“If the bitch ain't on the beach in front of Lana when that bitch starts, it’s trouble.”
The sun sets out at the edge of the world, and it paints the milky skyline in passionfruit and amber. My cigarettes are nowhere to be found so I settle for a vape dug out from the bottom of my purse. It quickly fills itself with the specks of the Gulf as a warm wind sweeps past me from out there beyond the horizon, where I watch innumerable fish jump up to catch the last rays of sunlight as the sky turns an inexplicable shade of lavender.
I nervously fidgeted with my phone as she pointed out the aforementioned Flora-Bama bar. The night before, en route from the airport, traffic had piled up because of a brawl in the street that blocked both lanes. I don’t think she meant it as a comfort, but it relaxed the tension between my shoulders. I could work with this combination of beach houses and surf shacks and barefooted people whizzing by on the tiny, single-lane highway.
Buzzed off my diet coke and the flurry of “darlings” and “sweeties” from my waiter, I wandered into a Dairy Queen another mile down the highway, and then to the beach outside my hotel, where I watched the sun set that first night. Phone in my cup, Lana Del Rey’s latest on loop, faint cries of gulls all around. The haze of my evening softened into the gentle sound of the tide that next morning, and then the purr of shuttle tires on asphalt as we hurtled towards Hangout Fest.
Good thing I ran as fast as half-on slip ons would allow, because the girls and gays were out for Lana, the most visibly non-straight crowd I’d seen at the festival. Between chants of “Lana! Lana! Lana!” I chatted up stagehands and artists crowded into the area we’d been herded into. Behind us, fans talked of driving all night for her, missing jobs and birthdays and responsibilities back home to be here.
Shortly before 3 PM, I ducked into Dasha’s pit with Sara. The crowd hummed excitedly, and she emerged from the side stage to rapturous cheers. While most might know “Austin,” even Dasha seemed surprised at how much of the crowd knew the words to her other tracks. As fans clambered onstage with her to line dance, Sara and I dashed behind to the road Lana had driven on the night before, a shortcut to the mainstage for Chappell Roan's set.
Bryan's appeal is readily apparent, as is my sister’s affinity for him, but more than anything I was stunned by the size of the crowd sprawled out before us. It seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction, dwarfing every other mainstage crowd by a country mile. Dreading the moment when the tension broke, and the last dregs of Hangout Fest washed out to sea, we peeled off, and bid our farewells at the shuttle.
Lana Del Rey Chappell Roan Dominic Fike Tanner Adell
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