Frank Ocean’s Lackluster Headlining Performance at Coachella Receives Backlash From Fans

R&B star Frank Ocean's highly anticipated headlining performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival proved to be a lackluster affair for fans and attendees. According to Variety, the In My Room singer, who had not performed live in nearly six years, was set to headline the North American fest in 2020 before the pandemic hit, and then again last year before he postponed it to 2023. However, his much anticipated live performance during the event was marred due to many reasons.

Ocean and his band delivered dramatically rearranged performances of many songs and even closed with a cover of Aaliyah’s At Your Best (You Are Love). But overall, the stage presence and energy was low; he and the band were obscured by a group of people walking in a circle around the stage; and the pacing was reportedly bizarre: a seemingly random DJ set was dropped into the middle, leading many fans to think his performance was over. For most fans, the headlining performance dissolved into a “disappointing” production.

According to Independent, fans were left “standing in the cold and waiting” for over an hour and a half. A viral TikTok video explained, “When it’s an hour past Frank’s performance time, people are starting to leave, and he is nowhere to be found,” along with a clip of the desert festival crowd waiting in the darkness. The video listed additional grievances with the Lost singer’s set, including “long weird and silent pauses,” obstructed views of the stage, and around “six total songs of his original music.”

“Conclusion: people travelled such far distance to see him and people had high expectations,” the TikTok user wrote. “And we all got really disappointed. The whole production was just... lacking and he was really not bringing much to that performance.”

In the aftermath of the bleak show at Coachella and the subsequent backlash from fans, the music-festival-centric Twitter site, the Festive Owl offered a plausible basic explanation. "The stage production was suppose[d] to (and did) contain an ice rink that was constructed and ready to go. Frank decided at the last minute that he no longer wanted it at all."

The page also gave an explanation for the people blocking the view on the stage. "All of the people walking around him at the start of the performance were actually ice skaters, had been practicing for weeks, and were supposed to be skating as part of the production. Coachella had to deconstruct the approved stage (that had been planned and signed off on for months in advance) + melt the entire ice rink and then set it up how Frank decided today with no warning. Which is what you ended up seeing, and caused the hour-long delay. This all happened when doors had already open[ed] for Sunday, and people were securing their spots to see him. If the last-minute changes weren’t made he wouldn’t have performed at all — leaving the festival without a closing headliner." 

As reported by Rolling Stone, Ocean's headlining performance at Coachella went into last-minute changes due to a serious ankle injury, and his stage show “was adjusted at the last minute to account for an ankle injury the singer sustained during on-site rehearsals in the week leading up to the festival." TMZ too reported that the injury “was serious enough for doctors to advise Frank’s production be changed.”