Governors Ball day 2 in pics: Nas, Kendrick Lamar, Japandroids, Alt-J, Dirty Projectors, Azealia Banks & more

photos by Amanda Hatfield, words by Andrew Sacher

Nas / Kendrick Lamar / people in mud

Governors Ball continued on Saturday (6/8) for its second of three days. The weather was much better than day 1, but Friday’s storm kept the entire place a mud swamp. Of course, that made for some interesting things like the muddy mosh pit during Fucked Up‘s set, but it also made walking from stage to stage kind of a drag. That said, it really wasn’t that bad, and it was a whole lot more enjoyable to watch the music in the sun than in Friday’s rain.

I got there just as Japandroids were going on (or, as they jokingly referred to themselves throughout their entire set, Guns N’ Roses). They’re an excellent festival band and were a great start to my day, though it was hard to get their usual crowd energy going on the large Governors Ball main stage. I’m sure that wasn’t a problem at their afterparty at MHOW though, which I sadly missed. Did anyone catch that?

Maybe the most surprising thing I saw on Saturday was the size of Alt-J‘s crowd. I knew they were getting bigger, but I must not have fully realized to what extent. It was one of the largest crowds for a non-headliner I saw that day, and pretty impossible to move through it too. And it wasn’t even people trying to get a good spot for Kendrick Lamar, who was on next, because a lot of them cleared out after Alt-J. Of course, Kendrick did bring his own huge crowd, and if I had to say, Kendrick worked a festival crowd better than any other act I saw this weekend.

For the Saturday night headliner, it was between Guns N’ Roses on the Governors Ball Stage and Nas on the Honda Stage. I chose Nas. It was an excellent set from the legendary rapper, which included a good amount of Illmatic, some highlights of his new album (like “Daughters”), and backing by a killer live band. If you chose GNR, how were they?

Pictures of day 1 are HERE and HERE. Videos and setlist of Kanye’s day 3 set are HERE, and more coverage is still on the way. More pictures of day 2 below…

—