Massive dance music-oriented Portola Festival hits Pier 80, Sat/27 + Sun/27, with the force of a thousand mirrorballs. 48 Hills will be on the ground with full reports here and on our socials, but here’s who our festival correspondents Andrew Brobst and Adrian Spinelli are especially stoked to see. (And don’t sleep on genius 50,000-watt dance experience Despacio throughout the wild weekend.)
DJ Shadow
30 years ago, DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing…. reshaped the possibilities of how music could be constructed. It’s no exaggeration to say that the album, comprised entirely of samples from Shadow’s deep digging in the crates, is still the backbone for everything that I listen to today. Shadow puts in A LOT of work into his live sets and given that Endtroducing…. was created in the Bay Area, his only performance on the anniversary tour in the Bay, at Portola, is a very big deal. —AS
Dog Blood
Skrillex and Boys Noize bringing Dog Blood back is already enough to get me to the festival, especially because this joint project lets both of them get weirder and heavier. They both have ridiculously deep discographies, and neither have ever seemed interested in staying in one lane, going between techno, bass, electro and everything in between. With both of them staying very active in the seven years since Dog Blood went on hiatus, I’m curious to hear what they’ve come up with now. —AB
Overmono
Three years ago, Welsh duo Overmono dominated an afternoon Warehouse Set at Portola with the pressing D&B-washed breakbeats of their XL recordings debut album, Good Lies. Now their sophomore album, Pure Devotion, builds on that formula and the brothers have damn near top Warehouse billing on Sunday night, playing directly before Four Tet closes out the festival. I know where I’ll be for those last three hours of the weekend. —AS
Kelela
Kelela has never been afraid to blur the lines between R&B and club music, but latest album new avatar takes that to new places by bringing in elements of shoegaze and atmospheric grunge with alt-guitars in the mix. She told Highsnobiety that guitar-forward music eventually “got owned by white people in this weird way,” and her album pushes back while still sounding true to her own sound. —AB
Robyn
The last time I saw Robyn perform, it was peak-lockdown, from my laptop, on one of her sick Club DOMO pandemic livestream sets. Watching the Swedish pop Queen get lost to her own music, gave us all hope that we’d all be able do dance together again someday. Now that the world is (sorta) back to normal, we’ll finally get that chance to dance with Robyn on her Saturday night performance on the main Pier Stage. Her new album Sexistential is pure bliss and maybe the often-complaining fogeys in Alameda will actually enjoy themselves for a minute when they hear “Dopamine” from across the Bay. —AS
Clearcast
I always want to see more San Francisco DJs on San Francisco festival lineups, so Clearcast immediately stood out to me. They came up through the local underground with programs like Vitamin 1000 and Hyde FM, and have since played massive shows like Skrillex and Fred again.. at Civic Center. Their Portola set feel like a chance to see the independent scene represented on a bigger stage. —AB
