Coachella has been one of the pioneer festivals when it comes to streaming its performances online but at the end of weekend one, fans were aghast to learn that one of the most anticipated sets wouldn’t be available on the festival’s YouTube live stream, just hours before the headlining set began.
Frank Ocean hasn’t performed live in… well, probably half a decade, outside of a few sporadic DJ sets. Fans were naturally psyched up to see him hit the stage in Indio, but then, it was announced by the YouTube Twitter account that “Frank Ocean is not scheduled to appear on the Coachella live stream” and unsurprisingly, all hell broke loose.
When is frank ocean gonna stop the anonymous game, you’re not underground artist. we all know what you look and smell like and know your favorite color
— NATE (@NATERERUN) April 17, 2023
It makes sense that fans would be … shall we say “a bit out of sorts” over the news. The last time the elusive artist performed at the festival was in 2012, when he was accompanied onstage by BadBadNotGood as his backing band and performed such standouts from his catalog as “Novacane” and “Swim Good” from his breakout mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra before his critically-acclaimed debut album Channel Orange had hit the shelves.
Since then, he’s only released one other album, 2016’s equally warmly received Blonde, as well as the visual project Endless. There has been some speculation that he would be performing new songs from a rumored follow-up to Blonde or singing Nostalgia, Ultra in its entirety before releasing it on streaming, but even if neither were true, it’d be his first chance to perform either of his studio albums at Coachella — and many fans’ first chance to see him play, since his original headlining set was canceled in 2020 and he rarely performs live.
Now, it seems that those fans who weren’t able to make it to the festival in person will be feeling even more FOMO. This one just about sums up the general feeling on Twitter:
