The final day of Hangout started out the same as the first – with a weather evacuation. Only a few songs into Flipturn’s opening set on the Hangout Stage, the LED walls went red and a voice came over the speakers asking all attendees to seek shelter in their cars. After about an hour, they allowed attendees back in, despite the fact it was still raining. It continued to rain for almost two hours after the gates reopened before stopping, and for a while, the overcast skies kept the temperature pleasant. Once the sun went down the sky opened back up again and absolutely monsooned during the headlining sets. The BLANK team joked that we would have been drier if we jumped in the ocean. This review will be shorter than days one and two due to a lot of the early-day acts being unable to perform.
Flipturn
Although their set was cut short, Flipturn made a mark on the early crowd. They were probably the smallest band of the festival to play the main Hangout Stage, but you couldn’t tell. Their energy and stage presence was some of the best I’ve seen all weekend. Their drummer was extremely physical and on one song even stood up, propped his leg up on the kick drum, took the ride cymbal off its stand to place it on his knee and continued to hammer it. The five piece is very versatile and a few members changed instruments several times. They were also very professional for their age, and handled some early technical difficulties with a microphone and the early end to their set gracefully. As with every time I’ve seen them, the crowd they had were all fans and sang all the words to their songs, including the new ones they released just 3 days ago.
Jack Harlow
Mr. Harlow has been a hot shot throughout the pandemic, and has had women everywhere obsessed with him. The crowd was heavy with screaming girls as Harlow performed songs off his recent release “Come Home the Kids Miss You.” However, he attempted to appeal to those women so much in-between songs by making the most flirtatious comments he could, that it came across forced and premeditated. By the time he began referencing himself in the third person in an attempt to sound sexy, he had lost a lot of the crowd. I have to say, I still got down with the song, “Nail Tech.”
Megan Thee Stallion
Crowd chants of “We want Megan” were barely audible over the torrential rain coming down on the beach, but a multitude of loyal fans braved the storm to see her and her crew perform. The crowd was very engaged and her interaction was amazing. She even got down off the stage and walked around the photo pit, dancing and taking selfies with her fans. Megan was one act I had heard people talking about all weekend and she did not disappoint. She certainly helped Hangout kick off Hot Girl Summer.
Tame Impala
Tame Impala is the pinnacle of a current-day music festival headliner. Whether you know or like his music or not, Kevin Parker knows how to make a top-tier festival performance. The band’s lighting and production was the most insane of the weekend. The band brought in lazers and a massive circular lighting rig that rose from the stage to the roof like a UFO. The light beams shot miles through the sky all the way down the Gulf Shores and with the continuous rain, it looked almost like a colorful ceiling had been hung above the festival grounds. Tame Impala made good use of their LED panel with psychedelic displays and video messages that worked very well with the music. When Parker and company first walked out, they didn’t realize the festival took place on the beach with Parker saying “I didn’t know this was on the sand.”
There are a select few performers in the world that can come out not knowing much about the venue and play to a crowd that surely has a good portion of people who don’t know his music, and everyone dances the whole time. In the rain no less. It was a great way to end the weekend.
