Frank Ocean's Coachella set cut short after debuting reworked tracks

On Sunday night, Frank Ocean took to the Coachella stage where he performed a set of his classics which he reworked for the California festival before it was cut short due to a curfew.

Donning a hooded blue jacket, Ocean opened his set with stripped-back versions of ‘Novacane,’ ‘Come on World, You Can’t Go!,’ ‘Crack Rock,’ and ‘Bad Religion,’ before transitioning into a reworked version of ‘White Ferrari’ dominated by modular-synthesisers.

Finishing ‘White Ferrari’, Ocean addressed the crowd for the first time, paying tribute to his late brother, Ryan Breaux, and dropping hints at a new album underway, “Who’s on drugs tonight, who’s high right now?” Ocean began.

“It’s been so long. Everybody I’ve talked to has said how long it’s been, so long, so long... but I have missed you. I want to talk about why I’m here, because it’s not because of the new album. Not that there’s not a new album, but there’s not right now. It’s not right now.”

Continuing, the 35-year-old artist said, These last couple years my life changed so much. My brother and I, we came to this festival a lot. I feel like I was dragged here so much of the time. I hated the dust; I always dealt with a respiratory infection.”

He recalled dancing in one of the tents, watching hip-hop duo Rae Sremmurd with his brother. “I know he would’ve been so excited to be here with all of us. I wanted to say thank you for the support and the ears and the love for all this time. I’m gonna get back to the songs.”

The rapper then played an acoustic rendition of ‘Pink + White,’ followed by a heavy-bass arrangement of ‘Solo.’ ‘Chanel’ came next, followed by what Ocean dubbed a “rave mix” from DJ Crystalmess, which included club remixes of the 35-year-old’s tracks and snippets of Underworld’s 'Born Slippy' and Ice Spice’s 'Actin a Smoochie.'

Throughout his performance, Ocean strayed from the mic, dancing or pacing on stage as pre-recorded vocals of his played. A ‘punkifed’ version of ‘Wiseman’ came next, followed by a rendition of Willie Nelson’s ‘Night Life’, ‘Self-control’, ‘Nikes’ and ‘Nights.’

Featured on Endless, Ocean’s cover of the Isley Brothers’ ‘(At Your Best) You Are Love,’ was then performed by the rapper, whereby the show abruptly ended.

“Guys I’m being told it’s curfew, so that’s the end of the show,” Ocean said. “Thank you so much.”

The festival’s curfew for Sunday is midnight Pacific time, with Frank’s set ending 20 minutes after.

Unfortunately for fans not present at the festival, Frank Ocean’s performance was not streamed on Coachella’s official YouTube channel. However, other unofficial live streams from attendees’ accounts racked up tens of thousands of views via Instagram and TikTok.

Frank’s performance at this year’s Coachella fulfilled his 2020 booking which was scrapped that year due to the pandemic. Although there has been no follow-up to 2016’s Blonde and Endless, he has released a handful of singles since then, including, ‘DHL’ and ‘In My Room’ in 2019 and the following year’s ‘Dear April.’