This post was written by Hatchet staff writer Everly Jazi.
Hipsters in flower crowns and crop tops swarmed Merriweather Post Pavilion for the Sweetlife Festival on Saturday.
This year, synthpop bands like Bastille and Capital Cities played on the same stages as dreamy singer Lana Del Rey and hip-hop artist 2 Chainz.
The crowd was itching for Del Rey to start. Songs from her first two albums played over the speakers between sets on the main stage as the pavilion waited for Del Rey to appear for her first-ever Sweetlife performance.
She started a few minutes late, and the set was marked by hiccups after that, with Del Rey pausing between songs to say “turn down the band” so the crowd could hear her voice.
“I need something to help me sing this one,” she said on stage, and a crew member came out to hand her a cigarette. Del Rey slipped it between her fingers and lit it up in the no-smoking venue to the sound of cheers from the audience.
She stopped between popular songs like “Summertime Sadness,” taking selfies with the front row and exchanging kisses with a few dedicated fans.
Earlier in the afternoon, Dan Smith, lead singer of the popular English rock band Bastille, also connected with the crowd, putting up his gray hood and wandering through the audience.
Fitz and the Tantrums, a band that played at the festival last year, did its part to get the audience dancing.
With a swing cover of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” teenagers sitting on blankets on the lawn shot up, singing along to the lyrics. Multi-talented James King played saxophone throughout the set, incorporating the “Talk Dirty to Me” melody into one solo.
After the strictly-Del Rey fans left, the Foster the People crowd came together for the last set of the night, copying Mark Foster’s signature shoulder bopping dance.
The on-and-off drizzle that had persisted throughout the day turned into a downpour in the middle of the set, which forced people to run off the lawn to find jackets and ponchos.
Fans still grooved to “Don’t Stop (Colors on the Walls),” even more than they did during the night’s performance of perhaps the more popular “Pumped Up Kicks.”
