Olivia Rodrigo bridged generations Saturday night as the headlining act at her inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival, where the 23-year-old pop star brought Stevie Nicks, Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette to the stage for duets that demonstrated the enduring value of sharp, smart songwriting about women’s emotional lives.
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With McLachlan — founder of the late-’90s Lilith Fair fest that set a template for Daisy Chain Fields — Rodrigo sang “Building a Mystery” and “Angel,” which the two dedicated to Dolly Parton, who died Tuesday at age 80; with Morissette (who filled in for Karen O after the latter dropped out due to a family emergency), Rodrigo did the former’s iconic mid-’90s hit “Ironic.” Later, Nicks came out to close the show with a tender duet of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide,” inspiring a mass singalong in the audience of about 45,000 at Great Park Live in Irvine. After the song, Nicks stuck around to deliver an apparently extemporaneous tribute to Rodrigo’s artistry and activism that seemed to push the younger singer close to tears.
“I’m somewhat awestruck that she could do all this, because it’s so hard. You have no idea — putting something together with all these people,” Nicks said. “And she’s done it with this grace and this crazy, crazy energy that she has. And I told her, ‘Don’t ever give that up and don’t ever let anybody change you or tell you, “You don’t run around this stage.” ’ ” Nicks finished by urging the crowd to support Rodrigo and “take her to your heart” — then added, “I have.”
Held a few months after the release of Rodrigo’s third studio album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” Daisy Chain Fields offered 10 hours of music by all-women acts, including Chappell Roan, Doechii, Bikini Kill, Garbage, Not for Radio, the Breeders and Mitski, among others. On Friday, Rodrigo announced that the festival would donate $10 million to an array of organizations working for women’s rights and reproductive justice; as Rodrigo began her performance Saturday, the philanthropist Melinda French Gates came onstage to say that she’d agreed to double that amount.
Olivia Rodrigo performs Saturday.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“Look at what you’ve created,” Gates told Rodrigo. “What I love about you is that you know the real power is not up here onstage — it’s with everybody there,” she added, gesturing toward the audience. “When women and girls come together to dream and to lead, we change the world.”
The singer’s 80-minute set mixed new songs from “You Seem Pretty Sad” — one highlight was “Maggots for Brains,” a euphoric pop-punk jam about going crazy in a lover’s absence — with oldies from her first two LPs, 2021’s Grammy-winning “Sour” and 2023’s triple-platinum “Guts.” Rodrigo also debuted a just-released tune called “Serena Joy,” which she titled after a character in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
After thanking her collaborators and the “nonprofits who fight tirelessly to make our world a better place,” Rodrigo took a minute at the end of the evening to thank her fans. “You made this happen,” she said. “You are so important and your voices matter so much.” Then she said she’d see them next year — a reference, at least as interpreted with glee by those in the crowd, to a second edition of the fest in 2027.
