After almost a decade of religiously attending the same festival (although in two different cities), in the past couple of years I decided to branch out and attend one other festival (also in two different cities, funnily enough). The fact that the new event added to my resumé was All Things Go makes sense: it’s a festival that puts extra effort on booking more women, sometimes even only female and non-binary artists. And as someone in recovery from the grasps of the patriarchy, because I have sadly always listened more to men, All Things Go was exactly what I needed.
Last year I covered the original version of the festival in Columbia, Maryland—advertised as All Things Go DC—and I got to see one of my favorite lineups ever. And this year I went to the Toronto version, a smaller but just as exciting 2-day production. Like I mentioned on our pre-coverage article, I was most excited to see the queen of my heart Holly Humberstone, my new love Wet Leg, and my long-term, feels-like-a-close-friend-I-haven’t-seen-in-a-while, favorite artist Del Water Gap. But this festival had so many other surprises waiting for me.
FRIDAY
Bella Kay
I had heard a total of zero songs by Bella Kay before this day (sometimes I am very in the know, sometimes I live under a rock), but left knowing that I would scavenge through her discography to find the songs I’d liked from her set. As a new face in the industry, Bella’s almost innocent energy was charming and exciting, because you can see how—even though she’s still figuring out who she wants to be on stage—she is going places and she has what it takes. Her big smile and youthful personality made you want to root for her from the moment she stepped on the stage, and I think we’re going to be seeing her name in a lot more lineups soon enough.
Holly Humberstone
I don’t know what else there is to say about Holly Humberstone from my end. She is and has been one of my favorite artists for a while now, and her immaculate new album Cruel World only intensified my love for her and her music. Kind of opposite to the gothic, renaissance-inspired outfits and visuals she tends to have, her stage presence is pure joy. She sings about heartbreak and despair with the sweetest smile on her face, luring you in with her charm to then crush you with the vulnerability and realness of her songwriting. I would see Holly live everyday and never stop feeling like I’m levitating. For the first day of the festival, she even had one of the biggest and loudest crowds, which makes me think maybe she should’ve gotten a later set time, so hopefully we’ll see her again soon enough, this time in the right slot.
Rachel Chinouriri
Seeing Rachel right after Holly was like back-to-back stabs to the heart (complimentary). I actually saw Rachel for the first time last year at All Things Go, and was enamoured by her whimsy and her joyful spirit as she jumped and danced excitedly around the stage. This energy is what I think has taken her this far in her career and what will certainly keep her going; she’s been very vocal about the hardships of chasing a place in the music industry as a woman of color, especially in a genre that has almost always been brimming with white, skinny, beautiful white people. As a fellow WOC, her resilience and determination to continue on this path deeply resonates with me. I want her to thrive and I can see that she is thriving, and cannot wait for her enthusiastic and genuine passion to turn her into an even bigger star.
The Beaches
I’ve only ever seen The Beaches at festivals (at Lollapalooza in 2023 and All Things Go DC in 2025), and even though this third time it was also not a headline show, it did not feel like that whatsoever. It was the first time that I felt like I was seeing them in full blast, and surrounded by people that love them and that sang along to every song.
Nearing the end of their set, front woman Jordan Miller told the crowd: “We’ve had so many amazing opportunities this year, but there really is no place like home” (they’re from Toronto), and it was such a beautiful thing to see it be absolutely true. In the past few years, they’ve grown so much both artistically and when it comes to their fanbase, but they’ve also been around for so long, you can tell that they don’t take it for granted, and they haven’t forgotten where they came from. I’m so happy that I got to finally see them in full bloom, in the place they started and after how far they’ve already come.
Kesha
When I was 12 years old I had a crush on a boy from school, and my then-best friend said that “Your Love Is My Drug” was actually the song that best described the situation. This boy had never even shown the slightest hint of interest in me and I didn’t have my first kiss until like 4 years after that moment (also, he was ugly!!!) BUT that song meant so much to me at the time and it brings back silly memories from my tween self that I wouldn’t change (I definitely would but we’ll pretend I wouldn’t for the sake of this writeup). Kesha’s old discography was truly the soundtrack for some of the most formative years of my life, so seeing her for the first time live over a decade later was an incredibly exhilarating experience.
Her showwomanship was as impressive as I had hoped for, and the inclusion of so many of her old songs did warm up the heart of pre-pubescent me. A couple songs in, the 39-year-old asked her audience: “Will you help me take back my songs tonight?” getting one of the biggest cheers of the night. Her journey is one of the most inspiring ones in the industry, and it’s so heartwarming that she’s gotten to a point where she can play the songs that at some point felt unplayable to her. Her set became a moment of liberation and strength that we all got to share with her as a beautiful ending of the first night of the festival.
SATURDAY
Momma
I only found Momma’s music a few months ago, without even realizing that they were in the lineup for ATG, so you can imagine how excited I was when I put two and two together. Having been a band for over ten years now, their chemistry and comfort around each other is visible, making their set at RBC Amphitheatre feel like you were watching one of your college friend’s band playing in a garage, in the best way possible. Still new to the big crowds and festivals full of people that might not know your music, the Momma quartet were able to transmit the joy that playing together clearly brings them, and helped the second day of the festival have an electric and energizing start.
Jade LeMac
There is something so magnetic about Jade Lemac’s stage presence that made her set so much more enjoyable than I imagined. Playing at a decently early time, she made the venue feel like her own with ease, and delivered a performance full of energy and flawless vocals. She seemed to fit perfectly into the atmosphere of the festival and brought an impressive amount of confidence that felt deserved, turning her into one the artists I will definitely look for in lineups in the future, and that I’m sure some of the bystanders at her set will too.
Del Water Gap
I find it so funny that the only male artist in the lineup is one of the people I’ve listened to the most in the past several years. It’s like they knew I needed to experience a lot of female energy but then they gave me a Del Water Gap set just so that I wouldn’t get overwhelmed. Naturally, I sang every word to every song and had the time of my life, except for one little thing: this was the only time since my first Del Water Gap show in 2021 that he did not jump in the crowd during “Perfume.” He did instead, throw inflatable horses into the crowd, so I guess he was technically still jumping around among us during the song. Overall, I will always praise a Del Water Gap set, and this was not the exception, and I honestly don’t know if there will ever be one!
Wet Leg
I wrote a little bit about the importance of Wet Leg in my life at this moment in time (a time where I am actively trying to be less of a horrible feminist and have made the effort to listen to music by women more often), and their place in my heart only grew bigger after experiencing them live. For lack of a better word, they’re just so cool. Rhian is one of the most badass, talented and captivating women I’ve ever seen on a stage, and I had the time of my life jumping around to fun guitar riffs and vocals that were borderline screams. Wet Leg had already won me over in the past year, but I think my devotion to them is now set in stone.
Lorde
When I tried to explain what Lorde’s ATG set had done to me to our editor-in-chief Kristin, all she said was “Lorde exorcism.” And she was absolutely right.
I remember when Royals came out and I felt like the coolest person alive (I was in Chile and this was like the most obscure thing I had ever listened to), and the same thing happened with Team and eventually the whole Pure Heroine era. I was there, and then I was there again four years later for Melodrama, but somewhere along the way I drifted away from Lorde and her music. I still always knew the main songs and listened to the albums when they came out, but there wasn’t a sense of urgency that I felt with other artists and I don’t really have an explanation why. With that said, and circling back to my need to make a habit of listening to more women, seeing Lorde live for the first time ever after so long, made me realize how impactful her music has been in my life, how beautiful it is to see women do great things, and how much I love being able to connect to songs made by people that understand what it’s like to be a young woman in the world.
The emotions Lorde’s set put me through felt like a culmination of so many things I’ve been trying to work through, and dancing around surrounded by friends and strangers the way I did on Sunday night is an experience I will cherish in my heart forever. Concerts have always been my safe place and where I don’t care about anything other than the music; I do think they have lost some of that purity for me, but dancing to “Ribs” and crying to “Liability” I finally felt like I was winning myself back.
In summary: women are awesome, music is awesome, there will always be so many new artists for us to find and love, and that is a beautiful thing. And also, go to a Lorde show if you can. A Lorde exorcism might be just what you need too 🙂
All Things Go hits Merriweather Post Pavilion in D.C. and Forest Hills Stadium in NYC this September.
All photos by All Things Go
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