BottleRock 2026 highlights: Lorde, Teddy Swims and Jimmy Butler gave Napa festival a wild opening day
- Lorde turns headlining set into a farewell
- Men at Work brings the '80s singalong
- Jimmy Butler does Vanessa Carlton karaoke on the Culinary Stage
- Teddy Swims crashes Papa Roach's set for ‘Scars'
- Papa Roach brings Vacaville grit to Wine Country
- Chaka Khan turns the afternoon into a singalong
- Natasha Bedingfield delivers the inevitable ‘Unwritten' moment
- Dave Grohl joins Chevy Metal for a covers blowout
- Tré Cool opens the day with the Chin Chins
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BottleRock Napa Valley returned Friday, May 22, bringing a sold-out Memorial Day weekend of music, food, wine and celebrity spectacle to downtown Napa.
The three-day festival runs through Sunday at the Napa Valley Expo, with more than 75 acts across five music stages and appearances on the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage. This year's lineup is led by Foo Fighters, Backstreet Boys, Lorde, Teddy Swims, LCD Soundsystem and Sombr.
Gates open at 11:30 a.m. daily, with the final act scheduled to end at 10 p.m. Beyond the music, the festival includes Napa Valley food and wine vendors, cocktails, art installations, the Silent Disco, The Club, LittleRockers family zone and BottleRock AfterDark shows around Napa and the Bay Area.
Follow along here for highlights, photos, crowd scenes and dispatches from the Napa Valley Expo throughout the weekend.
Lorde turns headlining set into a farewell
Fans dance as Teddy Swims performs on the Prudential Stage during the first day of BottleRock Music Festival held at the Napa Valley Expo in Napa, Calif. Friday, May 22, 2026. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
Lorde closed BottleRock's first night with a sweeping, intimate set that doubled as a farewell to the current chapter of her tour.
"It is the very last time we will do this show," she told the crowd. "This is a bittersweet moment for everyone on this stage but it's joyful too. The change in the air really has a special feeling."
Teddy Swims performs on the Prudential Stage during the first day of BottleRock Music Festival held at the Napa Valley Expo in Napa, Calif. Friday, May 22, 2026. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
The New Zealand singer-songwriter moved through a career-spanning set that included "Royals," "Buzzcut Season," "Team" and "Green Light," along with newer material. Before "Liability," she paused for a piano-backed reflection on time and presence: "There is so much to look forward to but we are here right now," she said. "This is the magic. This is what we remember."
She ended with "David," which she performed after moving into the crowd, giving the night the feeling of a closing ceremony. Earlier Friday, Lorde's sister Indy opened the main stage, marking her first festival appearance and giving the day an unusual family bookend.
Men at Work brings the '80s singalong
Men at Work gave Friday a breezy '80s detour, with Colin Hay leading the Australian band through a set that built toward the obvious crowd-pleasers.
The group mixed deeper cuts and Hay solo material with the songs most of the BottleRock crowd came to hear, including "Overkill," "It's a Mistake," "Who Can It Be Now?" and "Down Under." By the time the flute riff hit on "Down Under," the set had turned into one of the day's easiest singalongs - a sunny Wine Country throwback tucked between the festival's pop, soul and nu-metal extremes.
Jimmy Butler does Vanessa Carlton karaoke on the Culinary Stage
Jimmy Butler sings karaoke while cooking alongside Chef Aaron May, Teddy Swims and Jon Bellion at the Culinary Stage during the first day of BottleRock Music Festival held at the Napa Valley Expo in Napa, Calif. Friday, May 22, 2026. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
Jimmy Butler came to BottleRock to promote Bigface coffee, but he ended up giving the Culinary Stage one of its most delightfully off-brand Friday moments.
More Information
BottleRock Napa Valley 2026: 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. May 22-24. Napa Valley Expo, 575 Third St., Napa. Tickets are sold out; waitlist available at bottlerocknapavalley.com
Appearing with Teddy Swims and host Liam Mayclem, the basketball star broke into karaoke, choosing Vanessa Carlton's early-2000s piano-pop anthem "A Thousand Miles."
The performance was loose, goofy and fully in the spirit of the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage, where the point is less culinary precision than celebrity collision. Asked by Mayclem whether he planned to return as a BottleRock headliner next year, Butler shut down the idea immediately.
"Hell, no," he said.
Teddy Swims crashes Papa Roach's set for ‘Scars'
Teddy Swims performs alongside Papa Roach during the first day of BottleRock Music Festival held at the Napa Valley Expo in Napa, Calif. Friday, May 22, 2026. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
Teddy Swims had just finished his hourlong main-stage set when he made a surprise appearance with Papa Roach at the nearby T-Mobile Stage.
"Hey, how was your show?" Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix asked as Swims walked onstage. "I'm sure you killed it."
"This is the show I wanna do, my man," Swims replied.
The two launched into "Scars," Papa Roach's aching 2004 hit from "Getting Away With Murder," with Shaddix's rasp cutting against Swims' big, wounded soul voice. The pairing worked better than it had any obvious right to and became one of Friday's best crossover moments.
Swims, who previously played BottleRock before becoming one of its headliners, returned Friday sounding fully promoted. His main-stage set moved across gospel, country-soul, blues-rock and pop, with songs including "The Door," "Some Things I'll Never Know" and "Guilty," plus a Van Halen cover of "Jump."
Papa Roach brings Vacaville grit to Wine Country
Papa Roach performs during the first day of BottleRock Music Festival held at the Napa Valley Expo in Napa, Calif. Friday, May 22, 2026. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
Papa Roach gave BottleRock's first night a jolt of hometown-adjacent chaos, reminding the Napa crowd that the band started just down the road in Vacaville.
"Y'know, we've been knowing about this festival for a long, long, long time, and they finally let some rowdy motherf-s like Papa Roach on the stage," Shaddix quipped.
He shouted out family in the crowd and reflected on the band's Solano County roots.
"If you don't know, we're from a small town called Vacaville, a little cow town down the way," he said. "We were just four or five kids with a dream thinking we could do this, and look at us, man. We started this in 1993 and we're still getting up here and having the time of our lives."
The set included "Getting Away With Murder," "Leave a Light On (Talk Away the Dark)," "Between Angels and Insects" and "Last Resort," along with a cover segment Shaddix dubbed the "Nu-Metal Time Machine," featuring pieces of Korn, Deftones, Limp Bizkit and System of a Down songs. It was a compressed Warped Tour flashback dropped into a festival better known for cabernet, culinary demos and VIP cabanas.
Chaka Khan turns the afternoon into a singalong
Chaka Khan brought a deep catalog and effortless command to Friday's lineup, giving BottleRock one of its most purely joyful early-evening sets.
The funk and R&B legend leaned into both solo hits and Rufus favorites, including "Sweet Thing," "Through the Fire," "Tell Me Something Good," "I Feel for You," "I'm Every Woman" and "Ain't Nobody."
For a festival that often thrives on generational overlap, Khan's set worked as a reminder that some catalogs do not require rediscovery. They simply need a crowd, a groove and enough daylight left for everyone to dance.
Natasha Bedingfield delivers the inevitable ‘Unwritten' moment
Natasha Bedingfield performs on the T-Mobile Stage during the first day of the BottleRock Music Festival held at the Napa Valley Expo in Napa, Calif. Friday, May 22, 2026. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
Natasha Bedingfield's Friday set built toward the moment everyone knew was coming.
The British pop singer moved through "Love Like This," "Pocketful of Sunshine" and "These Words," mixing bright 2000s pop with a few unexpected turns, including snippets and covers that nodded to Kate Bush, Portishead, Coldplay and the Cranberries.
But "Unwritten" was the destination. Two decades after its release, the song has become both millennial memory trigger and cross-generational festival bait. At BottleRock, it did exactly what it was supposed to do: turn a field full of strangers into a mass chorus.
Dave Grohl joins Chevy Metal for a covers blowout
Dave Grohl made his first major Friday splash at BottleRock not with Foo Fighters, who headline Saturday, but with Chevy Metal.
The covers band tore through a classic-rock-heavy set that included songs by the Rolling Stones, Rush, Talking Heads, Led Zeppelin, the Police, the Knack, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Thin Lizzy, Joe Walsh and Van Halen.
Grohl's appearance gave the set the feel of a warm-up party for Saturday's Foo Fighters headlining slot, with the loose energy of musicians playing songs they clearly love rather than preserving any festival mystique.
Tré Cool opens the day with the Chin Chins
Green Day drummer Tré Cool was part of BottleRock's opening-day action, joining the Chin Chins, the new band featuring his wife, Sara Rose.
The set marked the group's first festival appearance and gave early arrivals a small but notable Bay Area rock connection before the day's bigger names took over the grounds.
For a festival that often stacks celebrity cameos and surprise appearances across the weekend, it was a fitting start: casual, familial and just a little unexpected.
