The sun was out, the music was loud and the mood was high as BottleRock 2024 came to an epic conclusion on day 3.
Tors
Indie Pop/Folk band Tors came all the way from Exeter in the United Kingdom to get the JaM Cellars Stage started for the day. The three-man group is comprised of brothers Matt and Theo Weedon and Jack Bowden. Matt is the band’s lead vocalist while his brother Theo plays lead guitar and Jack Bowden is on the drums.
BottleRock was the group’s first festival performance in the United States. “Our first ever US festival and we were opening the main stage ahead of Ed Sheeran! It didn’t quite feel real,” the trio said.
Vocalist Matt Weedon prefaced the set by saying, “We’re just gonna play some songs and get real emotional with you.”
Matt brought his English charm to the stage with his jabs against drummer Jack Bowden’s love life between songs, and even poked a little fun at the sleepy early afternoon crowd. “You guys are so polite,” he said.
The crowd was quite unique for the band, “BottleRock definitely stands out as a special one. The whole atmosphere is very calm, it truly feels like everyone is there to have a good time.”
However, as more festival goers flocked to the stage, Matt gained their enthusiasm and participation when he changed one of their song’s titles, “Amsterdam,” to “BottleRock” so they could easily sing along. The audience then swayed in unison when the band played an emotional “Tell You.”
Matt also dedicated the song “Anything Can Happen” to fans with depression or anxiety. Then he dedicated “Never Give Up” to the parents out there.
In an interview through Instagram the band reflected on their BottleRock performance, “The cheer at the end of our MainStage set will always stay with us,” they said.
After their set the band enjoyed some of the other performances. “We got to watch Stephen Sanchez who blew us away, the inimitable Norah Jones, The Offspring (what an amazing throwback) and of course Ed Sheeran,” the trio said.
The band said they felt welcomed and that their experience was surreal and amazing. “We absolutely loved it, even if we were melting most of the time,” Tors said.
Colony House
Over at the Verizon stage, indie rock band Colony House immediately enthralled the small audience gathered with their high energy rock ‘n’ roll.
By the third song of their set, lead singer Caleb Chapman ventured into the growing crowd, singing while hugging and high-fiving fans while maintaining his stage aura, even returning a straw hat that was placed on his head.
Once Chapman returned to the stage, the Nashville-based band delved into several songs from their album “The Cannonballers” including “One of Those Days” and “Do You Ever Feel.” Near the end of their one-hour set, fans were singing along with the band to a rendition of Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habits.”
Finishing on a high note, the band played the fan favorite “You Know It” as Chapman threw his guitar into the air, skillfully catching it amidst a cascade of applause.
Action Bronson
Rapper, songwriter, chef, wrestler and television presenter Action Bronson did double duty on Sunday at BottleRock. He helped chef Andrew Zimmern put together a shawarma sandwich wrap inspired by Bronson’s Albanian heritage and less than an hour later he performed his set on the Verizon Stage.
Action Bronson hosts his cooking show, “F*ck, that’s Delicious,” on youtube where he travels around the world trying different foods and highlighting some of his favorite dishes with other famous rappers and chefs. His knowledge and expertise on food were on full display at the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage as he and chef Zimmern collaborated on their mouth-watering shawarma wrap.
Somewhat subverting expectations for fans who may have been expecting to see Action Bronson run through his biggest hits, the multi-talented artist was accompanied by a full band, a drummer, guitarist, bassist, keyboard and saxophone player and a bongo player. He played some slowed down versions of his songs, equipped with guitar and saxophone solos for Action to dance around the stage to.
He ended the set with his most well-known song, “Baby Blue,” and got the crowd to sing along for large parts of it. In both his appearances at the festival his positive energy was contagious and it was hard not to smile while he was up on stage.
Cannons
As Cannons arrived on the Verizon stage they transported the audience to a midnight lounge in 1980s Miami with Paul Davis’ electric keyboard and Ryan Clapham’s smooth guitar. The mid-afternoon sun may have warmed the crowd on the outside, but Michelle Joy’s smooth vocals warmed everyone’s soul. There was a cozy feeling that mimicked the bonfire blazing on the screen behind the band on set.
Joy then moved the audience to dance with the melodious tracks “Desire” and “Talk Talk.”
Then clouds of purple smoke could be seen emanating from the crowd as they grooved to the Reggae-esque “Purple Sun.”
Much to the audiences’ satisfaction, Cannons played “Fire for You” as the set finale, and left everyone walking away smiling.
Stephan Sanchez
Stephan Sanchez played a fan heart-breaking set on the JaM Cellars stage, and a more quaint showing on the JaMPad stage. He said he still feels honored and surprised to see so many fans appreciating his music when he plays at shows.
He wrote his biggest hit, “Until I Found You,” in his bedroom at 19, and never expected it to get over a billion streams online. He may have played his first song ever acapella on the JaMPad stage when the cord to his guitar malfunctioned.
The Offspring
For their BottleRock debut The Offspring started out hot on the Verizon stage with the song that put them on the map, “Come Out and Play,” and never slowed down.
They paid homage to road ragers everywhere with “Bad Habit,” with a break in the middle of the song so lead guitarist Noodles could announce a possible overestimation of the number of people in attendance at over a million. He also cited a Stanford study that claimed that people who swear are more intelligent than those who don’t, which prompted him to get the audience to repeat a repeated chorus of “Fuck yeah” for a few minutes.
Noodles wasn’t the only band member to get the crowd amped, as drummer Brandon Pertzborn finished “Gotta Get Away” with a frenzied solo to their delight.
Sunday Headliner Ed Sheeran made his BottleRock introduction as the guest star on set wearing a Smash album T-shirt while he sang and played guitar for his favorite song of The Offspring, “Million Miles Away.”
About halfway through the set BottleRock beach balls went flying through the crowd during “Why Don’t You Get a Job?.”
As an encore, the band played the ever pleasing “You’re Gonna Go Far Kid” and “Self Esteem,” the latter of which most of the crowd sang along to.
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran graced the JaMPad stage with his genre-blending, electrifying mix of vocals and instruments as he played some of his biggest hits to thousands of concert goers.
Starting off hot, Sheeran opened his set with his upbeat, hit song “Castle on the Hill.” Just a few strums in the enraptured crowd was bouncing around and cheering the performer on.
As Ed queued up his second song, a technical issue prevented the musician’s ability to play his keyboard. Sheeran took the issue in stride and pivoted to playing one of his largest acoustic hits “A Team.”
The singer managed to keep the crowd engaged with sing-alongs, flashlight sways and synchronized clapping throughout his set. His stage presence was upbeat, free and easy-going. Sheeran’s charisma had the chance to shine through as he connected with his large audience.
Ed told the audience to, “Sing as loud as you can, even if you don’t know the lyrics,” adding that it was his job to sound good. The audience happily complied, screaming lyrics to his song throughout the set.
About halfway through the set the singer performed some of his most streamed songs including “Thinking Out Loud,” “Bloodstream” and a 10 minute jam-style version of “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You.”
He finished the set with “Bad Habits”, a pop-rock song with fun lyrics and a beat perfect for jumping.
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age added plenty of rock flair to the Verizon stage with densely layered guitars and hard hitting drums to close BottleRock on a strong note.
Lead singer Josh Homme must’ve had a nice wine, cannabis and psilocybin mushroom cocktail coursing through his system as he sipped wine in between the multiple cigarettes he smoked during the set. He told fans to be more loving. “I am on mushrooms so I could love anyone right now,” he said.
The set amped up for nearly two hours and the intensity climbed with each song. This included an electrifying 2-minute long drum solo from drummer Jon Theodore. Theodore was completely drenched in sweat throughout most of the band’s performance.
They closed the performance with an epic finale of “Go with the Flow” followed by “A Song for the Dead,” two of their hardest hitting and more popular tracks. The combination of smoke and lighting made the band look surreal up on stage for the last few songs. They even faked out the audience by ending “Go with the Flow” and taking in the applause before jumping right back into the chorus.
The hard rock band certainly had one of if not the most full sounding set of the weekend. Their heavy focus on riffs helped create a wall of sound with Homme’s voice and guitar piercing through it to great effect.
