“I’m here to prove I can ruin any genre,” said Conan O’Brien from the Fort Stage with an electric guitar strapped across his chest. The television host and comedian from Brookline closed out in 2024 Newport Folk Festival on an overcast, rainy Sunday night, July 28, at Fort Adams State Park. It was a strange, but comforting end to a long weekend of healing music.
This year marked the 65th anniversary of the three-day event, which kicked off on Friday, July 26. Music lovers of all ages parked their lawn chairs, stretched out picnic blankets and basked in the sun while listening to their favorite artists.
The Rhode Island locale boasts views of Newport Harbor and the East Passage of Narragansett Bay — sounds pretty ideal, right? Well, my experience didn’t begin that way. I left Tiverton on Friday at 9 am and didn’t cross the threshold into the festival — a mere 12 miles away — until nearly noon. The last mile and a half to the grounds were jam-packed with cars and bikes as we were all led through winding roads to the makeshift, grass-field parking lots. (By 1 pm on Friday, WBUR’s Solon Kelleher counted over 1,100 bikes parked on the racks at the festival entrance.)
After being ushered to a spot and taking a shuttle to the festival gates, I anxiously took my place in the large throng of people lining up to enter. The festival didn’t have a press entrance. I wouldn’t normally be above waiting with everyone else, but I was used to Boston Calling where I could roll up to the press entrance and get inside in a few minutes. At Newport, the process took so long that I was forced to plead with a volunteer to let me into the express lane so I didn’t miss a crucial set. (The process quickened over the next couple of days as staff and volunteers figured out more efficient line processes.)
I made it just in time to secure a spot just to the left of the stage for 25-year-old British singer-songwriter Billie Marten playing her first-ever Newport set. Onstage, she announced that she just finished working on a new record in New York. She played “Clover,” a song off the album about “not being made to feel intimidated by older men,” she told me after her set. She said this new album was “life-changing” for her and would be very sonically different from her other work by ella, like her most recent album “Drop Cherries” (2023).
Marten played acoustic guitar, with Katie Martucci on bass and backup vocals and Andrew Maguire on percussion. She lightly swayed to the music, engaged in intoxicating vocal runs and a soft vibrato on “God Above.” Marten also performed his new song “Swing.” “It’s a very silly song with nonsense lyrics, so you could sing along, and it still works,” she said as the audience laughed. Her last song by ella “I Ca n’t Get My Head Around You” was met with a scream from a woman in the back who shouted, “This is How We Move,” the name of one of Marten’s songs by her . I had to break it to Marten after her set from her that the excitement, while well-intended, was for the wrong track.
As temperatures climbed to 83 degrees, Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Russell took the stage. The musician first played a solo set at Newport in 2021 and won her first Grammy this year for Best American Roots Performance. Russell has been opening for headliner Hozier’s “Unreal Unearth Tour” this year. She described herself as a “hopeful agnostic,” discussing her dreams for everyone being together and equal. “Love is an action, and it never dies, but it requires courage,” she declared onstage. Russell sang “Eve Was Black,” a song about racism and intersectionality, soulfully crying out and bouncing with her guitar.
Indie-pop trio MUNA tailored their setlist to the Newport audience, opting for more folk-leaning songs and arrangements. They played their NPR Tiny Desk Concert stripped-down version of “Stayaway” with three-part harmonies that gave me chills. MUNA is clear about their political viewpoints on their platforms, stating “Free Palestine,” which was met with cheers and clapping, before ending the set with their flirty single “Silk Chiffon.”
The following day, Gavin played unreleased solo music from his upcoming album “What a Relief” on the Bike Stage, which is powered entirely by solar panels and audience members biking off to the side. She quipped that for her set, it should be called the “Dykes on Bikes Stage.” My favorite song she performed was “Inconsolable,” a patient number about healing from not knowing how to express love.
Irish singer-songwriter Hozier created a religious experience on the Fort Stage, playing his ode to young love “Jackie and Wilson” and the flutteringly romantic “Cherry Wine.” A concerningly large swarm of dragonflies He entered the park earlier in the afternoon, and Hozier joked that he brought them with him. He added that it was a condition that he be surrounded by an “overwhelming amount of insects.” The artist also called for a ceasefire in Gaza and a free Palestine and asked audience members to reach out to their representatives if they felt inclined. As the sun set on night one, he played “Francesca,” a song inspired by Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno” and the story of a woman who was damned to hell for following her heart but says she would do it again.
On Saturday, alternative-indie project Tropical Queen took the stage and was a standout at the festival. The project’s music integrates Congolese, Peruvian and Colombian styles with electronic manipulation. The performance began with the establishment of a reggaeton beat, with bass, guitar and percussion added. Fabi Reyna sang with deep passion, her face scrunched up as she rolled her hips. She heard a festival-goer say that her music was n’t folk and ella told the audience, “This is the most folk music you’ll hear today. This African Indigenous sound is the most folk thing you will ever hear. The movement of turning grief into dance is the most folk thing you will ever hear.” Her collaborator Nectali “Sumohair” Díaz passed away two years ago and Reyna fuels her music with that grief and diasporic pain. This suffering turns into something beautiful and powerful on her latest album “Malegría” where she reflects on these feelings and dances instead of wallows.
Madison Cunningham and Andrew Bird took the Fort Stage on Sunday to perform their version of “Buckingham Nicks,” the 1973 studio album by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The duo has already recorded a studio version of the album but has yet to announce a release date. Bird explained that they created a “radical retake” on the album, shifting the songs from more confrontational solos to a duet format. In a later cover workshop at the Foundation Stage, Cunningham said, “Sometimes it’s difficult to rewrite a song because with these, we had to keep the bones intact and try to rebuild the house which was really challenging.”
After an energizing performance by Quincy’s own Dropkick Murphys, Conan O’Brien & Real Musicians bounded onstage. “It is an honor to be here at the Newport Folk Festival. I am folk music legend Conan O’Brien,” the comedian joked. “Old timers are real pissed right now.” He was joined by rock band Dawes and music director for late night show “Conan” Jimmy Vivino at the start of the performance, and later welcomed Langhorne Slim, Nick Lowe, Brittany Howard, Nathaniel Rateliff, Mavis Staples and Jack White.
As if this festival even warranted puppets, O’Brien also brought out Triumph the Insult Comedy Dog, a character created by Robert Smigel. Triumph’s microphone cut in and out, but managed to capture, “Usually you have to go to a Coldplay concert to see these many white people.” O’Brien ducked in and out every other song, letting seasoned musicians take the lead and then playing his heart out on an electric guitar and offering surprisingly not bad vocals. Staples’ rendition of The Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There” was beautifully moving. She said her family had been taking us there for over 70 years, and now it was the audience’s turn.
I loved Newport Folk Festival — the thousands of people of all ages lounging and dancing to music, artists overwhelmingly grateful to be playing their music, small businesses selling their creations and volunteers happily greeting new audience members and people they have gotten to know over the years . The festival was more laid back than Boston Calling. There was much less pushing and overcrowding. If organizers develop a better system for cars and people entering and exiting, this festival will be nearly perfect.
Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated the name of Billie Marten’s 2023 album. We regret the mistake.
