Sophia Michaels
The second day of Life Is Beautiful 2022 wrapped with an iconic headlining set from the Gorillaz and a dazzling show from Lorde, as well as impressive outings from Isaiah Rashad and Alessia Cara. With one day left for the three-day festival, heavy hitters including Jack Harlow, Rico Nasty, Beach House and Calvin Harris will close out the weekend Sunday evening.
Note: Rolling Stone purchased a majority stake in Life is Beautiful in February 2022.
Gorillaz Go Ape-Shit
Damon Albarn and the Gorillaz gave perhaps the best show of the weekend so far with their Saturday night headlining set, delivering a setlist that highlighted just how versatile the group is from the spooky funk of “Cracker Island” to the punchy rap of “MLS” (which brought JPEGMafia out onto the stage), to the dainty synths of “On Melancholy Hill.”
Albarn — who spent the night jumping between guitar, piano and melodica — was in high spirits throughout the show, leaving the stage to join the crowd numerous times and interacting face-to-face with his fans. “Enjoy yourself, you look great,” he told one fan on the way back to the stage from the crowd. As entertaining as seeing Albarn come out to the audience was watching the security guard follow him close behind, keeping Albarn upright on his precarious perch by one arm as Albarn stood on the divider gates next to the festival-goers. The visuals playing in tandem with the live set were expectedly mesmerizing, featuring the famous four virtual Gorillaz members along with animations of real guns and squirt guns alike, police badges and golden Xanax Bars.
Among the many highlights of their set were the intensely groovy “19-2000,” “Dirty Harry” featuring Bootie Brown and “Désolé,” which brought Fatoumata Diawara to the stage for featured vocals. “You’re so lucky to hear this voice, show your appreciation,” Albarn said of Diawara just after bowing to her at the end of the song. De La Soul’s Pos also came out to perform “Feel Good Inc.” By set’s end, the group finally burst into “Clint Eastwood,” featuring an extended outro from Sweetie Irie. Before getting into the iconic track, Albarn brought out and blew into a large horn, which as he said is a sign of a satisfactory show. “I only blow this horn when shit’s good. And shit’s good tonight,” he says. “You are fucking lovely. Don’t ever forget what just happened.”
Thank the Lorde
Lorde wasn’t technically the headliner for Day Two, but it wouldn’t be easy to tell given how large a crowd she drew on Saturday night. Emerging with her backing band on a strange stairway looking like it leads to the sun, Lorde, dressed in all pink, started her show with dreamy Solar Power track “The Path,” before jumping right into “Homemade Dynamite.”
“We’re so happy to be back with you, I wrote this song when I was 15, should we dance for our 15-year-old selves tonight?” she said before going into Pure Heroine classic “Ribs.”
Lorde’s been through a transformation since the last time she played Vegas, as she admitted. “I’m very happy to be back in Vegas, a lot has changed since we saw each other last, there was a pandemic, we’re not going to talk about that. I’m 25 now, I’m blonde now, and I’m wearing a hot pink outfit. We all change, we all go through phases, and I love to celebrate all those phases, I think they’re all magical.”
She then dedicated “The Louvre” to everyone who has a new crush. With a markedly upbeat set, it was almost surprising hearing her switch with her most cathartically heartbreaking song “Liability,” but it was a peak for the show. “I write songs about the tiny situations I obsessively replay in my mind, and this song was maybe the smallest and saddest and loneliest I’d ever felt when writing a song,” Lorde told the crowd of “Liability.” “The song I wrote that came from the loneliest place would be the one people would sing together.”
She of course performed “Royals,” her biggest hit, soon after, and eventually finished with “Solar Power.“ “This song was written in a wet bikini, after a long day at the beach,” she said before finishing her set. I want to say good night to you tonight summoning this endless summer magic under this beautiful Las Vegas sky.”
Isaiah Rashad’s strong show
With the sun finally set on the main stage, Isaiah Rashad came out hot with one of the heaviest hip hop sets of the weekend so far, kicking off his show with “RIP Young,” and a bass heavy enough to feel it in your entire body.
“I’m not much of a talker,” Rashad says before busting into the rest of his set. He’s acrobatic with his flow on “Wat’s Wrong.” He takes a brief pause when his in-ear monitors go dead. “Watch me do it with no ears,” he quips before launching into “Free Lunch.”
He commands the crowd well, getting fans’ hands in the air on “Menthol.” The set showed his versatility, as he can seamlessly switch between melodic and more demanding raps. He was particularly locked in on “HB2U,” and he brought out Hugh Augustine to perform “Tity and Dolla.”
Slowthai’s high-octane antics
“Energy energy energy,” Slowthai chants just minutes into his set as he breaks into his song “CANCELLED.” And if there’s anything the British rapper brought to Life Is Beautiful, it was energy. Within the first couple songs, Slowthai, shirtless, was already off stage and among the crowd and leading call-and-response chants with his audience. (In fact, it seemed as if he spent half of his set off stage with the crowd). He jumped, he thrashed, he randomly broke into Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.” He read messages from Life Is Beautiful’s Twitch stream. Slowthai was all over the place.
“I believe in myself, everybody else can fuck themselves,” he had the crowd shouting with middle fingers up. Slowthai was among the most aggressive sets of the night but also had a strong sense of community, like a punk show. “If you’re struggling, keep on keeping on and you’ll get there I promise,” Slowthai warmly says as he breaks into “I Tried.”
He played collabs like “Mazza,” his track with A$AP Rocky, and “Psycho,” which he recorded with Denzel Curry. Slowthai played a new track too, a heavy punk-inspired track seemingly titled “I Feel So Good.”
Ahead of the Gorillaz’ headlining set, he also performed “Momentary Bliss,” their 2020 collaboration. (While Gorillaz would also play the track during their show as well, Slowthai didn’t take the stage with them.)
‘Stay’ For Alessia Cara
Alessia Cara began singing “Sweet Dreams” on a makeshift bed, but there was nothing sleepy about her set. An underrated vocal powerhouse, the Best New Artist Grammy-winning Cara often showed off her raspy range and soul, whether she was belting on her anti-conforming banger “Wild Things,” her subtly stunning new song “You Let Me Down” or her cover of the Neighbourhood’s “Sweater Weather.”
Saturday was a reunion of sorts for Cara, as she first played Life Is Beautiful in 2015. “This was the first festival I ever played, at least in the States, so it feels full circle to be back here,” she said. Cara continued to get sentimental as she spoke of feeling low during the pandemic. Launching into the emotional “Best Days” from her third album, Cara encouraged fans to hold up lighters or cell phone lights while home movies of her as a child played on the screens.
Cara further tapped into the moodiness in playing Coldplay’s “Fix You,” “How Far I’ll Go” of Disney’s Moana fame and then her Top 10 hit “Scars to Your Beautiful.” All. The. Feels. Cara, however, picked up the tempo in “Stay,” her final song, which featured the Blue Man Group joining her onstage and shooting confetti and colored toilet paper into the crowd. The fact that we’re now comfortable wasting toilet paper proves the pandemic is over.
JPEGMafia: Something in the Sound
During “Hazard Pay Day,” the second song of his set, JPEGMafia became one with the crowd, eschewing the stage and performing on the ground level. There, he noticed his sound wasn’t up to snuff. “What in the fuck is going on with my sound?,” the military vet asked. He then waited on stage for things for change. “Let me know when it’s fixed,” he said. “I’ll be right here.”
Soon after, the technical difficulties were fixed and his particular brand of experimental rap continued as he sang “Dirty!” But, the technical issues soon reared their head again when he sang a cover of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” a cappella. “It’s okay that the sound sounds like ass. I’m past that now. I’m okay with it in my heart,” he said. “If you can’t understand me, just look at me. I’m okay with that too.”
JPEGMafia was clearly annoyed but was a professional and powered through his set, singing “Rebound” with DATPIFFMAFIA, fan favorite “Baby I’m Bleeding” and “Does This Ski Mask Make Me Look Fat?” The sound seemed significantly better.”
Viral Vixen
Coi Leray leaned into her large TikTok following during her set, flashing multiple videos of her previous posts and singing songs that followers love her for. The rapper, who performed with DJ Jstackz, easily kept up with her four backup dancers while singing viral hits such as “Push Start,” her song with French Montana, and her new song “Fly Shit.” She ended her booming set on the Fremont Stage with the charming “Twinnem,” which went viral last year.
DJ Two-For-One
Kygo provided double the dance when he brought out Gryffin to perform their new song “Woke Up In Love.” Kygo manned the 1’s and 2’s while standing high on a raised scaffolding as fellow DJ Gryffin — who performed on the same stage an hour prior — ripped away at an electric guitar. The two-for-one was one of many highlights from their highly energetic set, which saw remixes to Tina Turner, White Stripes and Jefferson Airplane, as well as his charting hits such as “It Ain’t Me,” which features Selena Gomez.
Although it’s not uncommon for Kygo to play Vegas — he has a residency at Wynn — this festival show was special: The crowd’s energy was contagious, the songs were karaoke-esque and heat from the pyro could be felt all the way to the back of the open-air space. The set seemed to be divided into sections: the early part reeled in the casual EDM fans, and the latter part – which had deeper beats – was for the real house-heads.
Deep In The Country
Life Is Beautiful has gone country. The Western Country Club, an indoor venue within the footprint of the festival, was the home to country music. With guests line dancing on a wooden floor, Nashville up-and-coming artists Tanner Adell and Adam Warner brought the twang to this thang. The venue felt somewhat similar to Lower Broadway in Nashville, with plenty of beer being swilled and even more lyrics about beer being swilled. Fittingly, Warner performed a new song called “One Drunk.” On Sunday night, Tenille Arts — who had a The Bachelor cameo in 2018 and a top 10 hit in 2019 with “Somebody Like That” — rounds out the Western weekend.
A just-peachy show
Peach Tree Rascals, the Bay Area alternative collective best known for their TikTok-viral track “Mariposa,” had a challenging festival slot, playing one of the earlier shows of the evening as many attendees were still just starting to arrive at the festival grounds, not to mention they were playing directly facing the sun in 93-degree heat. “We’re hot as fuck right now,” Tarrek Abdel-Khaliq, one of the rascals says jovially just after finishing up their first song.
The boys would make the most of their 50 minutes, coasting through some lighthearted, vibey pop hip-hop jams like “Change My Mind” and “I’m Sorry”; the sound isn’t dissimilar to Brockhampton’s more mellow tracks. Starting with barely 30 people in the audience, by the end, they’d managed to draw a couple hundred enthusiastic festival-goers for the show. At one point, the crowd started chanting “Sweater Vest,” and Khaliq, who was wearing the garment, took it off and threw it into the crowd. Later, he’d run into the crowd to lead a birthday song for one of the audience members.
Of course, the band would finish with that aforementioned TikTok hit “Mariposa.” By then it was finally five degrees cooler.
