Grace Jones at FYF Fest 2016 - Sunday
photo by Everett Fitzpatrick for FYF Fest

FYF Fest 2016 day 2 pics (LCD, ANOHNI, Beach House, Grace Jones, Blood Orange & more)

photos by Anastasia Velicescu, Debi Del Grande, Elli Papayanopoulos, Everett Fitzpatrick, Jesse Fulton, Jose Negrete, Laura June Kirsch, Oliver Walker, Quinn Tucker, Tod Seelie for FYF Fest, words by Zack Baker

The 2016 edition of LA’s FYF Fest closed out a gorgeous weekend of incredible music on Sunday (8/28) with some of the best sets of the weekend including a decidedly un-festival performance by ANOHNI a stellar, guest-filled set from Blood Orange, and a rare show from legendary artist Grace Jones, who brought a level of showmanship that was unmatched throughout the weekend, with seemingly endless costume changes and a stunning stage show.

Rising Memphis singer/songwriter Julien Baker started Sunday off with a fairly intimate set at the smaller, enclosed Club Stage. Baker’s plain-faced songs stood in stark contrast to the Oneohtrix Point Never show I caught on the same stage the night before, full of charm and genuine excitement to be playing the festival. If you weren’t already familiar with Baker’s heart-wrenching work, this set would have been more than enough to make you go on a deep-dive as soon as the festival ended.

Blood Orange had one of the most engaging sets of the festival even before you take into account the constant stream of guests brought out by main man Dev Hynes. Hynes commanded the stage with a swagger that this year’s great Hopelessness to FYF. The album’s live show stood in stark contrast to almost every other set at the festival, shifting the focus away from ANOHNI and the electronic musicians flanking her (including Oneohtrix Point Never, who helped produce Hopelessness) and onto a rotating set of stark feminine faces singing along to the politically charged songs. ANOHNI rarely drew attention to herself, covering her body and face in thick black robes and a mesh face mask and focusing on giving a stellar vocal performance with no banter to lighten the album’s oppressive force.

Young Thug closed out the Sunday Lawn Stage performances, and the constantly-rising rapper brought out a huge crowd to see Thugga in person. The set was overflowing with bangers like “With Them,” “Digits” and “F Cancer” but Thug might have expected a little bit too much from the festival audience to remember lines from his staggeringly prolific catalog. Early on in the set there were more than a handful of awkward moments of dead air where the crowd just didn’t know what came next, but Thug and his DJ caught on fairly quickly and reduced the audience callouts to only the most popular hooks.

LCD Soundsystem’s reunion made another festival stop to cap off FYF’s weekend in LA, bringing their dance-inciting set with them. James Murphy and company were on point, focusing the set on the band’s most dance-centric tracks like the pulsating “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” and the relentless “Movement.” Looking around it was easy to see that the crowd was feeling the effects of a long weekend in the sun, but LCD still had the power to compel them to dance their asses off until everything finally shut down around 1 AM.

Sunday’s lineup was so stacked that it was nearly impossible to catch everyone. Chelsea Wolfe, Beach House, Mac DeMarco, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Preoccupations, Wild Nothing, Rae Sremmurd, Denzel Curry, Saves The Day (playing Stay What You Are in full), Banks & Steelz (members of Wu-Tang Clan and Interpol) and Julia Holter also performed. Check out pictures of the whole day in the gallery above. Pictures and a review of day one are HERE.