By 9 p.m, we’ve been baking under the SoCal sun all Saturday, and the heat has pushed us to a slightly hallucinatory point where thoughts blur into each other in disorienting leaps. I am a puddle of sweat, and my thoughts emerge in similar clumps of gloopy sludge. At one point, someone next to me says, “Oh my god, the moon looks super huge and orange right now!”
“Are you sure?” her companion responds. “I think you’re just looking at the hot air balloon.” She’s referring, of course, to the humongous balloon, stamped with a massive daisy on its side, that has been hovering over us like an omniscient Orange Presence all night.
I could see for myself, but somehow the prospect of getting up to do so feels too arduous; besides, I like the mystery of the balloon-moon. I’m sitting in the grass to stake out my spot ahead of what will eventually be a 45,000-strong crowd. To my right, I’m flanked by a forest of legs as festivalgoers urgently continue to carve out a path toward the stage. We’re all here, of course, for Olivia Rodrigo’s inaugural Daisy Chain Fields Festival, her female-forward music benefit supporting women’s causes. The stacked 14-artist lineup runs the gamut from today’s biggest pop stars (Chappell Roan, Doechii, Mitski) to legendary rock icons (Bikini Kill, Garbage, the Breeders) to on-the-rise newcomers (Eli, Quiet Light, last-minute addition Devon Again). All day, we’d been braving the heat, and even the artists felt it: Mitski and Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna both delivered PSAs to stay hydrated (Hanna herself took a big swig out of a water bottle adorned with a “FUCK ICE” sticker), Chappell Roan slyly winked that “this next song is very fitting” before launching into “HOT TO GO!”