Over the weekend, the 10th annual All Things Go festival took place concurrently in Columbia, Maryland, and—for the first time—New York City. Deemed by the terminally online as "Gaychella," or "Lesbopalooza," the festival has recently become renowned for convening the up-and-comers, mid-tier artists, and household names made such specifically by Zoomer and Millennial shes, theys, and gays.
But on Friday, Chappell Roan, one of the festival's most collectively-anticipated headliners, announced that she would no longer be able to perform in order to "prioritize her health." Her statement came amid an onslaught of backlash after two profiles in Rolling Stone and the Guardian, in which she rightfully noted that this country's two-party system is flawed. Regardless of the fact that many young people in the U.S. share her take, her comments were largely taken out of context thanks to countless Twitter users who coalesced in their sanctimony to christen her "an embarrassment to lesbians."
Fortunately, that kind of nauseating superiority was nowhere to be found on stage Saturday night at Forest Hills in NY or the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland. From MUNA, who paid homage to Roan with an acoustic cover of "Good Luck Babe" to a group of New York City-based drag performers, who helmed a dance party to Roan's discography, to Mannequin Pussy, who spoke exclusively to Jezebel—all the All Things Go artists weren't just supportive of Roan's absence, but uniquely sympathetic to it as public figures whose audiences expect them to have an opinion on current affairs.
"Unfortunately, it is a risk to speak your mind, truly, in this country," Missy Dabice, the front woman of the Philadelphia-bred indie punk band, told Jezebel. "But I think, there's a certain point where it's like...'what? are you going to care about some fucking low IQ nerds on the internet telling you you're a piece of shit?' I don't anymore."
"Here we are talking in front of each other," she continued. "Here we are saying something when we're actually physically in a room with people and getting that sense of real connection that just doesn't feel as real online.”
Dabice and the rest of Mannequin Pussy—Kaleen Reading, Colins Regisford, and Maxine Steen—are no strangers to loudly railing against structures of power. Take, for instance, when Dabice spoke candidly against politicians who adopt legislation from "fascist playbooks" in Kerrang! last February or, in Sunday's case, when she delivered a searing diatribe against god-fearing parents who belong to organized religions that rely heavily on its congregation's deeply-rooted shame.
"Here's the thing about shame...for some reason, it keeps getting passed down from generation to generation. And wouldn't it be beautiful if it stopped with ours?" Dabice asked the crowd during Sunday's set before eventually ramping up. "This is a band that stands for the liberation of all people, this is a band that stands for a free Palestine, and this is a band that stands for people to live freely and respectfully as they are."
Since Roan's sudden shift to mainstream success, it seems she's been publicly denied everything but the ability to live freely and respectfully. Not only has the internet seemingly become a minefield for the pop supernova, but she's shared that she—and her family—have been stalked and harassed offline, too. Even after she said she would, in fact, still vote for Vice President Kamala Harris even if she won't fully endorse her, her thoughts on participating in an often hypocritical system this November have been widely misconstrued. This Dabice understands.
"I'm tired actually, of feeling like voting for these politicians is an endorsement of our identities, " she told Jezebel. "This [voting] is not an endorsement of my identities or my beliefs. It's just my participation in the system that we currently have as a democracy and actually, it's kind of no one's fucking business who you vote for."
“You can choose not to participate in the system either," she continued. "But democracy is a very fragile thing, and it actually takes the participation of people showing up to a poll and making a choice--even if that choice is you didn't select a single name on that sheet."
