Portola Fest’s Best Sets, Plus One Perplexing ‘Huh?!’

San Francisco music festival Portola returned over the weekend with a lineup of international acts like French DJs Justice and Gesaffelstein, U.K. hitmakers Disclosure and M.I.A., Australian producer Fisher — plus homegrown heroes Deltron 3030 and more.

With its industrial setting at Pier 80, plus a giant disco ball literally hanging off a shipping crane, Portola took the gritty vibe of a warehouse rave and scaled it up into a major happening. Below are some of this year’s highlights.

Jessie Ware danced with the ‘Beautiful People’

Jessie Ware’s performance at the Pier Stage on Saturday afternoon was a groovy, disco-pop celebration. Dressed in a shimmering silver full-length dress with white accent feathers, Ware and her two charismatic dancers had the crowd jumping as she performed some of her latest hits, including “What’s Your Pleasure,” “Spotlight” and “Save a Kiss.”

Launching into her track “Beautiful People” from her 2023 album That! Feels Good!, Ware showed extra love to the audience as she taught them dance moves. The real pearl, though, was when Ware surprised the crowd by breaking into her own rendition of “Believe” by Cher and slipping into the audience to dance with ecstatic festival-goers. “How do I get out of here?” Ware asked, laughing at herself as she wove through the throngs of people. After the dance party, Ware’s closing song “Free Yourself” only felt fitting. — Shannon Faulise

A nostalgic set from Natasha Bedingfield

For 15 beautiful minutes, the Portola crowd entered a nostalgic fantasy as Natasha Bedingfield took the stage decked out in a cheetah print bodysuit. After psyching everyone out with the intro to “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” Bedingfield got the crowd dancing immediately with her 2008 hit “Pocketful of Sunshine.”

With heavy, thudding bass accompanying her softer pop, Bedingfield’s performances of her early 2000s discography felt modern and updated. Her 2004 hit song “These Words” already got an official 2024 makeover release earlier this year, but Bedingfield went back to basics for her final track. The very moment the instrumentals started for “Unwritten,” the crowd’s energy surged, and fans screamed along to every word, nearly matching Bedingfield’s volume as she belted out the lyrics in her familiar, raspy tone: “Today is where your book begins / The rest is still unwritten.” — Shannon Faulise

Gesaffelstein put the audience in a trance

French producer Gesaffelstein brought the energy right up until the very end. Covered in shiny, sleek black material from head to toe, Gesaffelstein’s festival look matched his setup: two clusters of giant, black crystals atop a set of black risers. He didn’t introduce himself like other artists. He actually didn’t speak to the crowd at all — and he didn’t need to. When he lifted his arm over his head, the crowd immediately followed, raising theirs with him.

Gesaffelstein, whose discography spans more than a decade, kept fans bobbing along to dark synth-pop tracks like “Hard Dreams” from his most recent album Gamma, as well as harder techno favorites like “Opr” from 2011’s Conspiracy Pt.2.

Standing in a prism of red light, surrounded by fog, his visuals met at the intersection of electronic and gothic. He popped his shoulders with the crowd as they vibed to his heavy, trance-inducing beats, black crystals glowing throughout. He left just as quietly as he arrived, waving to the crowd before vanishing into his set’s smoky aftermath. — Shannon Faulise

Rebecca Black, queen of camp

The coolest way to reclaim a cringy song you made in middle school? Make a chipmunk-voiced hyperpop remix of it and get a tent full of vaping ravers to scream the lyrics while jumping up and down. At least that’s what Rebecca Black did at Portola Sunday. “Whether you’re here because you know me from one thing or the other or a DJ set, I don’t give a fuck,” she said with an ironic eye roll while warmly thanking the crowd.

If you haven’t paid attention since “Friday” went viral for the wrong reasons in 2011, Black grew up to make queer pop with a heavy dose of camp. On stage, her vocals were strong and unpretentious. She served 2000s pop diva choreo, flanked by two chiseled male dancers wearing gigantic, bouncing rubber boobs (at one point, the three of them rode a mic stand like a broomstick). At a festival with many stoic DJs, Black’s set was one of the weirdest, most carefree and entertaining. — Nastia Voynovskaya

M.I.A. left the audience confused

M.I.A.’s Sunday Portola set was perplexing. The U.K. star who came up in the 2000s as a champion of refugees and immigrants recently took a rightward turn, endorsing Donald Trump and aligning herself with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Between solid performances of hits like “Bad Girls” and “Bucky Done Gun,” she ranted about being canceled and inserted strange commentary that fell flat.

“Before Nicki had this wig, M.I.A. had this wig; before Rihanna had this wig, M.I.A. had this wig,” she said, pointing to a red wig not very reminiscent of either pop star. “Before Kamala Harris, there was M.I.A.” Huh?

High-energy performances of “XR2,” “Come Around” and “Bamboo Banga” harkened back to M.I.A.’s arrival on the scene with a completely fresh, global sound, but the rest of the set left a lot of people scratching their heads. — Nastia Voynovskaya

Disclosure’s feel-good dance floor

U.K. house music giants Disclosure presided over a funky dance party at Portola’s main stage — their first time performing in San Francisco in eight years. Their 75-minute set reached back to early hits like the gospel sermon-infused “When a Fire Starts to Burn,” which the duo — consisting of Howard and Guy Lawrence — accented with live percussion, keys and bass. The brothers joked about dropping “a deep cut no one knows” before performing “Latch,” their mega-hit with Sam Smith. Throughout classics and newer tracks like “Douha (Mali Mali)” featuring Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara, the Lawrences switched between a drum kit, timbales, sample pads, an electronic xylophone and a collection of synths, clearly enjoying themselves and adding dynamism that kept the crowd guessing as they grooved. — Nastia Voynovskaya