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Watch Hayley Williams bring out Jack Antonoff, Lucy Dacus, Jenny Lewis and more at Newport Folk Festival
Hayley Williams performed a guest-filled ‘Hayley Williams & Friends’ set at Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island on 24 July, bringing together prominent collaborators and artists from across indie and alternative music. The appearance highlighted material from her recent solo work, several live debuts and a communal closing performance, underscoring the collaborative character of the festival set.
Guests included Jack Antonoff, Lucy Dacus, Jenny Lewis, Remi Wolf, Karly Hartzman, Joy Oladokun, Kelsey Lu, Madi Diaz and others across a 16-song set. Antonoff joined Williams for an acoustic Bleachers cover and ‘Good Ol’ Days’, while Dacus and Lu debuted ‘Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris’; the concert ended with many guests performing Bill Withers’ ‘Lean On Me’.
In short
- Williams led a star-studded Newport Folk Festival set.
- Several songs received their first live performances.
- The guests closed with ‘Lean On Me’.
Explained simply
Hayley Williams is an American rock musician best known as the lead singer of Paramore, an alternative rock band that rose to prominence in the mid-2000s. In recent years, she has pursued solo work, releasing albums that explore different musical directions from her main band. Through her solo projects, she has collaborated with musicians across the wider alternative and indie music communities.
Newport Folk Festival is a major annual music festival held in Rhode Island that has operated since 1959. It is widely regarded as one of North America's most important folk and singer-songwriter festivals. The festival is known for bringing together artists from diverse genres to create unexpected collaborative performances.
Contemporary indie and alternative music is characterised by deep interconnections between musicians, songwriters and producers who regularly collaborate across their various projects. Prominent figures in these networks include artists like Jack Antonoff, Lucy Dacus and Jenny Lewis. Newport Folk's tradition of multi-artist performances provides a showcase for such collaborations and demonstrates the shared artistic sensibilities that link musicians across different genres.
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