Sky Ferreira’s Got Star Power, For Real This Time

Sky Ferreira’s Got Star Power, For Real This Time

The last time I saw Sky Ferreira perform was back in 2013, when she released Night Time, My Time and was enduring a grating media shitstorm. Ferreira was getting picked apart, every bit of her past unearthed and written about, her legal drama and label drama ballooned out to the point that it was impossible to listen to that album without hearing its subtext. Back then, Ferreira looked anxious on-stage, unsure of whether or not she deserved to be on it. There were few smiles, sunglasses and smirks, and a lot of looking down. That was her schtick back then, and it worked, but seeing her look happy and stoked to be performing on a festival stage for the first time in a long time was a highlight of the weekend for me. Ferreira was straight-up grinning, and I don’t mean to make a big deal of that in a smirking, “smile, baby” cat-call kind of way. It’s just nice to see someone who made an unmistakably kick-ass pop record actually behave like a kick-ass pop-star. She performed her newest song “Guardian” (which is fucking great), and tossed a broken drumstick out into the audience during “Omanko.” In his top-to-toe Adidas tracksuit, Johnny Danger was straight-up dancing behind the keyboards, giving encouraging nods to Ferreira and the rest of the band, and generally making it look like everyone was having a really fucking good time performing. The last song they played was “Everything Is Embarrassing,” the Dev Hynes-produced single that drew so many people to Ferreira back in 2013. She looked out at the front row and asked a girl what her name was. Ferreira strained forward but couldn’t hear a response, so she just pointed at her and said, “This one’s for you.”