iHeartRadio Music Fest Rocks Vegas
Another iHeartRadio Music Festival is in the books, and by all accounts, Las Vegas will take a few days to recover. Hosted by Ryan Seacrest, the two-day event kicked off Friday evening at the T-Mobile Arena with a performance from this year’s Macy’s Rising Star winner James Maslow (ex-Big Time Rush). That was followed by crowd favorite P!nk, who stunned the crowd with her aerobatic maneuvers while belting out “So What.” The pace (and requisite shrieking) continued unabated with sets from heartthrob Harry Styles, Coldplay, the incomparable Chris Stapleton and 30 Seconds To Mars, fronted by Jared Leto, who paid tribute to some dearly departed friends with a medley of David Bowie‘s “Heroes,” Soundgarden‘s “Black Hole Sun,” Linkin Park‘s “Crawling,” “Purple Rain from Prince and George Michael‘s “Freedom.” The evening rolled to a strong finish with sets from The Weeknd and David Guetta (with special guest Bebe Rexha).
Saturday’s festivities began outside in the Daytime Village, which rocked non-stop from 11am until after 6pm with performances from Hey Violet, Julia Michaels, Judah & The Lion, Kelsea Ballerini, Cheat Codes, Khalid, Bebe Rexha (with surprise guest collaborator Louis Tomlinson), French Montana (with Juicy J), All Time Low, Noah Cyrus, Flume, Little Mix, Bleachers, Niall Horan, Halsey and Migos.
That evening, back inside the air-conditioned confines of the T-Mobile Arena, Kesha opened Saturday evening’s festivities, and was later joined by Macklemore for their new track, “Good Old Days.” After that it was Kings Of Leon, Lorde (who was joined by special guest vocalists Khalid and Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff), Thomas Rhett, and Niall Horan (more shrieking) who you may remember from his Daytime Village appearance a few hours ago). The energy level continued to climb as Miley Cyrus knocked out a great 30-minute set that included a killer cover of “These Boots Are Made For Walkin.'” Louis Tomlinson (more shrieking) and a busy Bebe Rexha then reprised their earlier Daytime Village rendition of “Back To You,” before turning the stage over to Big Sean, who arrived fresh off his performance at the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park. The 2017 iHeartRadio Music Festival culminated in a star-packed late-night set from DJ Khaled, who brought out a parade of surprise collaborators including Quavo, Chance The Rapper, Travis Scott, Demi Lovato and French Montana. All of the awesome highlights of this massive two-day event are posted online.
