Frank Ocean sat in a chair onstage at FYF Fest, a pair of large, studio-style headphones clamped over his ears.
The enigmatic R&B star was singing — first his song “Close to You,” which he said he’d based on Stevie Wonder’s cover of the old Carpenters hit, then a bit of the Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye” — while behind him Brad Pitt appeared in high-definition close-up on an enormous video screen. Pitt had a cellphone to his ear; his expression was sincere but inscrutable in the way movie stars are paid millions to perfect.
Yet this wasn’t some forgotten film clip Ocean had dug up to establish a vibe for his headlining set Saturday night.
Pitt was there in the flesh, leaning against the lip of the stage as a cameraman fed carefully composed images to the screen. The actor stayed put, working those world-famous eyes until the end of Ocean’s song. Then he took off without a word of acknowledgment from himself or the singer.
1/64
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails performs on Day 3 of FYF at Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 2/64
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails performs Sunday.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 3/64
Trent Reznor onstage at Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 4/64
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor performs.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 5/64
Joey Purp performs at FYF in Exposition Park on Sunday.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 6/64
Fans dance to the music of Joey Purp.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 7/64
Joey Purp performs at FYF.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 8/64
Iggy Pop performs at FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angele.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 9/64
A fan is escorted out of the pit by a security guard while Iggy Pop performs at FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 10/64
Iggy Pop performs Sunday at FYF in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 11/64
A fan crowd surfs while Iggy Pop performs Sunday in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 12/64
Iggy Pop performs on the lawn stage Sunday at FYF.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 13/64
Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman performs Sunday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 14/64
Eduardo Arenas of Chicano Batman performs Sunday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 15/64
Salima Allen, 26, of Los Angeles watche Chicano Batman at FYF Fest in Exposition Park on Sunday.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 16/64
Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman performs Sunday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 17/64
Singers back up Chicano Batman at FYF Fest in Exposition Park on Sunday.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 18/64
Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman performs Sunday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 19/64
Clementine Creevy of Cherry Glazerr performs Sunday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 20/64
Cierra Fraser, 22, of Seattle dances to Cherry Glazerr’s set Sunday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 21/64
Clementine Creevy of Cherry Glazerr performs Sunday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 22/64
Frank Ocean performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles on July 22, 2017.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 23/64
Frank Ocean performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 24/64
A fan enjoys the music at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 25/64
Rapper Consequence performs onstage with A Tribe Called Quest at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 26/64
Rapper Consequence performs onstage with A Tribe Called Quest at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 27/64
Mayosha Long dances to the music of A Tribe Called Quest at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 28/64
Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 29/64
Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 30/64
Ali Shaheed of A Tribe Called Quest performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 31/64
MC Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 32/64
Rapper Consequence performs onstage with A Tribe Called Quest at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 33/64
Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 34/64
Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 35/64
Ali Shaheed of A Tribe Called Quest performs at the FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 36/64
Denitza Leon, left, of Buena Park and Ryan de Leon, of Pico Rivera at FYF Fest in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 37/64
Adrianne Lenker of the Brooklyn band Big Thief performs Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 38/64
Buck Meek performs Saturday with the Brooklyn band Big Thief at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 39/64
Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief plays Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 40/64
Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief plays Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 41/64
Ricardo Morales of El Monte listens to Big Thief’s set Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 42/64
Big Thief performs Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 43/64
Mike Kinsella, left, and brother Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz play FYF Fest in Exposition Park on Saturday.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 44/64
A crowd watches Cap’n Jazz perform Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 45/64
Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz plays Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 46/64
Mike Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz plays Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 47/64
Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz performs Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 48/64
Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz performs Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 49/64
Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz crowd surfs Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 50/64
Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz performs Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 51/64
The rapper Noname performs Saturday at FYF Fest in Exposition Park.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 52/64
Jocelyn Garcia of Anaheim, center, at FYF Fest in Exposition Park on Saturday.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 53/64
Missy Elliott takes the Main Stage on the first day of the FYF Fest at Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 54/64
Missy Elliott performs at the FYF Fest on Friday in Los Angeles.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 55/64
Missy Elliott is all smiles on the Main Stage at FYF Fest.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 56/64
Wearing a lime-green face mask and a dress that made her look like a living party streamer, Icelandic singer Bjork belts out material from throughout her expansive catalog during her performance at FYF.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 57/64
Helena Hauff works the turntable on the Outer Space Stage at FYF Fest at Exposition Park.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 58/64
Survive performs on the Club Stage at the first day of the FYF Fest at Exposition Park.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 59/64
The mood stays light as people dance to house music before Survive takes the stage Friday night.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 60/64
A DJ takes a drag on a cigarette between sets on the Outer Space Stage.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 61/64
Angel Olsen tosses her hair as she begins her performance at the Lawn Stage on Friday at FYF Fest.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 62/64
Eoslin Farley, center, dances with friends Sierra Willows, left, and Ciara Farmer as the Beach Fossils perform on the Lawn Stage at FYF Fest on Friday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 63/64
Dustin Payseur leads the Beach Fossils in an early performance Friday on the first day of the FYF Fest at Exposition Park.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 64/64
Markica Schulman, left, and Erin Savino stop for a photo as they enter Exposition Park for the three-day FYF Fest.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) Beautiful and sad and audacious, it was a one-of-a-kind piece of performance art devised by a musician uninterested in the ordinary.
But Ocean’s celebrity stunt wasn’t the only unique moment at FYF Fest, which took place Friday to Sunday at Exposition Park with acts including Missy Elliott, Björk, Erykah Badu and A Tribe Called Quest.
In an age of American music-festival saturation — when the lineup of one pricey event can look discouragingly like those of countless others — FYF was seeking to offer experiences that couldn’t easily be had elsewhere.
Scarcity over abundance seemed to be the credo, whether it was Elliott doing her first full gig in the U.S. in years or A Tribe Called Quest playing what the hip-hop group said would be its last concert in Los Angeles. Late Sunday, Nine Inch Nails was scheduled to perform as part of its return to the road after a brief hiatus.
Still, there was no doubt that Ocean was the big draw. Single-day passes for Saturday sold out well before Friday’s or Sunday’s, and fans lined up hours before his show to buy limited-edition T-shirts from a pop-up merchandise tent.
The singer — who rocketed to stardom with his Grammy-winning 2012 debut, “Channel Orange” — was booked to headline FYF two years ago but canceled at the last minute. In August 2016, he finally released his long-awaited follow-up album, “Blonde,” but then went on to back out of a number of other festivals, which led to widespread chatter over whether he’d actually make it Saturday.
Make it he did, though, and with an inventive set-up that lent credence to the “production delays” he’d blamed for the earlier cancellations.
Positioned with several backing musicians on a small platform connected by a runway to the main stage, Ocean managed to preserve the startling intimacy of “Blonde,” which almost entirely rejects the flashy theatrics of modern R&B. It’s an album of quiet (if dramatic) realizations about love and art, and here the singer struck a confessional tone that brought the massive festival crowd to an eerie hush.
Ocean, who’s well known as a sonic perfectionist, kept those headphones on throughout the show. And the guy with the camera wasn’t just there for the sequence with Pitt; he circled the players all night, in full view of the audience. (The cameraman appeared to be director Spike Jonze, though Ocean’s representative didn’t respond to a request for confirmation.)
Yet somehow this technical spectacle, which also included surround-sound speakers, made the performance feel only more private and human, as though you were getting right inside Ocean’s mind.
Headlining Friday night’s bill, Elliott was far less precise in her presentation.
Detail defines the groundbreaking hip-hop and R&B records — including “Work It” and “Get Ur Freak On” — she made in the late 1990s and early 2000s with her creative partner, Timbaland; together they helped reimagine those genres as digital playgrounds.
But at FYF, where Elliott was performing after a long stretch of downtime thanks to a battle with Graves’ disease, the rapper and singer kept running into sound trouble; the show was pretty scrappy, with lots of false starts and hype-man filler.
Like Ocean, though, Elliott was putting across such a strong sense of self — in this case, rapping along to her irresistible hits with clear joy about being back — that you hardly minded the interruptions. At one point, she mentioned that her shoe had come untied — charming, obviously.
And later, she took several long minutes to tally up the various pop stars who’d come to Exposition Park to witness her return, among them Beyoncé, Janet Jackson and Katy Perry.
If anyone else at FYF had done that — if anyone else in the world had done that — it would’ve been insufferable. Elliott, on the other hand, made you feel how special the moment was for her.
Ditto the members of Cap’n Jazz, the short-lived but influential ’90s emo band that reunited for a fierce and poignant performance Saturday evening. And A Tribe Called Quest, which went beyond its allotted stage time to pay proper tribute to the late Phife Dawg.
The rapper’s death last year has given Tribe no choice but to call it a day, the group’s Q-Tip said with a heavy mixture of dignity and regret. So he and his surviving bandmates are making the rounds, offering fans — and themselves — a final opportunity to experience Tribe’s sly uplift.
Not every act was so singularly motivated. Thundercat, the adventurous L.A. jazz-funk bassist, seemed worn out, minus his usual effervescence; for him, this appeared to be just another gig in a busy festival season.
Survive oozed a similar indifference, perhaps because FYF represented not an opportunity but a distraction. A few weeks ago, two members of this electronic instrumental group scored a left-field Emmy nomination for their title theme from the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” and here you kind of got the impression that they’d rather have been at work in the studio.
But those were exceptions in a weekend that felt unusually touched by inspiration.
Partway through Ocean’s knockout performance, the singer ran through his song “Good Guy,” then decided it hadn’t worked for him. “I wasn’t really stoked on that,” he said, before reminding his audience — which hardly needed it — that Saturday’s concert was only his “fourth or fifth show in so many years.”
So Ocean played the song again. And, sure, he was taking advantage of an ultra-devoted fan base to indulge his own pride.
But he also knew the show mattered. He wanted to get it right.
mikael.wood@latimes.com
Twitter: @mikaelwood
ALSO
Why I felt betrayed by Fleetwood Mac at Classic West
Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington was a voice of reassurance from the dark
Arroyo Seco Weekend highlights the power — and the problem — of good taste
