FOLLOWING MILES BACKSTAGE
Story & Photos / Jennalynn Fung
I am driving across the Bay Bridge at a precarious speed while simultaneously blasting MiLES’ music and frantically texting him about where to meet him for the Outside Lands music festival. He says plans have changed, they’ve already left the hotel, and it turns out the festival gave the team one less wristband for exclusive backstage entry. That one was supposed to be mine.
We’d spent weeks confirming and reconfirming plans, all for it to come crashing down in the hours right before the performance. Chaos was typical for show business, and this being MiLES’ first large festival performance only amplified it. He’d never navigated anything like this before. His most comparable experience had been opening up for Jordan Ward at Stanford University’s Black Love weekend, where Miles had just finished his first year studying electronic engineering.
Naturally, we engineer a backup plan – I’ll be getting a VIP pass instead at the ticket booth. It’s a fraught morning with tense text exchanges. I run through the gates to the very end of the festival grounds in heeled boots until the man of the hour comes into view.
MiLES, at just 19 years old, opens the Sutro Stage at Outside Lands, one of the biggest music festivals in the United States. All doubters are silenced here as his voice takes over – his belting and high notes blanketing the audience like the clouds above.
The crowd was both sparser yet denser than expected. Miles wasn’t a well-known artist—just a college kid. The semblance of a crowd – probably four to five rows of people on either side, remained relatively quiet. A few people gently swayed to the music with polite and relaxed smiles across their faces.
It wasn’t until he strongly urged them to raise their arms and sway along, to sing with him, that something shifted. At first, they hesitated, like a field of tall grass waiting for the wind. But then, as if catching the same current, they began moving in unison—arms lifting, bodies swaying, the crowd slowly coming to life. What started as scattered movement grew into a subtle but undeniable wave, each person feeding off the energy of the other, until the music had taken them over.
His interactions with the audience were straightforward—just a young man speaking earnestly. He seized their attention, taking full control of the moment. This was his time to captivate, and he gave it his all.
Without flashy gestures or wild movements, people responded to his sincerity – the core of his presence. He wasn’t the larger-than-life rock star or a magnetic heartthrob. Instead, it was a rising artist the crowd eagerly watched, hoping they could one day boast, “I saw him before he made it big.”
In spite of the simplicity of his performance—just singing his songs—he managed to hold their attention, leaving an impression that would linger long after the final note.
Thankfully for the young singer, his inexperience doesn’t show where it matters most. MiLES has a lot of confidence right out of the door. Heis interacting with the audience, asking them questions and encouraging them to sing along to “Test of Time,” even if they’re never heard of it before. He belts songs like “Baby Blue,” “Contact High” and “Oxygen” while walking the stage, claiming it as his own. It’s like he knows he is meant to be here, even if other people haven’t realized.
After his performance, I find his manager, Brandra Ringo, who is decorated like a christmas tree with a camera and bag straps. She offers a handshake before handing me a pass that says “BISON” on it. It’s the key to getting backstage.
We approach the gate, we successfully scan in, then walk across squashed grass strewn with cables and the occasional covers. The cords snake around the stage’s metal legs, traversing the steps, leading right to the artist.
Miles takes a good look around him, taking it all in, before deciding: “yeah, let’s go back to the trailer.” I see the next performer, Rocco, standing with his band, waiting to go up.
MiLES’ entire crew gathered before the creaky bolted stairs, then descended down to the grass, only to go up another wooden set of stairs leading to the top of the hill. Before everyone piles into the trailer, Miles has a well deserved photoshoot with his own sign while standing on the steps. After a few snaps, we get inside. Bags are dumped, shits are taken, water and snacks are gulped down. Phones are frantically plugged into chargers. It’s a cramped room for all nine of us to be in at once, and it isn’t long until a few of the band musicians trickle out, just as they came in.
The noise settles down, giving me an opportunity to ask a question without ruining the vibe. I’ve come here to observe the inner workings of a musician at a festival and am trying to limit my presence as much as possible. “How are you feeling after the performance?”
He takes another gulp of his water. “I’m feeling so good. I didn’t expect that kind of love, that kind of warmth from the crowd. But, we didn’t even get to do soundcheck, so I was kind of freaking out. We just went up there and hoped for the best.” Although the team had arrived on time – early actually, departing an extra hour before they’d originally planned to leave the hotel – the stage wasn’t ready for them to practice. But being the one of the smallest performers, they didn’t really feel like it was their place to be complaining. It was just a minor inconvenience because they were minor, even if the issue really was major.
The same philosophy applied to their trailer, which actually wouldn’t be theirs in about 2 hours. It was going to be Kevin Abstract’s for the rest of the day, which sucked. But being that Abstract was one of Miles’ favorite artists, it was a privilege in its own twisted humbling way, like being pinned-flat by the great Muhammad Ali.
“So, you guys only have about an hour and thirty left here. What are you going to do?” Brandra asked. She looked at her watch before giving Miles an urgent look.
“Hold up,” Miles pulls up the Friday schedule on his phone, before opening up the trailer door and yelling to the rest of the crew: “Let’s go see some shows. Who’s down to see Rochelle Jordan?”
Brandra dialed for the golf carts to drive us from Sutro stage to Twin Peaks before reminding him of his other interviews. It was far from instantaneous. Golden Gate Park is immense and hilly, with transport from the far side of one stage to the other taking up to 10 minutes of golf-cart travel, aka the gold-standard of festival transit.
Our heads turned to the sound of tires against gravel. After a probable 10 minute long wait, the carts were finally here, but there weren’t enough seats. The group would have to split up. When the next plastic chariot finally arrived, Chris, Simon Ajero, and I piled in.
Simon talked about how he’d played Outside Lands many times before for various artists. “It’s always chaotic, but the best part is the golf carts.” Then Chris and him talked about video games, what living in New York is like – often deferring to me for answers – and the complexities of Bay Area fashion, which allegedly peaked with “swagapino” culture from Filipino-Americans.
After about one or two songs, Miles decided it was time to go to his other scheduled interviews. Well, he was already slated to be late, if you went by golf-cart time zones.
To make matters worse for the schedule, Miles decides in the heat of the moment that he’s just going to walk to the press tent. “It’s not that big of a deal. Things workout,” he says, before admitting that he actually doesn’t know where the media tent is.
The rest of the crew isn’t down to walk, but as I’ve self-assigned the role of Miles’ shadow today, I request to join him. He’s more than happy to have company. “How far do you think it is?” he asks. I study the map posted on the boards and shrug.
“I think it’s going to be a long walk,” I say, recalling how long it took me to get to the Sutro stage in the morning, and how surprisingly long the golf-cart ride was. “You know, Golden Gate Park is bigger than Central Park?”
“I did not know that. Wow. Surprising,” his eyebrows raised. “This is also my first festival, ever. I’ve never even attended one before. So it’s even crazier to be performing at one.” I continued to walk hastily through the park, as though dragging MiLES with me. The trek takes longer than you might think, especially when you get stopped every so often by people who recognize you from your performance. At the intersection where larger-than-life plastic mushrooms sit idly, three different people recognize him and request a photo.
“You were so good!” “Your voice is amazing, reminds me of older music” and “Your performance was so energetic!” seemed to be the most common comments made by the newfound fans. Miles’ reply each time had the same tone: genuinely appreciative. “Thank you so much, man, I am so glad you were liking the music,” he said to a middle-aged couple.
It wasn’t lost on him that he was a relatively small performer who had yet to be acknowledged by the world. These brief moments were just the first of many to come, he hoped, and so he was truly savoring them. Whether they listened to his music after the performance or were his biggest fans was beyond the point; they had listened, they had liked it, and they had labeled him a musician in their mind.
It was almost like their praise added fuel to the fire of being on-time to his interviews. The real world mattered little to him after he had been congratulated. I reminded him he was running late, and he responded “it’s not a big deal anyway.”
He walked with a nonchalance to the media tent, even getting lost at some point. It was like reality wasn’t real – who could blame him, he had just opened one of the biggest music festivals in the world.
“Being friends with creatives is so hard, sometimes,” Miles says to Gio as we continue to walk across the grass. “Everyone is always so busy. You basically only see each other when you’re working on gigs together. The last time I spent actual time with you guys, like our longest conversation, was because we were stuck in traffic for like 3 hours trying to go to a different gig.”
They all exclaim in agreement, looking back at it as a fond memory. “We bonded during that time,” Gio says. Obediah trails behind, until the group squashes together in front of the press tent entrance. It’s the most building-like tent I’ve seen, with actual doors, and a connected metal ramp for access.
A young woman emerges from the tent and greets MiLES, her camera in hand. She introduces herself to him and for her respective publication, before she initiates the photographing-process. “How about over there?” She points to the trees. MiLES looks excitedly over to the mess of low-branched trees, enthusiastically nodding his head ‘yes.’ “That sounds awesome,” he affirms before jumping into the greenery and perching himself on one of the trees.
This goes for a few minutes, with different trees, different positions and poses, different facial expressions. Gio joins in with his camera. Soon enough, all of the ensemble whips their phones out to photograph this weirdly intimate and unexpectedly charming moment.
As we scanned our way backstage, we looked at the trailers. It was true, MiLES’ had been absorbed into Kevin Abstract’s. What was left were the red patio-style couches in the front of the lot. The three of them sat down leisurely as the white cloth curtains swayed in the wind. Some of Rocco’s bandmates walked by and spoke to us about tour life before heading back to their trailer. “It doesn’t make sense they took yours,” one of them said, shaking their head in disappointment.
MiLES shrugged. “What can we do about it?”
About twenty minutes later, MiLES returns, just in time to see Kevin Abstract come back stage. MiLES goes up and talks to Kevin Abstract, with Asogba playing videographer this time. Kevin Abstract, like Shaboozey, looks weary the moment he is approached. But after a few words of praise – MiLES telling him that Abstract has truly inspired his artistic decisions – Abstract opens up emotionally. Physically, though, he still looks cold, as he’s got his green plaid hoodie zipped up to the very top.
Abstract gives him words of advice, telling him that he’s on the right path and he needs to keep building. The fact that he’s here at Outside Lands shows he has the capacity to majorly succeed – the audience will come, but things take time.
That’s part of the upside of starting this career so early on. Performing at Outside Lands at his age, in this stage of his career, is remarkably uncommon, making him stand out as one-to-watch. Although he has just started, his path in his music bears resemblance to someone with many more years under their belt.
At the end of the festival day, he takes the train back to Stanford in Palo Alto, seemingly transitioning back into his life as a college student. However, he promises that more tracks will be released soon as he plays and works from his dorm room. The next time he emerges may very well be another great performance like his in Outside Lands.
