Coachella 2023: Did we put Frank Ocean too high on a pedestal?

Coachella 2023 is arguably one of the most culturally diverse iterations of the music festival in its 24-year history. This year, which just wrapped up its first weekend from April 14-16, marked the first-ever Latin and K-pop headliners, with Bad Bunny and BLACKPINK top-lining Friday and Saturday night. But thousands of attendees were arguably most excited for and camping out early to catch the fabled musician Frank Ocean, who was making a rare third-day performance. 

Ultimately, the hypnotic mystique that tends to accompany the 35-year-old alt-R&B singer lifted for some choppy moments on Sunday. Although, with an unconventional artist as evasive in nature as Ocean, what can we truly expect from one of the most unexpected musical nonconformists of our generation? 

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With minutes to spare leading up to the headliner’s mega-anticipated first show in six years, many flooded the main stage and die-hard Ocean devotees were noticeably weary over whether he was actually going to show up. Ocean rarely performs after all, and it took several years for him to make his way back onto the Coachella bill after he was supposed to headline in 2020 before it was canceled. The speculation that he was going to forgo his performance intensified when it was confirmed that his set wouldn’t be live streamed just hours before his scheduled stage time, and due to an hour-long delay. It’s safe to say the aftermath appeared as disappointment for some, while many fans certainly still enjoyed his reverberations of songs we all cherish.

To open the show, Ocean was nowhere to be seen for almost 10 minutes, while concealed militant, marching dancers wearing custom Prada black hoodies and masks cycled through the stage’s layout in unison. A neon space that resembled the internal circuits of a motherboard is where the alt-R&B star first appeared with his band. No announcements were made when he arrived quietly on a stool, many couldn’t even catch his facial profile or silhouette. The ensemble then popped off with a direct segue leading into his 2011 electric-soul single “Novacane.” Ocean’s hour-and-20-minute-long performance featuring a setlist of 20 songs sounded extremely personal and stripped away — nearly mirroring how he’s stayed outside of the public eye for years. 

While there have been many allegations about the performance’s intended plan, it’s been confirmed that Ocean suffered an ankle injury at on-site rehearsals in the week leading up to the festival and was medically advised to adjust the production accordingly. The stage ended up featuring a colossal screen emitting light and a tiny studio nook was put in place. This is where a hooded Frank Ocean, covered with a black durag, performed mashed-up renditions of his Channel Orange classics, unreleased Homer radio snippets, tracks from Blonde, and an Aaliyah cover in slippers and a balaclava. 

In 2020, Ocean was scheduled to perform at Coachella, but the pandemic forced his participation to be postponed. During the same year, the enigmatic artist lost his 18-year-old brother Ryan Breaux in a fatal car accident. After singing “Pilot Jones,” he made an emotional speech to the crowd, saying, “I want to talk about why I’m here because it’s not because of a new album — not that there is not a new album,” while the crowd roared. The artist then lifted his veil and steeped more into his personal life. He said, “These last couple years, my life changed so much. My brother and I, we came to this festival a lot. I know he would have been so excited to be here.” 

Following his candid announcement, Frank Ocean sat in stillness and cued his band with regained gravitas and the demeanor of a composer to play the next song. Ushering in the light, raw guitar chords of “Pink + White,” in those lingering seconds between songs, you could feel the pulsating heartbeat of the crowd as if we were in a holy place of worship while everyone stood in silence. After the fact, he didn’t make any other conversational efforts with the audience. 

The cinematic set was Ocean’s lab playroom of sonic experimentation — as if we were peeking inside a private band rehearsal. In his makeshift sci-fi studio, a floating exterior visual of pink matter surrounding a human brain screened behind them. The musical alt-troupe revitalized “Solo,” “Nights,” and “White Ferrari” with modulated bass, synth, electronic flares, and house music breakdowns. “Chanel” followed suit, as well as a DJ Crystallmess set, played on Virgil Abloh’s custom decks and featuring Jersey Club remixes of Frank Ocean’s hits and a Nola-bounce-style sequence of a security guard twerking on-site. This all preceded Frank Ocean making a return to the stage carrying his recognizable, neon-emerald, robotic baby sidekick that he brought to the Met Gala two years ago where he debuted his lime green hair.

Ocean mustered up more confidence and walked across the stage smiling into the camera with his distinguishable silver front tooth cap mouthing the lyrics to “Nike.” It was a sight to see thee Frank Ocean grinning blissfully in the frame of a camera lens, feeding off of the crowd’s divided energy. If you grew up with Ocean’s discography, you’d know he is a distant beacon of hope you look towards, and are so happy to see them feeling joy.

After an oddball moment that felt like an internet troll hacked the main stage’s monitor, Ocean ascended with “Godspeed,” then submerged into the magnetism of “Self Control” with the guitar and mantra “follow my dreams, Heaven is guiding” displayed. Then, the title “inner child” pixelated onto the screen as a young Black boy named Josiah with a similar black durag lip-synched to Ocean’s recording of Willie Nelson’s “Nightlife;” an ode to the youth that escapes us with age, as Frank Ocean sings about in “Ivy” (“We’ll never be those kids again”). The final song to close out the show was Aaliyah and the Isley Brothers’ “(At Your Best) You Are Love,” which ended around 12:20 a.m, 15 minutes longer than the planned set time. 

Yet again, Frank Ocean disappeared into the shadows without a trace, as he alerted festival-goers through the microphone off-stage that Coachella reached its curfew and everyone had to leave. Concerning online criticism, his technical error of a sour moment tainted the experiences for many of those who were expecting an everlasting spectacle — a life-changing set sung by a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Perhaps, it is the immeasurable pressure we place on our luminaries that make them feel less human and more godlike. Frank Ocean wants none of those expectations — as he muttered earlier in his set, “It’s good that it’s not always about me.” 

Just like the delayed intro to his set, Ocean faded into the bustling, crowded chaos of the natural world with his hood on, as if he was an apparition that all of us dreamed was on stage. Clearly, he feels most himself existing out of sight where he can live his life in uninterrupted solace. His original catalog extends over generations and has an existential quality to light us up and vibrate the ions and soul in all of our bodies, aligning us all to a more grounded, spiritual, transcendental way of listening, loving, and living. Has Frank Ocean given us more and then some? Or, did we put him on a pedestal too high that he has to fall at some point? Is our own rooted nostalgia in his music holding us back? So, what else are we owed? A god in a man.