Photo by Julia Drummond

By Bonnie Stiernberg

Best Cover: Japanese Breakfast turned in a really great performance of The Cranberries’ “Dreams” on Saturday, but the most stunning cover of the festival had to be David Byrne’s take on Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout”. Earlier in his set, the Talking Heads frontman took a moment to urge everyone to register to vote (and to be sure to vote in small, local elections as well), and he prefaced his cover of Monae’s protest song by saying, “She wrote this song in 2015, and she performed it at the Women’s March, and sadly, it is still very relevant today.” Byrne updated the lyrics — names of African-Americans killed by police or vigilantes — to include recent tragedies like the murder of Nia Wilson, and it was extremely powerful (and infuriating) to realize how many more names have been added to the list in the three years since Monae wrote the song.