Hill wasn’t the only performer who had a later night than expected. The festival’s entire schedule was delayed from the jump, per NOLA.com, with GloRilla, the fourth of eight total performers, finishing her set 45 minutes after The Isley Brothers were scheduled to start. The sets kept getting later as the night wore on, with Babyface starting his performance around midnight, nearly two hours after he was originally slated to take the stage. Maxwell, the second-to-last performer, began his scheduled 11:15 p.m. performance around 12:55 a.m.
Unsurprisingly, given Hill’s reputation for postponing shows and generally treating set times as a loose guideline, there was some backlash on social media when news of Hill’s late performance spread. The festival, to its credit, attempted to shut that down in an Instagram post after the fact. “Family is family and around here we protect our own no matter what the PEOPLE have to say,” it wrote. “Let’s be very clear— WE don’t play about Ms. Lauryn Hill. Not for clicks. Not for headlines.”
“She arrived on schedule, stepped on that stage, and delivered the kind of performance only a legend can,” the post continued. “The delay? Not hers. We will take that. The moment? One for the books. The legacy? Still unmatched. Put some respect on her name. Keep the takes, but keep her out of them.”
Besides, it sounds like the “nightclub-sized crowd” that did pull an all-nighter got a pretty special show. Hill performed alongside her sons Zion and YG Marley and reportedly “bantered” with fans in between songs. At one point, she took a request to sing “I Gotta Find Peace Of Mind” from her 2002 live acoustic album MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, even though she said she “didn’t rehearse that.” Later, she singled out a specific audience member after singing “Tell Him” to say, “Sister, I was watching you for the lyrics.” It’s hard to blame her for being a little fuzzy that early in the morning. That audience member may have needed a cup of coffee (or five) the next day, but they also got a story to tell for many nights to come.
