they saw this coming. Here’s hoping that she’ll be back for a headlining opportunity – and that her act will move from tacky to full out in bad taste. – EM (Note from SW: Is she a cult leader?)

Rancid – Rancid’s set was a high-energy blast of punk rock and gritty fist-in-the-air anthems. Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen led the charge with their gravelly vocals and rapid-fire guitar riffs, while Matt Freeman’s bass lines provided a powerful backbone. The band played a mix of classic hits like “Time Bomb” and “Ruby Soho,” as well as newer material, all with the same relentless energy that has defined their career. Rancid was bizarrely sandwiched on the River Stage between Chappell Roan and Renee Rapp, the band struggled to engage with a young crowd that was largely waiting at the stage for the next act. It’s truly a sad sign of the times when festival goers mosh harder to Denzel Curry than to Rancid. At one point Tim Armstrong tried to lead the crowd through a singalong of “Olympia, WA” to a resounding silent thud when no one near the front of the stage knew the lyrics. Besides that hiccup, Rancid’s performance was a masterclass in punk rock showmanship, full of raw power, catchy melodies, and an undeniable sense of community. – SW

Brittany Howard – When Brittany Howard gets on stage, she is riveting from beginning to end. If she had only played “Power to Undo”, aka, one of the best breakup songs of all time, I would have been satisfied to end my Osheaga experience belting out “You’ve got the power because I gave it to you”. Howard’s between-song-banter is immaculate: she reminded us that being in a relationship when one person pays 80% of the bills and it’s you, well, you know what to do. “Stay High” was a highlight – the power of Howard’s voice and the smoothness of her band kept things profoundly cool on the hottest of days. Oh – and her keyboardist was wearing a t-shirt that said “The Public Library System. Still Dope After All These Years.” I honestly feel bad for folks that missed this set. – EM

Renee Rapp – I’m at a loss to explain Renee Rapp’s popularity among the younger Osheaga attendees, as she seemed to offer little more than a poor imitation of Billie Eilish’s aesthetic. Throughout her set, it became painfully clear that Rapp’s songs lacked variety, each blending into the next without any notable differentiation. The songs rotated between sugar pop and flat ballad, and the repetitive nature of her music made the performance feel one-dimensional. Even the stage banter was monotonous, with repeating versions of the same theme (“boys suck,” “my guitarist is a rare good boy,” “how annoying are boys?”). Unlike Eilish, who brings a unique blend of Gen-Z energy with lyrical depth, Rapp’s attempts felt forced and uninspired. Every era has copycat artists, and Rapp’s performance highlighted the limitations of trying to emulate a successful model without bringing anything new or original to the table. – SW

The Smashing Pumpkins – The Smashing Pumpkins made a tremendous return to Osheaga after headlining the festival’s second edition back in 2007. Billy Corgan, dressed in his trademark gothic onesie, led the band through a setlist that blended their alt-rock classics with newer lesser-known material. After a clunker of a much too long cover of U2’s “Zoo Station,” the set really took off with the opening chords of “Today.” The generation gap at the festival was felt most during the Pumpkins’ set, but late into the setlist I even spotted pink cowboy hat clad Chappel Roan cult members headbanging to “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” Billy Corgan’s iconic voice and the band’s atmospheric layering created a memorable experience, with “1979” and “Tonight, Tonight” standing out as highlights. – SW (Note from EM: I don’t believe that Corgan believes the world is a vampire any more).

Green Day – As headliners, Green Day did not disappoint, delivering a high-energy set filled with crowd-pleasers and anthems. The band, led by the irrepressible Billie Joe Armstrong, delivered a high-octane performance that had the crowd on their feet from the first chord to the last. This was Billie Joe Armstrong’s second appearance at Osheaga, after sitting in with The Replacements in 2014. Classics like “Basket Case,” “American Idiot,” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” were met with enthusiastic sing-alongs, while newer tracks from Saviors were equally well received. However, Green Day might be receiving an angry letter from Osheaga in the coming days after bashing their main corporate sponsor while the owner was standing a stone’s throw away from them. During “Longview,” Billie Joe Armstrong all of a sudden got distracted when he saw the giant Coors Light platform to the left of the stage. “Coors? That’s not a fucking beer, that’s some Colorado Nazi bullshit!” he yelled to a cheering crowd, as Molson-Coors owner Geoff Molson looked on from the VIP area.

Sometimes a Green Day show can feel like a summer camp with the number of kids that the band invites on stage. This time, there was only one instance of audience participation, when a jubilant fan was brought on stage to sing the bridge on “Know Your Enemy.” The concert was heavy on nostalgia, with Green Day celebrating the 30th anniversary of Dookie and the 20th anniversary of American Idiot this year. Green Day’s set was the cross-generational event of the weekend, with Gen-Xers sharing the experience with their kids, and fans in their early 30s reliving their 13-year old bedroom air-guitar dreams to “Jesus of Suburbia.” Billie Joe Armstrong’s engaging stage banter and the band’s tight performance made for a raucous and celebratory night, ending Saturday on a high note. – SW

Uncle Waffles – This is where I admit getting only to “Welcome to Paradise” in Green Day’s Dookie singalong and then running over to the Island stage to dance with an exuberant crowd who knew what to expect from Swazi DJ and producer Uncle Waffles. She took us straight to Waffles Academy – quite literally, given that the stage was set up like a classroom, complete with desks and blackboards indicating that class was “in session”. Waffles is a professor of amapiano, a genre of impossibly danceable house music that was pioneer in early 2010s South Africa by artists like Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa. Yes, it does have pianos, but you know amapiano from its deep bass sound (drawn from the Frooty Loops log drum). It’s really unmistakable, and unmistakably good. The class of school-uniform clad dancers provided their own lessons in how to dance, and we all were satisfied students. – EM

Elyanna – Probably my discovery of the festival: the Palestinian-Chilean singer with a voice and show that was hardly held by the secondary Green Stage. Her white lace costume, waist long blond curls and hips that don’t lie giving serious Shakira vibes, which she appears to acknowledge with “Ya Waylak” (which has a bit of Beyoncé’s and Shakira’s hit song “beautiful liar”). The infectious reggae-tinged set closer “Ghareeb Alay” was a stand out, as was a nod to her Chilean side, providing a beautiful rendition of Julio Iglesias’s classic “El amor”. Elyanna told the audience that it was one her abuelita sang to her as a child. This is a world-superstar in the making, and someone who does not shy away from a proud celebration of her roots and her people, singing her song “Olive Branch”, a direct appeal for peace in Gaza, to a kaffiyeh-dotted crowd. – EM

DIIV – DIIV’s much-too-short 45-minute set benefited from the overcast, gloomy weather that loomed overhead on Sunday. In stark contrast to the blazing sun that domineered over the first two days of Osheaga, the weather seemingly dressed to match DIIV’s ominous and pulsing guitar fuzz. The dark skies complemented their dreamy, reverb-drenched sound, making their performance a festival highlight. DIIV’s tracks like “Brown Paper Bag” and “In Amber” resonated well with the subdued atmosphere, creating a fitting and immersive experience for the audience. Here’s hoping that DIIV is given a longer set-time next time they play Osheaga. – SW

The Island Stage – I’m not picking any particular artist, rather, I just want to give a big hat’s off to the programming and design of the Island Stage. I don’t know what happened this year, but the Osheaga team transformed the stage in between the two main areas of the venue from what in 2023 was an unpleasant parking lot with a DJ to a oasis of a space to hear some incredible electronic music. From Romy on Friday, whose stage persona is what can only be described as office casual, but serves up a seemingly endless list of dancefloor fillers (try to listen to “She’s On My Mind” without putting it on repeat), to Uncle Waffles (see above), to Montreal’s own Ash on Sunday, this was the place to be. Highlights also included hearing French DJ Marina Trench tossing on the house classic “Hot Music” by Soho, Overmono’s throwback broken beats, and the disco party thrown by Folamour. This is a perfect cocktail. Please, Osheaga, keeping serving it up next year. – EM