Boston Calling 2019 – Saturday

The second day of May’s annual Boston Calling Music Festival went down at the Harvard Athletic Complex with Tame Impala, Hozier, Anderson .Paak and more. 

I didn’t make the opening Friday of Boston Calling this year, but by most accounts Saturday was where the real action began.

My day kicked off on the right note with a fiery set from former hometown heroes Pile, which saw frontman Rick Maguire taking it to the crowd and the band performing in daylight for what I could conceive of being the first time ever. Elsewhere, White Reaper delivered the garage-punk fun, and U.K. post-punk upstarts Shame put on perhaps the set of the day, led by singer Charlie Steen’s irrepressible sneer.

Clairo had her main stage crowd swooning, while Denzel Curry kept his Blue Stage one moving, before Big Red Machine (Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and The National’s Aaron Dessner) seemed to satisfy theirs by doing just the opposite.

Anderson .Paak and his Free Nationals went big on spectacle, with flamethrowers, technicolor video screens and a high-flying drumkit, though the real highlight of their set wound up being a vocoder reworking of Ginuwine’s “Pony” to play in a not-so-surprise appearance by “Old Town Road” hitmaker Lil Nas X. (It’s a great song, fun was had [by me])

Hozier’s broad Irish charm and Odesza’s colorful-if-monotonous EDM barrage led into a strong headlining set by Tame Impala, who have settled nicely into their role as mellow festival closer with enough hits, confetti and psychedelic light freakouts to thrill nonetheless.

Check out photos from the whole day below.