Everything you missed at Gov Ball! Day 1 🪩🎵

By Mia Savidge

The 2025 Governors Ball at Flushing Meadows Corona Park held in Queens, New York ran this past weekend June 6th through June 8th. Throughout the festival there were continuous musical sets, food and beverages, shopping, pop ups and so much more all weekend. Join me as I review each musical set I saw during the 3-day event!

Friday

Strawberry Launch 🍓

This superpowered New York Indie band started out the festival strong through their energetic and engaging set! They began with a softer ballad and closed with more upbeat songs. They performed some of their most popular songs such as “Light Blue Sheets”, “Videos”, “Bad Luck” and more! If you’d like to hear more about Strawberry Launch you can check out the interviews that we at WMSC did with them soon!

Stolen Gin 🍸

This felt like a major jam sesh mixed with a groovy party topped off with elements of jazz. This New York City originated group performed a plethora of tunes including some covers. This set was such a vibe that contained bangers such as their Underwater, and much more! If you’d like to hear more about Strawberry Launch you can check out the interviews that we at WMSC did with them soon!

Isbael Larosa 🐦‍⬛

A truly captivating performance by this singer-songwriter popping out with hits such as the TikTok famous “I’m Yours” along with many others such as “Older” and “Eyes Don’t Lie”. Shouting out her partner in music and brother, Thomas playing with her at the show as well while dancing and singing her heart out. With these vocals mixed with a dark feminine vibe energy, you really can’t ask for a cooler time!

Mannequin Pussy 🎸

If you think you’ve seen a band like this one before, no you haven’t. Combining a unique rock and punk sound with audience participation like no other, this group has definitely left a huge impact with their set. Energy was driven by lead singer, Marisa Dabice and the whole band encouraging the crowd to let go of others’ opinions and values and promoting living how you want.

Wasia Project 🌙

Simply stunning, the light sweet sound of this group filled me and I’m sure so many others with pure joy. Olivia Hardy and William Gao produced a set featuring popular tunes such as “Petals on the Moon” and “ur so pretty” entertaining the crowd. They also sang a new unreleased song “Letters from the Day” which was dark, mysterious, and beautiful altogether teasing its release sometime this summer. This set can only be described as absolutely lovely and a wonderful vibe altogether. 

The Backseat Lovers 🚗

What an incredible time from an iconic band! The crowd and I agreed with how hype we needed to be for this amazing group. Starting with favorite “Pool House” and adding a new unreleased song called “Invisible”, they provided an incredible time. They ended not before complementing the city saying it’s their favorite place to do what they do. 

Role Model 🤠

A wholly and insanely fun experience exciting the huge audience gathering for him. Bringing out hits and classics such as “Scumbag”, “Super Glue”, “Somebody Else”, “Some Protector”  along with so many others! And of course I couldn’t not talk about his legendary moment during “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out” when he brought out his “Sally” of the night, aka Conan Gray set to perform on Saturday! This iconic moment was immediately shared to the internet and wrapped up his set with a bang.

Benson Boone 🎤

Backflipping and belting, so many B’s with this one. He captured the audience’s hearts performing songs like “Cry”, “Drunk in my Mind”, “Slow it Down”, “Be Someone”, “Pretty Slowly” and much more. Adding major physicality as well as vocals, I recorded him flipping through the air a grand total of sex separate times in his set. Focusing on vocals, he sang on his own along with accompanying himself on piano. Checking in on every section of the crowd, he also got the audience interacting a ton throughout his songs.

Tyler, The Creator 💚

Wow is genuinely the only thing I can say after seeing this set. Closing out the day, Tyler, The Creator delivered an action packed set beginning with album starter, “St. Chroma” off his latest touring album, “Chromokopia”. The crowd understood the assignment and was incredibly hype throughout the entire night singing along to songs such as “Noid”, ”Sticky”, and “Like Him” off his newest album and others from the past such as  “EARFQUAKE”, “WUSYANAME”, and much more. Along with dancing, singing, and rapping, his performance also featured fireworks, lighting, and flames, heightening the experience to another level. Overall, I had the absolute best time ending off Day 1 of Gov Ball lip syncing and jamming to my favorite Tyler songs.