Concert Review: Queer Femme Voices Were Loud and Proud at ACL Weekend One

Austin City Limits amplified queer women with captivatingly camp performances from Fletcher, Reneé Rapp, and Chappell Roan during Weekend One.

Written by Janie Bickerton

2024 is the year of the woman. From Sabrina Carpenter competing with herself for top of the Billboard charts to the skyrocketing success of Chappell Roan, women have dominated the charts and popular culture. Despite the acute grasp women have on the industry, festival line-ups often fail to represent their impact on music, with women still making up less than 20 percent of musical acts at festivals.

Within this underrepresented portion of the industry are queer women, who for decades have not received the flowers they deserve for defining and redefining pop music. By spotlighting sapphic pop singers each day of ACL Weekend One, the sprawling Southern festival has offered a space to recognize the women who have cultivated a camaraderie with queer folks who see themselves in the artists’ lyrics and performance. Here’s three queer femme artists who celebrated the intersectionality of being queer and being a woman in music with their standout sets at ACL.

Friday: FLETCHER

Headlining the IHG Hotels stage, pop-rock singer FLETCHER brought an inimitable energy to close out the first night of ACL. After the singer’s sirenic visuals lured the vast crowd in, a white curtain dropped to reveal FLETCHER wearing gogo boots and a black leather jacket to match the 2000s rock sound of “Maybe I Am.” The Jersey native played it cool as she held out the mic to a silent crowd during the angsty, electric guitar-heavy “Sting” and recovered with a breathtaking belt in her vindictive hit “Serial Heartbreaker.” The crowd warmed up to the pop singer after she paused to let them “know that you are so loved, so accepted, and so embraced in this space.” Joining her band with an “ANTIDOTE” bedazzled guitar to honor her 2024 album In Search Of The Antidote, FLETCHER rocked her beachy track “Attached To You” and hit the high notes of “Pretending” with ease. She shed her leather jacket to reveal a black mesh top for “Ego Talking,” which slowed the set before the song’s cinematic, crashing chorus. For her set’s highlight, FLETCHER imbued the controlling sensuality of her grunge version of “Shh… Don’t Say It” and got the crowd jumping. She maintained the energy with her Katy Perry-interpolated “girls girls girls,” singing, “I kissed a girl and I liked it / Sipped her like an Old Fashioned.” Trading singing for camerawork, the pop star carried the festival camera to show each of her band members’ solos for “Bitter” and ended the poison-dipped song by flipping the camera toward the audience. After a cover of Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable” nestled in her dismal track “All Love,” FLETCHER owned the stage by kneeling under her guitarist and running to hi-five the crowd while performing her first hit, “Undrunk.” She ended the night with a special rendition of the electric “Becky’s So Hot,” swapping “Becky” for “Buc-ee” in honor of Texas and holding out the final notes for one last flaunt of her vocal range. FLETCHER overcame obstacles with a crowd of mostly newcomers to her pop-rock sound by controlling the stage and being open about the highs and lows of queer love.

Saturday: Reneé Rapp

Broadway-turned-pop star Reneé Rapp closed T-Mobile stage with an effortlessly dynamic performance. She jumped around the stage while sharing the lyrics of “Talk Too Much” with her invigorated crowd, a feat of artist-audience connection maintained throughout her set. Rapp kicked off her humorous remarks between songs by introducing her vitriolic hit “Poison Poison,” referencing Texas politics: “Me and Jasmine Crockett hate you.” Unlike her first song, Rapp overcame her band’s loud energy with a heavenly riff and slew of expletives she had the crowd yell. The lesbian popstar removed her “Men In Black” reminiscent sunglasses for a slower ballad, “Bruises,” before dousing the audience in pink lights for the glittery “Mean Girls” earworm “Not My Fault.” Rapp cheekily pretended to pray as she coyly asked, “Can a gay girl get an amen?” The singer continued the queer hits with a confident, flirty performance of “Pretty Girls.” After yearning to escape reality in “Colorado,” Rapp smiled at the camera and worked her immediate crowd during “Swim,” acutely aware of the vast sea of people watching her screen. Once she wowed the crowd with her vocal range in “The Wedding Song,” she twerked during “Willow” to up the energy of the otherwise slow song. “Austin, I fucking hate this song!” Rapp yelled before moving into “Too Well.” Despite her prejudices, she gave the pop song her all and offered her guitarist center stage for an impressive solo. Quiet rain sounds ushered in another vengeful ballad, “I Hate Boston,” which she ended with gospel-rock euphony and a casual middle finger to the camera. Rapp humored the crowd by asking a fan to “put [their] scissor fingers down” as she introduced her angelic rendition of the devastating tune, “In the Kitchen.” She traded ballads for R&B with “Tummy Hurts,” swatting the camera away for the vulnerable track about imagining an ex’s future with someone else. Rapp then played “Snow Angel” to end the set with her most impressive riffs. “Be cute, be safe, do bad things,” the bleach-blonde balladeer imparted on her entranced audience. Although she ended her set 10 minutes early, Rapp did not waste a second. Her confidence, witty one-liners, and kinship with the crowd made for a memorable set.

Sunday: Chappell Roan

Photo courtesy of Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman

With golden hour complementing her flaming red hair and bedazzled cowboy getup, Chappell Roan welcomed sundown and a battalion of fans old and new at the American Express stage. The festival moved Roan’s set to Sunday to accommodate for her contagious queer pop excellence, which resulted in nearly all Sunday attendees flocking to see “Greetings from Chappell Land” projected on the screen as the drag-donning singer opened with “Femininomenon.” Roan kept up the sex-positive songs with “Naked in Manhattan” and “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl,” both of which centered around the singer discovering her sexuality. Fireworks popped as Roan strutted down the runway, screaming, “Not overdramatic, I know what I want!” with a bloodcurdling echo. The crowd was already giving their all, but Roan, who removed her white chaps to reveal a red-fringed garter, challenged the sea of pink to spell out “HOT TO GO!” YMCA-style. Cheeseburgers and fries raced across the screen as the audience matched Roan’s vivacity during the interactive hit. “I can’t read military time,” the Midwest Princess joked as she asked the crowd for the time. She seamlessly transitioned into the princess pop hit “After Midnight,” which featured her signature vocal-flipped riff for “Be a freak in the club, yeah.” She then shocked Austin with a gritty, glitzy cover of Heart’s “Barracuda” before slowing it down with “Casual.” Roan had no issue leaving lyrics for the audience to yell, even with her unreleased song, “The Subway,” which mesmerized fans as she heart-wrenchingly belted, “She’s got a way / She got away.” As if the crowd needed the lyrics, the chorus of “Red Wine Supernova” flashed in bold, and the entirety of the strobe-lit “Good Luck, Babe!” danced across the screen in Comic Sans. The pop star dedicated “My Kink Is Karma” to her theater teacher who kicked her out of the program, laughing in the first verse as she switched out lyrics to bash her former instructor. She quickly recovered her cool and hit her high notes effortlessly. Roan bid adieu to the night with a wave of her pink bandana, ending her set a few minutes early with this year’s biggest sleeper hit, “Pink Pony Club.” In a performance filled with fireworks and enchanting vocals, Roan proved her place as “your favorite artist’s favorite artist” by balancing genuine care for her audience and the sharp sensuality of her persona.

REVIEWSAfterglow ATXOctober 11, 2024acl, queer, pop