After almost a decade of boundary shifting and rule breaking, the most innovative boy band of the 21st century have decided to call it a day.
Taking over the huge aircraft hangar that is the Sahara stage at Coachella music festival on Saturday (16 April), sprawling Texan collective Brockhampton have decided to hang up their bucket hats for good. Well, at least that was what fans were told in January of this year, when they revealed via social media that they would be taking an “indefinite hiatus” following Coachella, while thanking fans for their support over the past eight years.
However, after tonight’s hour-long spectacular, video screens reveal that they’re not quite done yet. After the band leave the stage a pre-recorded clip of de facto frontman Kevin Abstract talking to his bandmates flashes up. He has something to tell them he says. The screens then go dark, leaving nothing but the words: “Brockhampton. The Final Album. 2022.” If the crowd hadn’t been going bonkers enough during the set, this is enough to make them totally lose it.
It’s not hard to see why Brockhampton’s fans adore them so.
For much of their young fanbase, Brockhampton were pivotal. A refreshing alternative to the whitewashed likes of NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys in the decades before, and a fabulous foil to the UK’s sanitised One Direction, Brockhampton were a DIY effort that spanned multicultural members with African, South Asian, Irish, and Latin heritage, as well as having an openly gay frontman in Abstract. Most importantly though, they had some serious bangers.
Tonight’s penultimate show – they’re also appearing at the second weekend of the festival – sees them airing the very best of Brockhampton on an ambitious set that features a giant inflatable gorilla and a massive man-made mountain. The vast video backdrop is just as impressive, a constantly shifting psychedelic desert skyline, which sees Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon rendered in shocking pink as if it were a copy of National Geographic magazine as redesigned by the cast of Zendaya-led Euphoria.
Not ever missing an opportunity to clamber over the hillocks, the group – who are wearing matching blue letterman jackets emblazoned with “All good things must come to an end!” on the back – blaze through 2017’s bouncy “Boogie” and “District”, as well as airing the somewhat more downbeat and slushier “Bleach” and “Sugar”.
As farewells go, it’s joyful rather than sad – especially seeing as now we know that there’s still more to come.
Follow live updates from day two of Coachella 2022 here.
