Pop icon Rina Sawayama took to the Honda Stage on Saturday, adorned in a gorgeous white flowy dress. She sang the first lyrics to her set opener “Hold The Girl”: “Reach inside and hold you close / I won’t leave you on your own / Teach me the words I used to know / Yeah, I forgot ‘em long ago / So hold the girl.”
Sawayama’s two back-up dancers eventually joined her on stage dressed in simple white tank tops and black pants. After Sawayama’s first three songs, the pair performed a short joint dance while Sawayama dashed backstage for a quick outfit change into blue jeans and a simple oversized white button-up.
When she returned, she launched into “Dynasty,” and the powerful rock chorus shook the stage: “I’m a dynasty / The pain in my veins is hereditary / Dynasty / Running in my bloodstream, my bloodstream.” Sawayama showed off her vocal chops with this performance, flawlessly hitting notes in her falsetto.
She kept the energy high by playing “Imagining,” a bubbly techno-pop track from her 2022 album Hold The Girl. The song’s quick tempo and danceable nature resulted in the crowd swaying from head to toe in celebration. The fans sang the song’s catchy, stuttering chorus right back to Sawayama on stage, while also enjoying an epic guitar solo.
Sawayama introduced her next song by saying, “ACL, I know this is a music festival, but I know you’ve got some anger inside of you,” before launching into her ultimate angry anthem “STFU!” She encapsulates the song’s hilarious juxtaposition between and angry and restrained with the chorus angrily and repeatedly chanting “Shut the fuck up” before going into the sugary-sweet delivery of “Have you ever thought about taping your big mouth shut? / ‘Cause I have many times, many times.” She then took the song in a hilarious direction, following it up with a shortened rendition of Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff.”
While transitioning from “Comme Des Garçons (Like The Boys)” to “XS,” Sawayama executed yet another outfit change, tearing away her jeans and white button-up to reveal a red latex bodysuit underneath, which garnered excited cheers from the crowd.
To close out her set, Sawayama played a call and response game with the crowd during “This Hell,” instructing one side to chant “Got my invitation to eternal damnation” while the other side responded with “Get in line, pass the wine, bitch, we’re going straight to Hell.” This element of crowd interaction set Sawayama apart as one of the most fun and interactive sets of the whole weekend.
