LOS ANGELES — To break down Frank Ocean's Coachella set into individual moments is to talk about the makings of an instant-classic performance.
There was the remake of his gentle soul ballad "White Ferrari" as an itchy electro-gospel jam. There was the fake snow that fell silently on Ocean and his band during "Come on World, You Can't Go!" There was the bearded man dressed as a security guard twerking against the stage while illuminated by the kind of flashlight you see in body camera footage of police roughing up somebody late at night for some hard-to-fathom reason.
Standing on the field late Sunday night at Indio's Empire Polo Club, I took in this succession of sounds and images with amazement — baffled, sure, but also thrilled by a show, Ocean's first since 2017, that felt like nothing I'd ever seen before. When it abruptly ended a little past midnight — Ocean told the crowd he'd been ordered to stop due to Coachella's curfew — I needed a second to dial down the mental concentration for which Ocean seemed to be asking his audience.
