Review: Yacht Club festival kicks off second year with energetic Friday lineup
On a relatively cool Friday afternoon, Harriet Island Regional Park felt bustling as soon as the festival gates opened at 12:30 and became even more electric as tens of thousands of people filled the park throughout the afternoon. (Official attendance numbers were not made available but, in the lead-up to the festival, organizers anticipated daily attendance at about 35,000.)
The 2024 festival drew about 70,000 people to Harriet Island and, despite snags like pre-festival park floods and one band's last-minute cancellation, was well-received by both critics and fans. For this year, the festival is expanded from two to three days and features headliners including Hozier, Green Day, Fall Out Boy, Weezer and one of the first scheduled performances from Alabama Shakes since 2017. C3 Presents, the company that runs the Yacht Club as well as other festivals like Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, has also added additional concession stands and amenities to alleviate lines.
As of Friday, most three-day ticket packages and single-day tickets for Friday and Sunday were sold out. This translates to millions of dollars in economic impact for the city of St. Paul, according to Visit Saint Paul spokesperson Chelsea Fey, who said many downtown hotels are nearly sold out for the weekend.
And despite some frustration caused by all of St. Paul's Green Line light rail stations going offline for Metro Transit construction during the festival, transportation to the festival was fairly smooth, many attendees said. Most interviewed Friday said they chose to either drive — and park downtown or nearby on the West Side — or take rideshares like Uber or Lyft, despite some complaints from attendees last year about high prices or long wait times for post-festival rides.
'It sucks that the Green Line wasn't running,' said Alex Calametti, attending the festival with two family members. 'It would've been a lot easier to not have to pay for parking.'
Other festival-goers arrived by more creative means: Bill May of St. Paul and Lindsey Den Bleyker of Colorado both docked at the nearby St. Paul Yacht Club marina by boat from Inver Grove Heights.
This year's festival schedule — which also uplifts local artists in addition to national headliners — feels more wide-ranging in both genre and fanbase age than last year's 1990s-nostalgia-heavy lineup, and on Friday, attendees seemed to love every minute of it.
Local opening acts Maygen & The Birdwatcher and Mike Kota each drew solid crowds of several hundred fans apiece. Performing solo, Hamilton Leithauser of 2000s indie band The Walkmen had a bit more of a low-key stage presence, vacillating between a fun, crowd-pleasing gritty rock sound and a Bob Dylan pastiche that was, let's say, less effective. But up next across the park, Florida indie folk-rockers The 502s kicked the whole day's energy up a notch with bluegrassy hits like 'Hey Julia' and 'Just A Little While.' Saxophonist Joe Capati's red-in-the-face solos were a highlight of the whole day.
Festival organizers run a tight schedule: Not more than one minute after the crowd broke into applause for The 502s, fellow Florida-raised singer-songwriter Gigi Perez walked onto the festival's other stage with her powerful, deep vocals that initially gained her TikTok fame in 2021.
Late in the afternoon, first headliner Sheryl Crow delivered — no surprise — an incredibly solid performance of favorites like 'If It Makes You Happy' and 'Everyday Is A Winding Road,' as well as the live debut of a new song just released Friday, 'The New Normal.' It was clear that plenty of people arrived specifically in time to see Crow. And despite the more mellow sound of the next headliner, Father John Misty, he managed to keep the energy going; his classic dapper suit didn't hurt, either.
But the real treat of the night came next, when Alabama Shakes reunited onstage for one of its first performances since 2017; the band went on hiatus in 2018 so its members, particularly frontwoman Brittany Howard, could pursue solo careers. Howard and her bandmates stepped onstage Friday to the day's most raucous applause thus far — and boy, was it warranted. Returning to the old Alabama Shakes catalog on Friday with tracks like 'Don't Wanna Fight' and 'Sound and Color,' Howard's powerful voice was by turns gravelly and soulful and maybe even angelic.
'I tell you what, it's felt good playing these songs,' Howard said from the stage.
It felt good to hear them again, too.
Up next are the final two headliners of the evening: 2000s rockers Train and Irish singer-songwriter-bard Hozier.
This article will be updated.
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