BottleRock Napa Valley returned to its normal U.S. Memorial Day weekend setting for the first time since 2018. It’s the first time we’ve been back since then. The festival returned from hiatus in September 2021, but the land border between Canada band the U.S. was still closed at the time and flying was cost restrictive due to COVID test requirements. It was great to be back in California for the 9th edition of the festival.
The long drive from Los Angeles and traffic congestion brought us to Napa at around 5pm which meant missing missing some notable acts like Spoon. I arrived at the venue just before media check-in was going to close for the day.
Weather on day one was mild. There was some cloud cover in the early evening and a cool breeze that actually meant wearing a hoodie. Saturday and Sunday are forecast to be warmer.
Greta Van Fleet and CHVRCHES performed at nearly the same time on the JaM Cellars and Verizon stages respectively which made for a very difficult choice on who to see. I picked CHVCHES, but in hindsight could have covered both as media photographers who went to Greta Van Fleet all ended up escorted to CHVRCHES afterward only missing half of the first song.
CHVRCHES frontwoman Lauren Mayberry after that first song shared with the audience a story about how before taking the stage her stockings had something on them, but when they tried to wipe it off, they realized the towel they used had some fake blood from a prior show. Their team had to scramble to find new stockings.
Skip Marley performed on the third stage at 6:45. As one of Bob Marley’s grandsons, he’s one of two of the Marley bloodline to bring some reggae to BottleRock this year. Julian Marley is also performing with The Wailers this weekened.
FLETCHER performed on the Truly stage. Her set unfortunately started 25 minutes late due to a technical problems. Since her set was the last live act on the stage before the nightly silent disco, she was able to perform her full set. FLETCHER and her fans seemed to take the delay in stride.
Metallica headlined day 1. It was the first time the band has ever performed at the festival. Before the Metallica took the stage, AC/DC’s ‘It’s a Long Way to The Top’ was played over the speakers followed by a video clip from a western film. Early on in the set, James Hetfield acknowledged that they’ve been at it for 41 years and thanked their fans for their support and listening to their music for all these years. The video production included a zipline camera showing a cool perspective of Lars Ulrich at his drum kit, video effects were also overlaid on camera shots and of course there was pyro during the show. The band had smiles throughout the show.
Saturday and Sunday feature twenty one pilots and P!nk headlining the festival.
