Napa’s BottleRock: eventful on and off the stage (2024)

Updated at 12:24 a.m. Monday— Napa’s 11th BottleRock festival once again drew tens of thousands of spectators for a weekend packed with more than 70 musical acts, liberally seasoned with wine country food and drink– and some unexpected twists.

This is a summary of the festival’s standout events, on the stage and off.

Friday, Day 1

The musical slate of BottleRock’s opening day concluded with a sharp contrast of youth with age, and with sass with craft.

On the Napa Valley Expo’s Verizon Stage, Megan Thee Stallion, appearing at her second BottleRock, joined a cast of similarly magenta-clad dancers put on a fearlessly twerk-filled, bass-heavy show featuring “Not Nice,” “Captain Hook,” “Big Ole Freak” and other hits.

Meanwhile on the fairground’s JaM Cellars Stage, Nicks finally brought her decades-long string of hits like “Stand Back” and “Gypsy” to Napa after two abortive attempts to play the festival. The pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 BottleRock at which she was to perform, and Nicks pulled out of the 2021 event during a COVID-19 surge.

Some of the loudest cheers on BottleRock’s largest stage accompanied an unexpected co-star – Nicks’ vocal coach Steve Real, who joined the singer for a magnetic duet of “Leather and Lace,” which Nicks and Don Henley of the Eagles turned into a Billboard Top 10 hit in 1981.

As the first fans of BottleRock weekend massed at the Expo’s Third Street gate Friday morning, some reflected on what they had had to pay for the privilege. While some spectators like the San Francisco couple Joe and Rebecca Blum lucked out by snaring last-minute three-day passes for less than $300 each, others like Ari Abrams of Sebastopol had to pay far more, as much as $528.

A few past BottleRockers, like Napan Tiffany Decrevel, chose this year to leave town instead.

“For four people? $1,800? That's a lot of money. I have been to a lot of festivals in my life and that’s obscene,” she said before taking her family to the Sierra Nevada for the Memorial Day weekend.

Sixteen miles south of Napa, a handful of would-be BottleRock spectators were cut off frustratingly close to their destination.

On Thursday, the Mare Island Causeway Bridge in Vallejo got stuck in the down position, preventing at least three yacht owners from continuing on to the Napa Valley Yacht Club, where boaters tie up while attending the festival. Vallejo officials later said repairs would not free the bridge until later this week.

Saturday, Day 2

Saturday night’s showcase concert by Pearl Jam became the exclamation point on BottleRock’s second day, in ways expected and not.

The concert by one of the leading lights of grunge rock was one of this year’s most anticipated performances at the Napa festival, and the band obliged with songs from across 30-plus years of stardom. But then Pearl Jam’s frontman Eddie Vedder introduced a twist in the plot – a duet with the actor Bradley Cooper on “Maybe It’s Time,” the song Cooper performed in the 2018 movie “A Star Is Born.”

Cooper’s star turn with Vedder and Pearl Jam was actually his second of the day. Earlier, he had turned a crowd into a near-crush at BottleRock’s Culinary Stage, where he appeared with José Andrés, the chef and founder of World Central Kitchen – and with the Golden State Warriors legend Stephen Curry.

As tunes flew fast and furious from other Expo stages, so food flew from the kitchen-stage during a sometimes-surreal segment.

Andres and Curry flung slices of Spanish ibérico ham tied to Frisbees into the audience, then shot baskets with bags of potato chips instead of balls – and with only the chef, not the normally deadeye three-point shooter, hitting the mark. Then, as Andres began preparing a fancy version of a Philly cheesesteak (with ham and caramelized onion past atop a crispy bread pocket), Cooper arrived with a business partner to talk cheesesteaks in a segment that ended with the foil-wrapped sandwiches being flung toward fans.

Cooper and Curry’s joint appearance was the best-attended Culinary Stage event since the attraction debuted in 2015, according to Tom Fuller, spokesperson for BottleRock’s producer Latitude 38 Entertainment.

Amid the music, food and fun at the Expo, real life left an imprint – if a brief one – at the edge of Napa while cars and buses made their way to BottleRock on Saturday morning.

About 10 to 15 pro-Palestine protesters blocked the northbound lanes of Highway 12/29 – the main southern approach to the city of Napa – for about 15 minutes, demanding an end to the war in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli army and Hamas-led forces. After holding Palestine flags and chanting “Free, free, free Palestine!”, the demonstrators left after law enforcement officials arrived, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Sunday, Day 3

BottleRock closed its third and final day with a showcase concert by the British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, who led thousands of fans through more than a decade of hits – and battled through stage glitches doing so.

The four-time Grammy Award winner, playing his acoustic guitar on the JaM Cellars Stage, led an audience that accompanied him through nearly the whole of songs like “Shape of You” and “Thinking Out Loud” as night fell over the Expo on Sunday. The mass sing-alongs followed a 45-minute stretch when a keyboard malfunctioned and forced Sheeran to switch to a near-unplugged approach, the songs almost stark in their simplicity – including “Love Yourself,” the 2016 hit he wrote for Justin Bieber.

BottleRock’s final hours were a study in musical contrasts. While the Expo’s main stage hosted Sheeran and the breathily lyrical pop of Norah Jones, the Verizon Stage was the site of maximalist, high-decibel rock from Queens of the Stone Age and the Offspring – which surprised fans by welcoming none other than Sheeran to join its performance of “Million Miles Away.”

Sunday’s weather at BottleRock took a warmer turn into the high 70s, and more ballcaps, straw hats and parasols were in evidence among the tens of thousands strolling from stages to food court to souvenir shops and back again. Inside the spa building, a provider of vitamin-enriched intravenous infusions did a brisk business among BottleRockers hoping to enjoy 30 hours of live music – while not being dragged down by too much local food and drink.

“People are looking for ways to feel better,” said Kara Piganelli, a nurse with Rapid Recovery Hydration Solutions, which set up two rows of lounge chairs for those receiving IVs. “They don’t want to have to feel crummy; they can have it all.”