Governor’s Ball 2025 – Flushing Meadows Corona Park – Queens (A PopEntertainment.com Concert Review)
- PopEntertainment
- Jun 9
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 29
Governor’s Ball 2025 – Flushing Meadows Corona Park – Queens, NY – June 6-8, 2025
Gov Ball 2024 was hard to beat with superstars like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter playing sets on the main stage that were talked about for months to follow. Falling on the first full weekend of June, Governors Ball 2025 returned to Flushing Meadows Corona Park for a jam packed weekend.
Saturday’s performers included former Brockhampton member Matt Champion, T-Pain, Role Model, Tyla, Mk.gee, Benson Boone, and headliner, Tyler, The Creator amongst many others. This year’s festival had a diverse lineup across many genres from pop, to indie, to rock, and reggaeton.
You never realize how many hits an artist has until you watch them play on the main stage at a festival in the early evening and the crowd is packed and singing every word. With statues of himself on stage and a fancy black and red suit, T-Pain captivated the crowd with every single track he played. He even threw in a “Don’t Stop Believin’” sing along and a cover of Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” hitting every note and every run.
In true Role Model fashion, he introduced himself as anything but himself. He was Benson Boone, The 1965, and Clairo just to name a few. Role Model’s pop songs with a little bit of country twang are always fun to see live and his fans piled in early to get a good spot in the crowd for his set. Every show, Role Model finds his Sally to bring up on stage as he sings “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out.” Gov Ball’s Sally was none other than Conan Gray in a t- shirt that said “Wish I Were Sally” (not to be confused with Heather).
I also had the opportunity to check out Mk.gee, an indie/alternative singer, songwriter and producer hailing from New Jersey. Mk.gee’s music is guitar heavy with an occasional bird caw and a lot of soul. While he was a man of few words when speaking on stage, his performance and musicality spoke for itself. He started and ended his set the same way, with haze on the stage and a fan favorite track called “Rockman.”
Unless you haven’t spent any time on the internet you are probably familiar with pop singer Benson Boone and his gymnastics abilities. Between verses, songs and whenever he felt like it, Benson flipped causing cheers from the crowd and still hit every note while doing so. It’s still unclear what Moonbeam Ice Cream is, but it appeared that Benson doesn’t quite know either as he told the crowd in a Scottish accent. He closed out his set with his chart topper “Beautiful Things.”
Friday night headliner Tyler, The Creator made a stop in New York in the middle of his tour to play the festival. Tyler started his set by performing the first 3 songs on his latest album Chromakopia. Matching the record, the start of his set flowed seamlessly as he performed and transitioned to each song. He later played some of his older tracks like “Earfquake” and “New Magic Wand,” many of which were crowd favorites, as die hard fans in their Tyler merch filled the festival grounds in anticipation for his set. He’ll be back in July for his headline dates at Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center.
Saturday started off to a rocky start as storm delays pushed doors back to 4:00pm (as opposed to the originally scheduled 11:45am). Some fans were camped out since the morning in hopes of getting barricade for Olivia Rodrigo’s set later that night when the announcement was made. Despite the rain and lines wrapped around the park, turnout was still strong for day 2 of the festival. Doors opened and the “barricade run” began as fans raced to their desired stage to get the best view possible.
Fresh off of her album release the day before, pop star Marina was the first main stage performer of the day. She played new tracks like “Cuntissimo” and sprinkled in some classics from the Electra Heart album like “Bubblegum Bitch,” “Primadonna” and “How to Be a Heartbreaker.” While these songs were released in 2012, the power of the internet have resurfaced them, introducing Marina to a whole new audience of people that now get to experience her art.
The pouring rain did not stop Wallows one bit during their set. While it started with blue skies, by the time they were performing their closer “Are You Bored Yet?” almost everyone in the crowd had put on their rain ponchos and danced along as the largest raindrops I’ve ever seen fell from the sky. The band were very interactive with the crowd, Dylan even came down into the audience to be up close with fans during their set.
Just before Olivia Rodrigo’s headlining set, Conan Gray took the stage playing to a massive crowd of people. Conan announced his upcoming album titled wishbone a few weeks prior. The album art is an image of Conan in a sailor outfit which was the theme of his Gov Ball stage setup as well. He climbed the crow’s nest of his onstage ship as he sang “People Watching.” He even played a beautiful cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.”
Saturday night was for the pop fans! Olivia Rodrigo played a fun set with a surprise appearance from the legendary David Byrne. The pair performed “Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads. Olivia’s set was curated to include tracks from her debut album SOUR and while a handful of them were ballads like “Drivers License” & “Traitor,” she had the crowd locked in at every second singing along to every word, because we all need to let out our inner teen angst sometimes.
Our third and final day of the festival was much colder than the heat we experienced on Friday. The amount of times we saw the sun was few and far between but the acts that played definitely made up for the cold weather.
British powerhouse Raye graced the main stage with an incredible set on Sunday afternoon. It was so electrifying even she didn’t want to leave the stage once her time was up. Raye gained recognition over the past few years as her hit “Escapism.” sky rocketed, but her talent goes way beyond that. She had a full band behind her on stage who made me feel like I had somehow left the grassy fields of Flushing Meadows Corona Park and ended up in a jazz club.
The Japanese House played a synth filled set as lead singer Amber Bain talked about how tracks from their latest album In The End It Always Does were inspired by her experience in figuring out her identity as a queer person (“Boyhood”) and traveling across the Atlantic for a person she had never met before “:)”. She left the crowd swaying as she closed out her set with “Sunshine Baby.”
Indie pop darling Clairo brought her Charm tour set to the Governors' Ball. Clairo and her band took the stage, wine glasses in hand, as “After Laughter (Comes Tears)” played on the speakers.
Her set consisted mostly of tracks from her latest album, Charm such as “Sexy To Someone” and “Juna.” Her Gov Ball crowd even got a little treat as she performed “Steeeam” with her Shelly bandmates cheering her on in the front row. It wouldn't be pride month without a performance of “Bags” and to the surprise of many she ended her set with “Sofia,” a track that she stopped playing live for quite a bit of time.
The hardest part about being at a music festival is you can’t be in two places at once. It appeared that some fans chose to lock in their spots for Hozier while Glass Animals closed out their set with “Heat Waves” on a stage nearby. Fans in the Hozier crowd sang along as they waited for his set to begin.
Hozier began his set with one of his newer songs, “Nobody’s Soldier” and throughout his set sprinkled in tracks from his entire discography. He took a moment to say I’ll see you soon, but didn’t say much more. Before we knew it Hozier had made his way into the crowd where a second stage stood between the front and middle sections. From there he played “Cherry Wine” solo with just his guitar and “Unknown / Nth.” One of my favorite songs to hear live is “Would That I” and hearing it sung with a crowd that big as everyone’s voices filled the space sent chills down my spine. Hozier was the perfect Sunday night headliner and despite the cold he was fighting, he still sounded as lovely as ever as he took us home after a music filled weekend where we somehow managed to experience all four seasons in the span of three days.
Until next time, Gov Ball!
Ruth Bekele
Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: June 9, 2025.
Photos ©2025 Taylor Regulski, Roger Ho, Paigge Warton, Charles Reagan and Dusana Risovic. Courtesy of C3 Presents. All rights reserved.
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