A 2000s pop star delivers Y2K bangers in surprise set at Portola Festival

One of the Portola Festival’s standout performances took place in one of the shortest sets on one of the smallest stages, where British pop star Natasha Bedingfield followed noise rapper JPEGMAFIA to belt out a few Y2K bangers. 

The booking was announced just five days before the third annual festival on the San Francisco waterfront.

“I did not expect this in this lineup,” San Francisco resident Kaylin McDonald said. “We came and she ate her three songs up, like, slay the fuck out of my existence. I got-a-pocket-got-a-pocketful of sunshine!”

Bedingfield, 42, played some of her best-known early 2000s hits with lengthy interludes: “Pocketful of Sunshine,” “These Words,” and “The Hills” theme song “Unwritten.” 

“It felt like I was watching MTV at 4 p.m.!” Hayward resident Marin Gotl exclaimed.

Fans old enough to remember Bedingfield’s breakout singles basked in the nostalgia.

“We are experiencing life right now!” a woman wearing Matrix-like sunglasses screamed from the crowd.

While the decision to enlist the singer came as somewhat of surprise, it’s not unusual for the nascent festival. Despite its focus on eletronica, the event has featured an array of genre-bending artists in its short few years on the music scene.

Nelly Furtado played her classic 2000s numbers during the festival’s 2023 run. And come Sunday, Rebecca Black — whose claim to fame stems from her widely mocked 2011 song “Friday” — is set to play one of the event’s biggest stages. 

The festival’s fashion ran the generational gamut, too, featuring everything from gorp-core to beachwear, leather — and even raccoon costumes in homage to the critters said to infest the venue’s warehouse stage.

“I want to be myself and I feel like wearing a garbage bag sends a message: Be yourself,” Walnut Creek resident Joshua Muhlestein said. “I love Portola. It’s Bay Area culture. I see friends from college, high school, people I’ve seen clubbing before. It’s just a community of people and it’s fun to see them come out.”

Despite Bedingfield’s aspirational lyrics about sunshine, the festival’s first of two days was colder, foggier and windier than in years past. My glasses were covered in saltwater spray from the bay after her set. 

“I thought it was sunny in California,” Lava La Rue, one of the day’s performing artists, joked to a scrum of reporters.

The event organized by Goldenvoice — the promoters behind Coachella Valley Music Festival — has turned heads internationally for featuring coveted artists along a vacant pier in South San Francisco. 

On the first day of the weekend festival, paltry attendance swelled into elbow-to-elbow crowds basking in vibrant lights and meandering clouds of smoke by the time Joy Orbison took the stage around early evening.  

The festival has been something of a learning experience for its impresarios. When Fred Again took the stage during its inaugural event in 2022, fans bum-rushed the fence to protest attempts to herd them in slowly.

This year, things seemed to go off without a hitch — aside from the weather. To add extra precaution, organizers ordered a booth with 2,000 doses of opioid-overdose-reversing drug Narcan in addition to adding Electrolyte to the roster of sponsors.