Natasha Bedingfield on the Crane Stage at Portola Music Festival in San Francisco on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024.
Matt Weinberger/Portola Music Festival
San Francisco’s third annual Portola Music Festival offered many highlights, but perhaps none as unexpectedly poignant as a 20-year-old song performed on its smallest stage.
On the first night of the festival on Saturday, Sept. 28, British pop singer Natasha Bedingfield drew thousands to the waterfront Crane Stage at Pier 80, delivering a three-song set featuring her early 2000s hits “Pocketful of Sunshine,” “These Words,” and “Unwritten.”
Battling gusty winds in a sleek cheetah print bodysuit, Bedingfield, 42, who had been recently announced as a surprise addition to the lineup, hit every high note during “These Words,” repeatedly professing her affection for the crowd.
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“Portola, I love you, I love you!” Bedingfield sang.
It would have been a lovely mic drop moment, but she couldn’t leave without performing “Unwritten,” sparking a massive singalong — that neighbors across the bay in Alameda likely heard, too.
DJ is Jamie xx on the Pier Stage at San Francisco’s Portola Music Festival on Saturday, Sept. 28.
Scott Hutchinson/Portola Music Festival
“We’re millennials so it was really nostalgic,” said Amanda Salazar, 32, of Oakland, who danced and sang along. “We were here last year and saw Nelly Furtado and it was just so good and hit the exact feelings that you wanted, so we were hoping, even though it was a 15-minute set, that it would have that exact same feeling — and it did!”
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But while Bedingfield attracted many millennials, her audience included a strong Gen Z contingent, partly due to the popularity of last year’s rom-com “Anyone But You” starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell.
While the song, off her 2004 debut album of the same name, had been featured on several movie and TV soundtracks — most notably as the theme song for 2006-10 reality TV show “The Hills” — it played a prominent role in “Anyone But You.”
And Saturday’s performance of the song didn’t stop there.
Natasha Bedingfield on the Crane Stage at San Francisco’s Portola Music Festival on Saturday, Sept. 28.
Matt Weinberger/Portola Music Festival
During a ride home, passengers on the Chinatown-bound light rail spontaneously sang “Unwritten” together.
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“We were stoked because we’ve been super into her since the movie came out,” said Bijan Almassi, 25, of Santa Rosa. “We knew who she was before that, but the movie kind of brought her back into the spotlight.”
Almassi said he also enjoyed hearing “These Words” live, another 2004 track that has received similar renewed attention on social media.
Almassi’s friend Patrick Smith, also 25 of Santa Rosa who watched “Anyone But You” with him in a local theater last year, agreed, noting the set’s energy.
“It felt like everybody was very intentional, in the sense that they knew she was there for 15 minutes and they wanted to rock out,” Smith said, noting the rush of festivalgoers that swarmed the Crane Stage for Bedingfield despite her set conflicting with that of famed British producer Jamie xx on the Pier Stage.
While Bedingfield has since released new versions of “Unwritten,” she said she is working on new music, expected for release later this year.
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Saturday’s festival highlights included British pop singer Jessie Ware’s energetic Pier Stage performance, the rousing rhymes of Deltron 3030 — San Francisco DJ Dan the Automator, Oakland rapper Del the Funky Homosapien and Canadian producer Kid Koala — at the Ship Tent, and Soulwax’s visually captivating set at the Crane Stage, transforming it into a virtual recording studio with an array of synthesizers and instruments.
Portola Music Festival, produced by Goldenvoice, the promoters behind Southern California’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, continues Sunday, Sept. 29, with highly anticipated sets by American singer-songwriter Rebecca Black, whose 2011 single “Friday” became a viral earworm, British rapper M.I.A. and two of EDM’s most influential duos from Europe, Disclosure and Justice.
Reach Mariecar Mendoza: [email protected]
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Portola Music Festival: 1-11 p.m. Sept. 28; 1-10:45 p.m. Sept. 29. General admission starts at $239.95; VIP starts at $359.95. Pier 80, 401 Cesar Chavez St., S.F. portolamusicfestival.com
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