Zara Larsson and Adéla Turned Up the Sexy Vibe at Portola on Sunday
For five years, San Francisco’s Portola Festival has merged the Bay Area’s electronic music scene with sounds from all over the world. On Sunday, from Adéla’s Central European indie sleaze and Zara Larsson’s Barbie world of sparkly bright colors to Kelela’s world of sexy, electronic R&B, it all came together in one place.
In a long lineage of pop stars, Adéla, the 22 year-old singer from Slovakia, is planting her flag. Fresh off the release of her debut album PRIMA, she had people rushing to her set. With long pink hair and pink ballet barre to match, Adéla opened the set with her song “KGB,” a tale of spending childhood nights staying up late to learn English from watching TV. By the second song, “Go,” the pink wigs once on fans’ heads were flying through the sky.
Performing on the smaller Crane Stage, Adéla got personal for “Ain’t in LA,” inspired by her mother, who once had aspirations of being a pop star. “My mom is the baddest bitch I know, and she never got to make her dreams come true,” she said from the stage. While performing, she put on a black and pink baseball cap and contorted her body into the shape of an S.
“She wants it so bad!” was heard in the crowd as Adéla launched into “Nicole Kidman,” her single currently flying up the Billboard charts with more than 1.5 million uses on TikTok. “Every single night, I pray that my tits are sitting right,” she sang as she showed off her body to match her lyrics. With a beat tailor-made for southern rap in the hands of a Slovakian pop princess, it made for a captivating moment.
Zara Larsson dominated the main stage
The fog may have covered the San Francisco sky, but Zara Larsson brought her neverending midnight sun. Zara and her dancers coordinated in bright pastel colors while the background conjured her own Barbie dreamland, full of fast cars, short skirts and high heels.
During “Hot and Sexy,” Larsson incorporated the Teriyaki Boyz’ “Tokyo Drift” while she sang “PUSSPUSS97 on the number plate.” On its surface, “Hot & Sexy” celebrates women for being beautiful and desirable, but as Zara closed the song, she also expressed the realities of women who walk through the world feeling preyed upon. She posed the question: “Can I just be a girl?”
Larsson performed all the hits: “Midnight Sun,” “She Did it Again” with Tyla, her verse from “Stateside” with PinkPantheress and her iconic dance break to Sexyy Red’s “Looking For the Hoes” in the middle of “It Ain’t My Fault.” In her music and performance, the influences of R&B, hip-hop dance and, of course, pop music are very prevalent.
Her Swedish background is always in the forefront as well. “Puss Puss,” the closing song on her Midnight Sun album, is Swedish for “kiss kiss,” but at Portola, she had a goodnight-kiss surprise to end the set: she brought out Robyn, the iconic Swedish pop star who performed on the same stage Saturday, for a duet of “Talk to Me, Zara.”
Under a full moon, Kelela did it all
In the Ship Tent, Washington D.C. native Kelela packed power into her 45-minute set. Touring for her new album, New Avatar, Kelela brought electronic and R&B sounds to the stage in grey leather pants, a black leather jacket, and dark sunglasses, turning it into The Matrix. Classic Kelela songs like 2015’s “Rewind” were stripped of their traditional electronic production and played with live guitar and drums, and newer ones like “Contact” were sung over Aaliyah’s “One In A Million” beat.
“There’s a lot of compartmentalizing of music, but tonight we’re doing all that shit,” she said, bridging the gaps between R&B music and electronic music.
The full moon illuminated the sky, the disco balls continued to spin and the light flashed behind her as she covered Sade’s “No Ordinary Love,” captivating the audience with her airy voice. But the mood didn’t last long. “Y’all ready to rave?” she asked a cheering crowd, and played “linknb,” making the entire crowd move their feet.
More photos below.
