LadyLand Festival Closes Out Pride Month

Against a darkening backdrop of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and heightening domestic tension, LadyLand Festival once again staged a fierce celebration of queer and trans joy at Under the K Bridge Park during Pride weekend last month. Nightlife maven Ladyfag’s two-day, seven-year-old festival boasted a lineup of over forty artists across three stages—headliners Cardi B (Friday) and FKA twigs (Saturday) each capped off jam-packed lineups including Pabllo Vittar, Cobrah, VTSS, Cortisa Star, Kevin Aviance, Isabella Lovestory, and RuPaul’s Drag Race veterans Symone and Kerri Colby.

Cardi’s night was a jubilant eruption: after unveiling her new album Am I the Drama?, her set, introduced by Scarlet Envy, bounced from powerhouse hits “I Like It” and “WAP” to her latest single, “Outside.” Clad in a full Miu Miu ensemble consisting of a pleated tartan miniskirt, cotton polo, and a strapless top with her daughter Kulture side-stage, she pumped and twerked in proper Cardi fashion. In her preamble, Ladyfag reminded the crowd of her long-time support for the Bronx-born rapping sensation—harking back to 2017, when the rapper performed at Ladyfag’s Holy Mountain party for a meager fee of four thousand dollars.

Saturday belonged to FKA twigs, emerging from visa-related complications that stalled her planned North American tour this summer. Among her first performances in the United States following the hurdle, her arrival felt triumphant: she reprised an undeniably kinetic Eusexua set spanning the length of an hour. Leading into her performance, Ladyfag offered a fiery recitation of Zoe Leonard’s “I want a president”—a moment when nightlife and activism collapsed into one. “I want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn’t the lesser of two evils and I want a president who lost their last lover to AIDS, who still sees that in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying,” she echoed to the gathered thousands, clutching an unfolded sheet of paper in one hand. “I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown. Always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker. Always a liar, always a thief, and never caught.” After one last crescendo and rally of the crowd, Eusexua took center stage.

Digging into her roots as a movement phenom, twigs and her cadre of dancers raved and reflected before an enamored audience. In one moment, twigs mounted her dancer’s back and spanked him across the stage, pony style, with syncopated precision; in the next, the headliner crooned alongside a clarinet-playing dancer. Before long, twigs herself brandished a sword in a choreographed duel sequence. The spectacle, which ricocheted through her decade-plus discography, culminated with a melting rendition of her critically acclaimed 2019 single “Cellophane” capping off the weekend. In all, the show was a demonstration of twigs’s sheer capability and versatility as a performer. Her athleticism and constant motion, paired with live vocals and lithe usage of her limited staging, commanded total rapture.

Following a brief (and unsuccessful) attempt to summon the headliner back for an encore, the fired-up audience fanned out towards the exits—on to their next raves or the platoon of food trucks camped outside the gates. In an era of political uncertainty and at two in the morning on Pride weekend, one thing was certain: there is still plenty of time to celebrate.