Four Tet, Skrillex, and Fred Again.. Replacing Frank Ocean as Coachella 2023 Headliners: Report
After closing out the first weekend of Coachella 2023, Frank Ocean will not return as the Sunday headliner of the California festival’s second weekend. Instead, Four Tet, Skrillex, and Fred Again.. will perform in his place, Rolling Stone reports. Upon revealing its full weekend two schedule, the festival had “TBA” listed under the 10:25 time slot at the Coachella main stage. The three electronic artists will reportedly perform at that time. Pitchfork has reached out to Coachella representatives for further comment.
Four Tet, Skrillex, and Fred Again.. recently released a collaborative track called “Baby Again..” The artists have been sharing it during live sets in recent months, including the trio’s five-hour b2b live set at Madison Square Garden. The song prominently samples Lil Baby’s “Baby.”
Ocean’s camp said he was forced to cancel the weekend two performance on the advice of his doctor due to two fractures and a sprain in his left leg. “It was chaotic,” Ocean said in a statement. “There is some beauty in chaos. It isn’t what I intended to show but I did enjoy being out there and I’ll see you soon.”
The news followed reports that overall production of his headlining set was altered due to an ankle injury; a pair of ice skaters seemed to confirm rumors of a scrapped ice rink component. Ocean’s set was one of very few that didn’t appear on the festival’s YouTube stream, and it ended somewhat abruptly with an address to the crowd: “Guys, I’m being told it’s curfew, so that’s the end of the show. Thank you so much.”
Ocean’s performance last week was his first since 2017. He was announced as a headliner for Coachella 2020 before the festival was canceled for two years in a row due to the pandemic. In 2021, the festival revealed that Ocean would headline the 2023 edition instead of returning for a set in 2022.
