Music Festival “All Things Go” Lived Up To Its “Gaychella” Nickname
(Photo by Nina Westervelt/Variety via Getty Images)
The multi-city music festival “All Things Go” was lovingly dubbed “Gaychella” when it first announced that its lineup would include gay icons such as Reneé Rapp, Janelle Monáe, Chappell Roan, Julien Baker, MUNA, Ethel Cain, Remi Wolf, Maren Morris, Towa Bird, and Allison Ponthier, and probably more! And it has truly lived up to that nickname. All Things Go made headlines last week when Chappell Roan announced that she had to drop out of the festival, sparking an online debate about something that should not be debated about, and that’s whether “mental health reasons” is a good enough excuse to cancel a concert. (Some people were online proving Chappell’s points about fan entitlement with their whole chests. But that’s a story for another day.)
All Things Go didn’t let that take the wind out of its sails though, and it went on to be an extremely gay weekend. Janelle Monáe came out in a very colorful flower ensemble (which honestly is appropriate since everyone should be giving them literal and metaphorical flowers constantly), tearing down the house as one of the headliners of the festival. Julien Baker celebrated her birthday on stage, performing new arrangements of her old solo songs.
I feel like I haven’t seen or heard too much about Reneé Rapp since the Mean Girls press tour died down, with the exception of an occasional video from a concert popping up on my FYP, but the hype came back with a vengeance after this specific performance, where she did a “come hither” move that made all the gays scream, and kissed her girlfriend Towa Bird on stage.
And even though Chappell Roan couldn’t make it, her fans (the real ones, the ones that would never get mad their favorite singer is taking care of themselves) made the best of it when drag queens came out to perform her songs and the whole crowd sang at the top of their lungs about it. MUNA also performed a cover of her hit “Good Luck, Babe.”
All in all it seemed like a big gay time, and I hope everyone who went had a blast despite the occasional rainfall. I know I’m enjoying living vicariously through TikTok.
Encore! More Gay Pop Culture News:
+ Rebel Wilson got gay married to Ramona Agruma in Italy, where they took their first vacation together once upon a time
+ Tegan and Sara dropped a trailer for their documentary Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara about the time a “fan” went too far
+ Love Lies Bleeding‘s Katy O’Brien will join Sydney Sweeney in her Christy Martin movie
+ Katy O’Brien will also join Madison Bailey and Madelaine Petsch in a romcom called Maintenance Required
+ Moana 2 released a new official trailer featuring more of Auli’i Cravalho’s lovely voice
+ Black Cake is the latest victim of the “cancelled after one season” curse
+ Billie Eilish dropped a music video for Birds of a Feather
+ The Last of Us released a teaser so now even if you haven’t played the game you know that this upcoming season is about to be emotionally brutal
+ In the docuseries In Vogue: The 90s. Jenny Shimizu opens up about her past relationship with Madonna
+ Angelina Jolie is weird and wonderful in the trailer for the upcoming biopic of opera singer Maria Callas (aptly called “Maria”)
+ People have mixed feelings about the Moo Deng/Chappell Roan SNL sketch
+ And I’ll leave you with one last trailer: Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, and Karla Sofía Gascón in Emilia Perez
I’m not necessarily certain the opinions of fans are what actually matters most when it comes to Chappell Roan cancelling concerts.
Sure, fans can have their positive or negative feelings about her cancelling concerts, and they can choose whether they want to risk purchasing any future tickets to any future shows, and we can have all the discourse about the mental health of performers and what they owe or don’t owe their fans. We could also discuss whether Chappell Roan is going to be able to grow her fanbase, and the impact cancelling shows might have on her ability to do that successfully.
But I think the real kicker that will determine whether Chappell Roan maintains her momentum and garners a true place for herself as a lasting A-list performer is whether the venues will be willing to continue accommodating her. Ultimately, if venues decide she’s too much of a flight risk to their profits and close their doors to her, it won’t matter what her fans think or how they feel, because she won’t have any performances left to cancel.
I hope she reaches a happy medium where she can be in good mental health to enjoy her art at a sustainable pace while still upholding her professional commitments.
Very well said! I’ve been interested watching in real time as everybody in the whole world has been weighing in if it was ethical or not for her to cancel the show and so many feelings about how we work through mental health struggles as well. She has gotten so famous, so quickly, it must be such a trip for her in the head. I have a few friends who had tickets for ATG, they still had a great time, one of them pointed out from their far-back seats, they still got the experience of celebrating Chappell with other fans even if she wasn’t the dot on the stage that they could see, it was a drag queen instead.
So much has changed with how art is made, how now musicians can’t make money from selling their songs and albums, and are forced to tour all the time instead. It must be so hard on the mind and body. So many artists have crushed under that pressure. There’s a part of every music documentary where the artist is talking about how they were exhausted, depressed, addicted to drugs or alcohol, physically injured, still forcing themselves to go on stage and perform. Of course, they’re not alone, many of us have to “perform” in our jobs when we aren’t feeling like we can.
I too hope she gets the rest and help she needs and finds a tour schedule she is able to keep to, no matter what.
Yeah I think she was probably feeling pressured to say yes to all of these engagements to keep her momentum, and it got to be too much too fast. Hopefully now that she realizes she hit a breaking point, she can pull back and, like you said, commit to a schedule that feels more sustainable to her.
I don’t know about the synopsis of “Maintenance Required”. That sounds REALLY misogynistic.
IMHO there’s a massive difference between your average person needing accommodations for mental health and a young person dealing with bipolar disorder and maybe not having their meds fully sorted out yet. Asking a bipolar person in a depressive state to be able to turn back on the energy of being in a manic state at will is like asking for a miracle. Maybe a concert career just is not sustainable for her. I’d rather she transition to songwriting or albums and videos only than self-medicate herself into an early grave.
oh, i didn’t know she was bipolar. definitely can see how a schedule like hers would be so brutal in that case. we have seen what happened to brittney spears
Completely agree. I won’t cast myself as the number one expert on bipolar disorder, but as someone who has dated a bipolar person and had bipolar friends, I have noticed a tendency for bipolar folks to overpromise and over extend in manic states and then underdeliver and burn out in depressive states, which could possibly be the case here with Chappell Roan.
Fwiw, she’s apparently seeing a therapist twice a week, so there are people in her life looking out for her mental health on a regular basis.
I don’t think she’ll ever give up performing–she’s said that’s an element of music that she really does adore–but yeah, the tempo at which she’s been doing concerts clearly isn’t sustainable.
Wait, I thought Auli’i Cravalho wanted to let someone new play her role in Moana 2? Or maybe there was a live action version I’m thinking of instead?
it was the live action!