Andrew Veeder on October 31st, 2017

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Headlining sets from 2 Chainz and Kid Cudi capped off the sixth annual Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival on Sunday. Chainz performed multiple songs from his latest album, this year’s “Pretty Girls Like Trap Music,” along with notable guest spots and hits of the past, while Cudi performed multiple songs from his latest album, last year’s “Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’,” as well as his greatest hits of the last near decade, saving “Day ‘N’ Nite” and “Pursuit of Happiness” for the end.

Despite drawing sizable crowds for each, the most electric sets of the day came earlier from much younger performers for the much younger crowd, where festival-goers over 30 stood out because of how rare they were. Only two heads of natural white hair were spotted the whole weekend, not counting the young’uns whose lavender dye job had faded. For one 13-year-old old attending his first concert, Playboi Carti and Lil Yachty were his highlights, and he got to crowd surf for the first time during Yachty’s chaotic sundown set. This generational divide was perfectly summed up by a teenage girl to her mother in passing: “You think it sounds dumb, but that’s what everyone is responding to.”

This year was definitely better organized and mapped out than in years past. One girl remarked to her friends in line, “Did you come in 2014? Everything was so much less together.” There were multiple stations stacked with power outlets throughout, as well as free water refilling stations, and a plethora of food options available. It will be interesting to see the future of this festival, should it reach Camp Flog Gnaw 16 or beyond, and which acts are booked as 26-year-old mastermind Tyler, The Creator grows older.

||| Also: See our Day 1 coverage
||| Photos by Jazz Shademan

Now, let’s wind the clocks back 10 hours:

2:56 p.m. — You can hear The Internet’s Steve Lacy on the main stage way back from Vermont and 36th, playing tracks from his “Steve Lacy’s Demo,” including “Haterlovin” and “Dark Red.” He remarked that he remembers watching shows at Camp Flog Gnaw when he was 15 and took a moment to savor playing there now, closing with “Some,” and asking those in attendance to “dance or clap, either is fine.”

3:32 p.m. — The clearest barometer of this festival / carnival’s crowd came when the attendant with the megaphone tasked with keeping everyone in the entrance queue both informed and entertained received five times more of a cheer for Earl Sweatshirt than the Los Angeles Dodgers the day of their World Series Game 5.

3:56 p.m. — Domo Genesis tells the crowd, “Fuck you if you spread hate!” then pauses for the obligatory intermission to smoke weed before performing a track called “Me And My Bitch,” proving that heroes come in many forms.

4:29 p.m. — In their first Los Angeles show, Terror Jr unleashed their aesthetically modern pop on the Flog Stage, situated in the field east of the coliseum. Singer Lisa Vitale, anchored by David Benjamin Singer-Vine and Felix Snow, and bolstered by a pair of backup singers, cruised through songs from their trio of releases in the last year, including “3 Strikes,” “Heartbreaks,” “IDWT,” and “Sugar.” They had TERROR JR♡ spelled out in large font made of purple flowers resting on easels that took up much of the stage, but toward the end of the set, wind took out the JR, followed by RROR like dominoes, leaving them to close with “Fight and F*ck” as TE             ♡.

5:18 p.m. — Once the DJ gauged the crowd’s reactions to a series of modern hip-hop bangers, inquired if they were ready, and determined they were ready, Playboi Carti came on stage. It was during this set that noticeably a ton more people were in the grounds, and the carnival’s collective knob began to turn ever so slightly up. “This chain is so heavy, my chest is bleeding from it pounding on this mu’f*cker! Big ice, big ice!” Carti yelled while clutching said chain that sparkled on an overcast afternoon. Right about the time he performed “Magnolia,” someone started going HAM (Hard As a Motherf*cker, for those playing at home) 20’ up in a tree.

5:38 p.m. — “Dodgers, baby!” one patron yelled holding his phone and high-fiving those around him with the other hand as they went up 3-0 in the first inning. “Get those alerts!”

6:15 p.m. — While not quite her milkshake bringing a boy to the yard, the humor was not lost while walking toward Kelis’ set eating two scoops of Afters Ice Cream at dusk. Backed by a drummer and turntablist, her 40-minute performance played like a DJ set with a lot of live Kelis features, interjecting scratched medleys of M.O.P.’s “Ante Up” and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Got Your Money” into her running through “Millionaire,” “Trick Me” and “4th of July.” Never fear, she also did “Milkshake,” and la la-la la la, she warmed it up.

7:07 p.m. — Most of neo-soul-R&B quintet The Internet‘s members released solo projects this year, so over the course of their 50-minute set, the band played Steve Lacy’s “Dark Red,” Matt Martians’ “Diamond In The Rough,” and singer Syd’s “Know,” sounding even more dynamic with a live drummer in the form of Christopher Smith. They also played “Girl” and “Get Away” from 2015’s “Ego Death,” and “Dontcha” from 2013’s “Feel Good,” noting that they have now played all six Flog Gnaws and must have debuted Flog Gnaw 2. They also noted that they have a new album on the way, and just looked like they were having fun, with lots of smiles and Syd getting the crowd to yell “you f*cked up!” at the opportune times during “Just Sayin’.”

8:15 p.m. — Lil Yachty‘s DJ definitely won the award for most air horn uses during a wild set that spanned the Yachty canon. Tracks like “Drippin’,” “Like Wassup,” “Peek A Boo” and “Wanna Be Us” had the lawn jumping, but at one point Lil Yachty noted that while the energy was good, he requested that they turn up a bit more. He then launched into his collaboration with Kyle, “iSpy,” which sounded like the trap “Sesame Street” theme, which did just the trick in amping everyone up even more. Yachty also proved that when asked, people really enjoy putting their middle fingers in the air.

8:47 p.m. — “Make some noise if you love LSD like me,” A$AP Rocky of the A$AP Mob said to a rather packed main stage lot, generating a rather mild response. “This one’s for all you trippy motherf*ckers,” he said, then performed a song entitled — you guessed it — “L$D.” He also did “Yamborghini High,” named after the late A$AP Yams, whose face filled the big screen, but his eyes creepily switched from looking left to right every four bars.

9:15 p.m. — Even Jesus is waiting to see Earl Sweatshirt, or a tipsy man dressed like Jesus who is dancing through those seated on the lawn to Higher Brothers’ “Young Masters.” The next song played is Thundercat’s “Drunk.”

9:20 p.m. — With producer Knxwledge on the beats, Earl Sweatshirt saunters on stage with a big smile and says, “I’m about to rap at y’all for 40 minutes.” And rap he did. Earl raps and points to the audience with a relaxed arm like a wise old man would when lecturing, not in the aggressively macho way others command, and he shuffles slowly around without fanfare. “Y’all happy as hell, make some noise for yourself,” he said a few songs in. One thing that separates Earl from the rest of his generation, including many of the carnival’s other rappers, is you could hear every word he says while spitting dense wordplay over an eclectic batch of lo-fi production, whether you understood the meaning of those words or not. Said 40 minutes included “Guild” and “Burgundy” off of “Doris,” and “AM // Radio” and “Huey” off of “I Don’t Like Sh*t, I Don’t Go Outside,” as well as “Grief,” before which he said, “Make some noise for Tyler before we get sad.” Newer songs “Bad Acid,” “Hat Trick,” “Wind In My Sails” and “45” also made appearances, in addition to an untitled new new song, which he described as “not an old new song, it’s a new new song,” and afterward joked, “I mean, y’all can make some noise if you want. … I was out of key.”

10:01 p.m. — There’s a silent disco-esque short film festival hosted by Illegal Civilization playing between stages near the coliseum, with viewers donning wireless headphones and seated on benches as the masses pass to and fro.

10:05 p.m. — Solange continued her 2017 victory lap with her big third L.A. show in four months, following sets at FYF and the Hollywood Bowl. Between the choreography, color palette and stage design, this stood out as the most calculated and thoughtful performance of the day. She mixed tracks from her 2016 stunner “A Seat At The Table” and her 2012 EP “True,” running through “Don’t You Wait,” “Some Things Never Seem To F*cking Work,” “Mad,” “F.U.B.U.,” and “Losing You,” before closing with “Don’t Touch My Hair” and whipping hers around so much it’d be hard to.

12:02 a.m. — Walking away from the carnival, you can still hear Kid Cudi from the corner of Vermont and 29th.