BottleRock Napa Valley — with its assortment of top-tier touring acts, luxe spa services, lavish food and wine offerings, chaotic cooking demonstrations by celebrity chefs, and more — is back in its usual Memorial Day weekend spot like it never skipped a beat.
After several pandemic delays that pushed the three-day festival to Labor Day weekend last year, giving organizers less than a year to prepare for its 2022 edition, the sold-out event is expected to draw as many as 40,000 music fans a day to the Napa Valley Expo from Friday to Sunday, May 27 to 29. More than 75 acts are scheduled to perform, with headlining sets by Bay Area heavy metal icons Metallica, Grammy-winning pop singer Pink, alt-pop group Twenty One Pilots, deep house producer Kygo, Michigan rockers Greta Van Fleet, Mr. Worldwide himself Pitbull, country star Luke Combs, and the West Coast rap supergroup Mount Westmore, featuring Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and the Bay Area’s E-40 and Too Short.
Here are some noteworthy moments from the weekend.
The Bay Area metal legends turned up the volume for the opening night of BottleRock during the band’s first appearance at the Wine Country festival. Frontman James Hetfield, who became emotional during a show in Brazil this month, also brought up the importance of mental health again during the band’s set.
Read the full story here.
Despite recent rises in COVID-19 case levels across the Bay Area, masks were few and far between on the festival grounds Friday. Even inside indoor activations, almost every festivalgoer was maskless, though some indoor locations such as the Spa by Biossance offered masks by the door.
San Franciscans Raymond DiGiuseppe and his partner, both donning disposable masks, said they chose to wear theirs expecting that they’d be among the few taking COVID precautions at the festival — “I mean, it’s Napa,” DiGiuseppe said with a chuckle.
“If we get it, we get it,” he added, “but at least we did what we could.”
The Spa by Biossance activation offered festivalgoers some much-needed respite from the noise and crowds outside.
Cheryl Garcia of Discovery Bay stopped in for a 30-minute CBD massage with aromatherapy. The $85 bill was a small price to pay for the relaxation, she said.
“To have this amazing treat walking through the festival, it was absolutely worth it,” she said as she braced herself to return to the concerts outside. “I would pay $200 for this. Ten stars.”
Other visitors to the spa got manicures, haircuts and Rapid Recovery hydration IVs. Many sipped on wine, beer or cider on the spa’s couches amid the glow of ambient lighting.
After Greta Van Fleet’s performance on the JaM Cellars Stage, the teen band the Alive put on a rocking show of its own at the JaMPad on the opposite end of the Culinary Garden.
And this was just two weeks after the band’s drummer, 18-year-old Kai Neukermans, sat behind the drums at Pearl Jam’s concert at Oakland Arena, filling in for the grunge band’s drummer on “Mind Your Manners” from the group’s 2013 “Lightning Bolt” album.
Read the full story here.
Gold-blooded festivalgoers hungry for some action at BottleRock Napa Valley got a treat when San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle and team mascot Sourdough Sam took to the Culinary Stage with celebrity chef Aaron May. Check out what they cooked up here.
Former Oakland Raider Charles Woodson also graced the Culinary Stage during a different cooking demonstration to lend his namesake Bourbon Whiskey for a signature Michael Mina dish. Watch video here.
Rapper Kosha Dillz and Adam Swig, founder of the San Francisco nonprofit Value Culture, kicked off the three-day festival weekend by leading the crowd through three Hebrew prayers traditionally recited on Shabbat: the lighting of the candles, the blessing of the wine — to which the crowd joined in for a toast and proclaimed “L’chaim!” — and the blessing of the challah bread. Read the full story, and watch a video of the celebration, here.
Check back for more updates throughout the weekend.
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