Live, in Photos: Corona Capital 2024 with Paul McCartney, St. Vincent, and More

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Live, in Photos: Corona Capital 2024 with Paul McCartney, St. Vincent, and More

Clairo, Jack White, Green Day, Beck, Cage the Elephant, and more from the annual festival in Mexico City.

Photos: Annie Lesser

November 20, 2024

This year marked another shift in the evolution of Mexico City’s annual Corona Capital festival. Since launching in 2010 with a relatively modest lineup that included headliners Interpol and Pixies, Corona has since established itself as Mexico’s premiere rock festival, bringing in bigger and broader acts each year, along with larger crowds to match. The lineup for Corona’s 2024 edition ranged from global icon Paul McCartney to alt-rock heroes Green Day, Beck, and Jack White to pop superstars including Shawn Mendes, Zedd, and Melanie Martinez, complemented by a variety of indie rock artists like Mannequin Pussy, Crumb, and Wisp.

The evolution has led to more families attending the festival than in past years, with many parents taking their kids to see the artists they grew up with like McCartney and ’80s hitmakers Toto. This year also saw English-speaking artists making attempts to speak and sing in Spanish. Those who speak the language fluently, like Jessie Reyez and The Mars Volta, talked almost entirely in Spanish, while St. Vincent, who just released a Spanish-language version of her latest album All Born Screaming, interspersed Spanish lyrics throughout her whole set. And there’s nothing quite as charming as watching Sir Paul McCartney laugh at his Spanish skills while talking sincerely to nearly 75,000 fans.

Highlights from the weekend included Iggy Pop tearing up the Vans Stage, followed by Jack White on the same stage honoring his fellow Detroit icon by opening his set with a cover of “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Elsewhere, Cage the Elephant’s Matt Schultz appeared to be healing well from his foot injury from a few months ago, moving around with vigor throughout their set. He spoke about how despite the injury or any ailments in the past, the band has never missed a single show throughout their entire career.

Scottish Brit-pop greats Travis—whose 2001 song “Sing” was a massive hit in Mexico—gave a nostalgia-filled performance to a giant crowd, while Toto completely rocked an equally large audience, who sang every lyric. Zedd honored the rock nature of Corona Capital with a set that featured remixes of songs by Radiohead, Blur, and Queen. Green Day is known for bringing fans on stage, and while other artists regularly check in on the safety of their crowd, Billie Joe Armstrong proved his mensch status by not only getting security to attend to a girl who was in distress, but even pulled her on stage and gave her a hug before having security take her to a safe location.

The largest act of the weekend was McCartney, who closed out the festival without any competition on other stages—the fest even turned off its Vans Ferris Wheel during the icon’s performance. Sir Paul was scheduled to play from 11:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., and his audience went far and deep into both the opposite stage and back toward the exits. At 1:01 McCartney was still going strong as he brought out St. Vincent for “Get Back,” then playing “Let It Be,” followed by a fireworks show with “Live and Let Die.” At 1:15 he launched into “Hey Jude,” creating the largest sing-along of the weekend—even those heading toward the exit thinking the set was ending were screaming the lyrics at each other. Those who left missed a six-song encore that included Jack White and St. Vincent joining McCartney for “The End.”

As smaller independent rock festivals pop up in Mexico City, such as Hipnosis, is the shift toward more pop and legacy acts inevitable for a festival as large as Corona Capital? Or will the focus continue to be primarily on rock? It will be exciting to see how this festival, which continues to be an annual tradition for many Mexican music fans, evolves in the coming years.

Here’s more scenes from all three days in Mexico City.