Frank Ocean will not play his second headline Coachella set for this weekend, due to criticism of the last performance and Blink-182 will take his spot.
Despite having not performed in any live event for over six years and having his fans yearning to see him sing, his live show ended poorly.
Frank Ocean’s first performance at Coachella seemed to have started going wrong when the show started an hour later than scheduled and saw some last-minute stage re-designing. The disappointment of fans was then sealed by Ocean’s lip-syncing and a reported leg injury.
His performance began nearly an hour after the set start time and ended about an hour later because of a curfew the city of Indio, California, and Coachella organizer Goldenvoice agreed to.
Some of the Pitfalls which marred his performance include:
- Choosing to lip-sync some of his songs without even a microphone in hand, taking long pauses in-between songs, sometimes sitting with his back to the crowd, and at certain points handing the show over to a DJ for a 10-minute interlude and to a piano-playing young boy whom Ocean said was a representation of his “inner child.”
- Being blocked out of view during his performance by onstage dancers, seated too far back on the stage, and sometimes not shown on the large video screens.
It was also reported that Ocean injured his ankle during rehearsals and decided not to use an onstage ice rink which was already set up, at the last minute. This led to delays as Coachella employees had to melt the already-prepared ice.
As a result of not using the ice rink, one hundred local hockey players who initially were to join Ocean in his performance were used as background dancers.
Ocean’s representatives told Variety that the singer dropped out of Coachella’s second weekend because of “two fractures and a sprain in his left leg,” and Blink-182 will take his headlining slot.
The statement further blamed Ocean’s injury for why he “was unable to perform the intended show” last weekend, with a personal note from Ocean stating there is “beauty in chaos,” adding “it isn’t what I intended to show but I did enjoy being out there and I’ll see you soon.”
Ocean took the stage as one of this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival headliners, three years after he was originally set. He was to perform at the 2020 festival, but the event was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown.
Fans were also disappointed when YouTube tweeted on Sunday that Ocean’s performance—unlike nearly every other performance at Coachella—would not be live-streamed.