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The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE – Harriet Walter had a pretty great week

Succession and Ted Lasso both ended this week. You can be forgiven if you thought that’s the only thing the two shows had in common. They were different in so many other ways. One was a mean little hour-long drama — with touches of comedy — about actual family members trying to destroy each other. The other was a sweet little half-hour comedy — with touches of drama — about a found family trying to build each other up. It turns out they did have one other pretty important thing in common, though: Harriet Walter.

Harriet Walter is a kind of iconic British actress. She has been in everything, especially if it needs a matriarch who scowls a little. Pick a British show then go look at her IMDb page and I bet you’ll find it. She was in Killing Eve, too, which isn’t really the point but still fun to make note of. And an episode of Documentary Now, which is also not the point but I do really like that show and will take any opportunity to bring it up. She is also in both Succession and Ted Lasso. And she appeared in both finales. Harriet Walter is having a pretty great week.

The wild thing here is that I watch both shows — and recap them — and I somehow just put this together this week. This might say something about my professionalism and attention to detail (or, uh, lack thereof), but it also might say something about Harriet Walter’s range. Let’s go with that second thing.

The best part is that she got off some of the best lines in both of the episodes, big-deal productions that wrap up a bunch of stories that had been bubbling throughout the respective shows. Here she is on Succession as Lady Caroline, the absentee mother of the Roy children, elaborating on her utter disgust with human eyes.

“Face eggs” will stick with me for a while.

Here she is in Ted Lasso as Rebecca’s flighty and fortune-teller-obsessed mother, who was out for lunch and drinks with her daughter and said… well, this.

This is cool. It’s cool to me. It might even be cooler than the thing where Stephen Root popped up in an episode of Succession and then appeared in an episode of Barry on the same night, like he was the damn king of HBO Sunday nights. It’s probably not as cool as the thing where I Think You Should Leave exists in the universe of Ted Lasso and that opened up a Sam Richardson-sized wormhole, but, to be fair, very little is cooler than that to me.

My point here is a simple one: Congratulations to Harriet Walter, man. The lady popped up in two of our buzziest shows in the final episodes in the span of about three days and got off killer lines and different looks and really just stole every moment she was on screen. That rules. It does make me a little self-conscious about what I was up to this week, though. I mean, I wasn’t even in one buzzy finale of a beloved television show. I really need to do better. I will work on this.

It would have been funny if Harriet Walter also appeared in the finale of Barry this week. Maybe as another character’s mom. Maybe as NoHo Hank’s mom. I would have liked that. And speaking of Barry and NoHo Hank and really great transitions…

ITEM NUMBER TWO – God, this is adorable

Check this out. It’s Anthony Carrigan, who played the previously mentioned Chechen mobster NoHo Hank on Barry, standing with his wife while she talks into a microphone. And she sounds a lot like he did when he played NoHo Hank! Almost like, as this tweet suggests, he took inspiration from his own wife for the character. Here, look at this.

This is another one of those Two Things Can Be True situations. The first thing, as I said in the heading of this column, is that, if that is in fact what is happening, it is adorable. I love it. I think I might just refuse to look into this anymore to be sure I don’t learn anything that refutes it and ruins it for me. Let’s all agree to let me have this one.

The other true thing here is that it’s really funny to picture Anthony Carrigan telling his wife that he used her for inspiration on-set as a new character and he wanted to surprise her with it and then they watched the first episode together and she turned to him and said “… that’s how you think I sound?”

ITEM NUMBER THREE – I like Ryan Gosling a lot after reading this

Okay, to be clear, I have always liked Ryan Gosling. Maybe not “always” like “as long as I’ve been alive,” if only because I was not aware of Ryan Gosling when I was, like, a baby, but definitely always as in “as long as I have been aware that he is a charming and goofy man.” Definitely since I saw him in The Nice Guys, which remains a good and fun movie that you should maybe consider watching again this weekend, maybe with me, maybe with some pizza that you brought over. Sausage and green peppers on it. Maybe some root beer. I can be flexible.

But I’m off-topic already. Let’s focus. There is a big profile of Ryan Gosling over at GQ this week, one tied to his role as Ken in the upcoming Barbie movie, which looks like a wild ride. It’s a good profile. And fun to read. I recommend carving out some time this weekend to read it all. But for now, let’s focus on these two paragraphs…

From Cornwall, Ontario, where Gosling grew up, to Toronto, where he began attending auditions as a child actor, was “like, a five-hour train ride,” Gosling says. He shares this, in part, because the two of us are on a train right now. The Pacific Surfliner, winding out of Los Angeles and along the coast. Just something he had never done and wanted to do. We’d walked through Union Station to the platform together and I’d watched a bunch of afternoon commuters, families surrounded by luggage, people with nowhere else to go just killing time, and kids in jaunty outfits like La La Land extras doing cartoon double takes, despite the white hat Gosling wore pulled down low.

Actually: “Let me make sure it’s five hours from Cornwall,” Gosling says, putting down the Starbucks cup that says “Freddie” on it and pulling out his phone. “Don’t wanna start self-mythologizing. It was a hundred hours on a train.” He puts the phone away: “Four hours and 15 minutes.” Margot Robbie, who produced and stars in Barbie opposite Gosling, calls him “an overthinker.” Gosling, she says, will say something, “and then 40 minutes later, he’ll come up to me and be like, ‘You know when I said that? I’m just clarifying that what I meant was, blah blah.’ And I’m like, ‘Why are you still thinking about that?’ ”

Three things here, all of them important:

• I relate so much to a lot of this, which you may have noticed from the first, like, three sentences I typed in this section
• Something about Ryan Gosling ordering coffee from Starbucks and having them write “Freddie” on the cup is both hilarious and charming to me
• I am thinking about The Nice Guys again

Let’s watch a clip from The Nice Guys.

This was a great chat.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – RAYLAN

Welllllllll here’s the full-length trailer for the upcoming FX series Justified: City Primeval. Yes, I know, we did just talk about this show a few weeks ago when they released a little hat-based teaser, but we are gonna talk about it again for two important reasons: One, I want to, and; two, this is my column so shut up.

It looks so good. I think. I am still trying to decide if I like it because it’s actually a promising program or if I just missed seeing Timothy Olyphant wear a hat and tangle with some bad guys. It’s probably a little of both. I hope Jere Burns shows up as Wynn Duffy, in Detroit for some unspecified reason, double-parked in the Wynnebago right downtown. I really miss Justified.

Anyway, here’s the official summary of the show again…

Having left the hollers of Kentucky 15 years ago, Raylan Givens now lives in Miami, a walking anachronism balancing his life as a U.S. Marshal and part-time father of a 15-year-old girl. He crosses paths with Clement Mansell, a violent, sociopathic desperado who has already slipped through the fingers of Detroit’s finest once before. Mansell’s attorney has every intention of representing her client, finding herself caught in between cop and criminal, with her own game afoot as well.

… and here’s the exact moment of this new trailer where I rocketed off the floor and attached myself to the ceiling like a demon.

It’s weird. Raylan’s entire thing — shoot-first lawman who plays by his own rules and is rarely concerned with trivial things like “the Fourth Amendment” — would be horrifying to me in real life. I could read an article about some actual cop or law enforcement figure doing exactly the things Raylan does that make me cheer/whoop a little in the show and I would come away horrified. I don’t know. It’s a little troubling to think about, really.

So…

Let’s not!

Moving on!

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Okay

Here’s what’s happened, short version:

• The Rock entered the Fast & Furious franchise in Fast Five — the best Fast & Furious movie — as Luke Hobbs, a law enforcement official who was hunting Dominic Toretto
• He and Vin Diesel then had a big feud and it was kind of funny and The Rock kind of left the franchise
• I say “kind of” here because he then returned for a spinoff with Jason Statham and then SURPRISE he showed up in a post-credits scene in the recently released Fast X

Which brings us to the news from this week: The Rock will star in an as-yet-untitled standalone spinoff as Luke Hobbs. At some point. The details are all still fuzzy. But it’s happening. Here, look.

Universal Pictures announced the project on Thursday. Longtime “Fast and Furious” collaborator Chris Morgan wrote the untitled film’s script. Plot details were not available, though individuals familiar with the deal said the new movie will bridge between the events of the just-released “Fast X” and the upcoming “Fast X: Part II,” which is expected in 2025. Johnson just appeared as Hobbs, a diplomatic security service agent, in a credits scene for “Fast X.”

Yes, sure, fine. The Rock also announced it himself in a very long tweet with a four-minute video attached. Or at least I assume he announced it himself. I have very few hard and fast rules in my life but one is that — barring crazy circumstances — I will not watch a four-minute video on Twitter.

Good for him, though.

My assumption here is that this standalone movie was part of the negotiation in him coming back for that post-credit scene in Fast X. Which is fine. I guess. I don’t know. I suppose it says a lot about me that I — a person who has loved these stupid movies so much for over 20 years now — would much rather watch the actual sit-down between The Rock and Vin Diesel where they hashed out their differences than this standalone movie starring The Rock.

I like to picture the two of them meeting on the top of a mountain. I like to picture The Rock getting up there by scaling the mountain with his bare hands and I like to picture Vin Diesel getting there by driving a muscle car up the face of a different mountain and using it as a huge ramp to launch himself to the peak where The Rock just climbed to. I like to picture Ludacris as the arbitrator who hears both sides. I like to picture all of it, really.

You see what I mean about this being more interesting than the actual movie, right? It’s fun. We have fun.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Paul:

I decided to do a rewatch of I Think You Should Leave with the new season being released this week. This time around I noticed that in the baby of the year sketch, the babies’ pediatrician is named “Dr. Skull.” In the last episode of the first season, in the Fenton horse ranch sketch, the ranch owners are Ted and Emily Skull. Not even mentioning how wonderful of a fake name “Dr. Skull” is (what do you think his first name could possibly be?), he has to be related to Ted and Emily right? Maybe Dr. Skull and Ted are brothers? The bottom line here is that Tim Robinson’s demented brain is the gift that keeps on giving.

I don’t have a lot to add here. I just really liked this email. I’ve watched the first two seasons of ITYSL straight through a few times and I somehow never picked up on the repeated use of Skull as a last name. I’m thinking about it a lot now, though. It really is a fun little piece of business. I feel like a good first name for Dr. Skull would be Jerry. Or maybe Ichabod. Dr. Ichabod Skull. That would be fun. Not a lot of Ichabods out there these days.

I suspect I will have more thoughts about the third season of ITYSL next week. I might get excited and rank all the sketches again. You can never tell with me. I’m a wild card.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Vancouver!

Mounties in North Vancouver thwarted a toothpaste theft last Friday, seizing two duffle bags and one wagon’s worth of product.

One sentence into this story and we already have:

• Mounties
• A thwarted toothpaste heist
• The phrase “a wagon’s worth of toothpaste”

You should see the smile on my face.

In a social media post, the detachment says officers were responding to an unrelated matter near a Superstore when they noticed ” a man running out of the emergency exit followed by staff.”

The suspect was arrested and the toothpaste – estimated to be worth $2,100 –was returned.

God, this is just tough luck for the toothpaste thief. He probably thought he was in the clear. But then cops showed up to check out something else and caught him. With $2100 worth of toothpaste. Which is, like, so much toothpaste. Two duffel bags and a wagon’s worth, to be specific.

Wait.

Hold on.

Was he running out of the store dragging the wagon behind him?

Is that what’s happening here?

He was dragging a wagon filled with toothpaste as he ran out of a store with employees chasing him as Mounties who were there investigating another crime looked on and decided to intervene?

Please take a few minutes this weekend and think about how you would react if you were in the parking lot of your local grocery store and saw this chaotic scene play out in front of you. I would tell everyone I know. I would never shut up about it. It would be, maybe, the greatest day of my life.

North Vancouver RCMP spokesperson Const. Mansoor Sahak describes the theft as “unusual” and says the tubes – which were all the same and a particularly expensive brand – are thought to have been stolen in order to be resold on the street.

“They’re not using it for cleaning their teeth,” he said. “I don’t think anybody needs that much toothpaste.”

Okay. One of two things is happening here:

• This police spokesperson means the thief is not using $2100 worth of toothpaste to clean his own teeth, and is selling it on the street
• This police spokesperson is implying there is a second and possibly illicit use of high-end toothpaste and that is the reason for the theft

I really hope it’s the second one. I hope it was just the first step of a multi-part scheme, like an Ocean’s Eleven operation where they need a wagon’s worth of toothpaste for another step in a many-step plan that ends with the theft of many millions of dollars in cash and/or jewels.

You’re just going to have to let me have this one, too. I am already in too deep on it. You can’t take it away from me now.

The latest adventure in Miles Morales’ spidey saga is Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse which brings back various iterations of Spider-Man and his counterparts, including Peter B. Parker, Spider-Woman, Gwen Stacy, and other spider-adjacent superheroes.

The movie is being called one of the best animated films ever, thanks in part to its mixed-media style that’s a stark departure from the original cartoons. While it might be animated, it’s still a superhero movie and technically a Marvel film, so you know you’ll have to plan your bathroom breaks accordingly.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse clocks in at two hours and twenty minutes, almost half an hour longer than the first installment. That means roughly 30 more minutes of action sandwiched between some teenage quips.

The movie brings back Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, Hailee Steinfeld as Spider-Gwen, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, and Jason Schwartzman as a new character known as The Spot. The plot follows Morales as he jumps between the spider verses and learns about his destiny while meeting all types of spider-people.

But the story won’t end there: next March Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse will pick up where Across The Spider-Verse leaves off, which may or may not be a cliffhanger. You’ll have to sit through the 140 minutes to find out!

Back in the day, Sprite was among the first nationwide brands to really embrace hip-hop. I’m not talking about a “rap” jingle, as so many other brands tried (we’re still trying to get rid of that corny “My name is ____ and I’m here to say…” rhyme to this day). Instead, Sprite really recruited pivotal figures from the hip-hop community like Nas and AZ, Pete Rock, and Five Deadly Venoms to make awesome commercials like the Voltron spots with Common, Fat Joe, and Westside Connection (my good buddy Dan Charnas writes about it in his book, The Big Payback).

Those ads kicked off a legacy of connection with hip-hop for the brand that continues today, as hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary. As part of the ongoing Hip-Hop 50 celebrations, Sprite paid homage to its own history with the culture by creating a new TV spot with Nas and Rakim and updating the premise with contemporary stars GloRilla and Latto. The commercial has all four rappers quoting “Rapper’s Delight,” the first official rap hit, while performing snippets of their own signature hits. Check it out:

The ad is a nice, throwback nod to the original Sprite rapper commercials of the early ’90s, which featured rappers like Kriss Kross, Kid N’ Play, KRS-One, Missy Elliott, and more, often performing original songs or their own hits to showcase the promotional power of hip-hop. This one’s still the best, though:

Forget Barbie vs. Oppenheimer. The biggest rivalry of the summer is Tom Cruise vs. Oppenheimer. The actor is reportedly none too pleased that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will have a limited run in some IMAX theaters before Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer comes along and hogs ALL the IMAX theaters.

Puck reports that Cruise “has been complaining loudly to Paramount executives and others about the IMAX situation… Mission 7 has booked most of the IMAX screens for the week of the film’s July 12 opening, but then on July 21 comes Universal’s Oppenheimer, which has locked in all the IMAX screens in North America and other territories for three full weeks.”

Oppenheimer was shot using IMAX cameras, and Nolan told the Associated Press that the “best possible experience” to see it in theaters is the IMAX 70mm film presentations (although there aren’t many of those across the country). Then again, Top Gun: Maverick “saved Hollywood’s ass,” as Steven Spielberg put it, so you can somewhat understand Cruise’s annoyance.

He’s been furiously showing the film to exhibitors in an effort to convince them to switch their plans from Oppenheimer or Barbie, which Warners scheduled opposite the Nolan film on July 21 as a middle-finger to Universal after it stole Nolan during the HBO Max day-and-date debacle. (Oppenheimer has not screened for exhibitors yet; I’m not sure about Barbie.) And Cruise is even personally calling around to exhibition and studio executives, per multiple sources.

Here’s an idea: give all the IMAX theaters to Barbie. Matter solved.

(Via Puck)

Today (June 2), the soundtrack for the Spider-Man movie is out, lengthily titled Metro Boomin Presents Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Soundtrack From And Inspired By The Motion Picture alongside the release of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. However, there’s a track that doesn’t appear on the album that’s definitely worth a listen.

Dominic Fike’s “Mona Lisa” appears to be a part of the deluxe version of the soundtrack. The artwork for the song reads: “I made a song for a superhero movie… This is the cover for now.” It begins with his smooth vocals singing intimately against acoustic guitar before a beat imbues it with more energy and he eases into a chill flow: “I know you like your space and distance / Yeah, you don’t take admissions / They told you not to date musicians / Yeah, but can’t make you listen.”

Fans are eagerly awaiting his forthcoming album Sunburn, which will be arriving in July. The singles “Dancing In The Courthouse” and “Ant Pile” have listeners hooked so far. The singer also just announced the Don’t Stare At The Sun Tour, which will kick off right after the album is out. It’ll hit cities all over North America.

Listen to “Mona Lisa” above.

In the past few years, Janelle Monáe’s talent has become evident, if it wasn’t already, thanks to her triple threat status, impressive performance in Glass Onion, and the anticipation for her upcoming album The Age Of Pleasure sparked by the singles “Float” and “Lipstick Lover.” She didn’t always receive praise for being so good at so many things, though.

In a new list of outtakes from their recent Rolling Stone profile, Monáe recounted an incident in which they found themselves dodging bricks after a high school talent competition. They recalled their mom “driving me in her 1988 Dodge Plymouth, to and from talent shows, while people would throw bricks at our car because we won the talent show three, four times in a row.” They do, however, clarify that this only happened once.

The reactions to Monáe have certainly turned around recently. These days, folks tend to be more excited to see the singer/rapper/actor popping up to promote her music, especially as this album cycle, she’s taken to occasionally popping her top and flashing fans at her private listening parties. While she’ll probably have to tone it down when she goes on tour later this year, she explained this tendency in Rolling Stone, saying, “I’m much happier when my titties are out and I can run around free.”

Janelle Monáe is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Earlier this year, a video surfaced in which Kanye West told a person to stop filming him. They refused, so West took their phone and threw it. There was a police investigation over the incident, which ended with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office saying that West wouldn’t face any charges. The story didn’t end there, though, as West is now being sued.

As Billboard reports, photographer Nichol Lechmanik has filed a lawsuit against West, accusing the rapper of assault, battery, negligence, and interference with the exercise of her civil rights. The complaint was filed in California Superior Court in Ventura County on May 31. In the suit, Lechmanik claims the incident caused her “great mental and emotional pain and suffering” and that she “anticipates incurring medical and related expenses.”

The suit says that Lechmanik was driving her car and filming Kim Kardashian as she exited Sports Academy in Newbury Park, California. At the time, she noticed West was “angrily confronting” a photographer on the street. The complaint noted, “Given Defendant Ye’s reputation for violence against photographers, his history of physically harming them, and based on his threatening body language, Plaintiff became fearful for the photographer’s safety.”

Then, West apparently approached Lechmanik’s car and “aggressively” said, “You all ain’t gonna run up on me like that.” When Lechmanik denied she was, West allegedly became “enraged,” “ripped her phone out of her hands,” and threw it “onto the street towards oncoming traffic.”

Lechmanik is requesting general and special damages, punitive and exemplary damages, civil penalties, and costs of the suit. She also wants an order enjoining West and “all persons acting in concert with him or acting on his behalf, from touching, striking, annoying, contacting, molesting, attacking, threatening, or otherwise interfering with […] the Plaintiff, and all persons similarly situated, to pursue the occupation of photographer.”

As Donald Trump stares down a damaging verdict from E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit that ultimately found the former president liable for sexual abuse, one of Trump’s far-right allies tried to get the whole case dismissed on some pretty wild grounds. Namely, that Trump is facing undue persecution as a white “Christian.”

The legal filing was made by James H. Brady, a known “gadfly who clogs courts with vexatious claims” who has reportedly been sanctioned by both state and federal courts for filing repetitive lawsuits. Unsurprisingly, his latest legal adventure didn’t work either.

“I am making this motion to intervene in the case of Carroll v. Trump, 20-cv-7311, because I am unwilling to sit silent and watch another white Christian be treated as poorly and unfairly as I personally have been treated in the New York State and Federal Courts,” Brady wrote to Judge Lewis Kaplan who wasted no time shooting down the motion.

According to Raw Story, Kaplan threw out the legal gambit less than 24 hours thanks to Brady essentially being some rando with no legal right to intervene. “Mr. Brady does not satisfy any of these criteria,” Kaplan wrote after explaining to Brady how being a lawyer works. “Accordingly, this motion is denied.”

Fortunately, Brady is in luck. He’ll have another chance to plead that Donald Trump is a victim of undue persecution for his “white Christian” beliefs after the former president defamed E. Jean Carroll again, prompting a second defamation lawsuit.

(Via Raw Story)

Gunna has done some light flexing on social media since his release from jail. The musician has even dropped his first track since the YSL RICO trial, titled “Brodies” with German rapper Ufo361. However, in his new solo single, the entertainer has finally responded to his peers that have taken jabs at him post his YSL Rico case.

On “Bread & Butter” (co-produced by Turbo, Omar Grand & Cam Griffin), Gunna leaves no snide comment unaddressed. In the song’s first verse, he touches on how his former rap crew YSL has turned their back on him. Gunna also seemingly takes aim at his former collaborator Lil Baby over his lack of support despite his mentor Pierre “P” Thomas having allegations of cooperating with law enforcement on his name as well.

“Peepin’ sh*t, I’m seein’ n****s fall back / You b*tch-ass n****s got me as the topic of the chat / You switched on me when you know you in business with a rat /And the boy that’s like your brother, and nobody speak on that,” raps Gunna.

Before the track closes out, in the second verse, Gunna speaks on his anger with how his plea arrangement was worked out as he raps: “F*ck I pay the lawyers all those mills for? / Just so I won’t have to say a word to dodge a railroad / N****s find it hard to understand, though / Dog can’t put me down, I been locked down, I don’t know which way to go / Never gave no statement or agreed to take no stand on ’em / On whatever you n****s on, then trust me, I’ma stand on it / Lawyers, and the DA did some sneaky sh*t, I fell for it.”

The official video directed by Leff is entirely in grayscale, metaphorically referring to the space Gunna is finding himself in. According to the rapper, things aren’t as clear-cut as it may seem.

Watch the full video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Boston Calling isn’t the Coachella, Lollapalooza, or Bonnaroo of the Northeast, and that’s a good thing. Those festivals are special for their own reasons, but Boston Calling is a landmark event for something all its own: striking an unmatched balance of world-class acts and local talent. Roughly one-third of this year’s lineup hailed from New England, and the majority of those were formed or based in the Boston metropolitan area. There’s even a platform (the Orange stage) that exclusively featured regional groups. Of course, that’s relative to the 3-day fest’s modest size — 52 artists across four stages with a 40,000 capacity — but it still illustrates an admirable dedication to showcasing the best of the local scene on bigger stages and proliferating musical discovery, which should be a primary function of any music festival in the first place.

Throughout the 3-day event, held May 26-28 on the grounds of the Harvard Athletic Complex, there was the sense that attendees were just as committed to that cause, particularly evident in impressively sizable turnouts for each day’s opening acts. Friday’s opener, Cambridge-bred singer-songwriter Alisa Amador (winner of the 2022 NPR Tiny Desk Contest), enchanted a few hundred on the Red Stage with her blend of folk-pop and Spanish language soul, which came to a head during her sublime cover of Uruguayan musician Jorge Drexler’s version of Radiohead’s “High and Dry.”

Saturday kicked off on the Blue Stage with Boston’s Q-Tip Bandits, who clearly had a contingent of diehard fans in attendance and visibly converted quite a few more during their high-energy set, packed with instantly memorable pop-rock hooks accented by New Orleans-style big band horns. Following the live debut of standout new tune “Tip Toe,” the band’s leader Leo Son reflected on posting up outside the fence behind the main stage during the first Boston Calling in 2013, held outside City Hall Plaza: “To get from there to here … this is a dream come true for us and that kid inside me, so thank you for being here.”

Sunday saw Juice, who formed at Boston College, opening the Red Stage to a massive audience, which included one couple holding a sign saying that they drove 10 hours just to see the band for their honeymoon. The group’s dynamic combination of soulful rock, hip-hop, and shredding via electric violin set the bar high for a lively final day. That set preceded one of the strongest up-and-coming bands of the weekend, Los Angeles’s the Linda Lindas, who Boston Mayor Michelle Wu introduced for their first-ever performance in the historic city. “I’m so proud to be part of a city where art is the be all end all … [where we] support local artists and bring in rising talent,” she said, adding a sentiment of gratitude for the fest being able to “break down barriers” by including multi-ethnic bands on the lineup like these young Asian-American artists.

Wu’s statement underscored Boston Calling’s devotion to promoting diverse acts; the strongest standout among those was Genesis Owusu on the Blue Stage. The 25-year-old Australian embodied cross-cultural artistry, mixing hip-hop, jazz, and R&B, styles inspired by his birth country Ghana and avant-garde performance, which was enhanced by four backup dancers comparable win impact to the awe-inspiring vision of Solange’s 2016-era “A Seat At The Table” tour. “Are you aliiiiiive, Boston?!” he implored again and again. The way he easily spurred audience members into an exuberant, bouncing frenzy when he jumped into the crowd for “Black Dogs!” reflected the resounding answer: “Hell yes.”

The consistent mutuality of all-in love-for-live-music energy between artists and fans, particularly the locals, extended to sets from the big-ticket artists, too. The Lumineers’ Saturday night headlining set on the Green Stage was a shining example by virtue of it clearly drawing the weekend’s largest and most passionate crowd, who nearly drowned out the band with their loud singing during breakout hit “Hey Ho” and their career-starting anthem, “Flowers In Your Hair.” Queens of the Stone Age achieved it by inciting the first full-on mosh pit and crowd-surfing of the weekend (continued handily by King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard’s thunderous performance, also on Sunday) during a flurry of old favorites and the live premiere of intoxicatingly raucous new song “Negative Space.” Paramore, as always, was a shoo-in for unity and fan appreciation during their Sunday night closing show, inviting a super-fan named Sammy Jo — who, in an incredible coincidence, was also based in Nashville and got her hair done at frontwoman Haley Williams’ mainstay salon — to absolutely slay lead vocals on “Misery Business.” The National — who hold the longest tenure at the fest with four performances, in large part due guitarist Aaron Dessner’s role as the event’s co-curator — established solidarity on Friday when vocalist Matt Berninger careened through the crowd for super-charged standout “Abel.” Even the Dropkick Murphys — despite some initial blowback in response to their last-minute addition on Friday to replace the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ after their cancellation (due to Karen O’s unexpected illness) — succeeded in drawing in and winning over an enormous audience with their no-holds-barred brand of Irish punk rock.

But the fan-to-band affinity came most naturally in the form of deafening sing-alongs during the Foo Fighters Friday finale — their second show back after the tragic death of drummer Taylor Hawkins — where the group showcased a couple of new songs off upcoming album And Here We Are (due Friday, June 2), plus emotional tributes to Hawkins during frontman Dave Grohl’s solo rendition of “Cold Day In The Sun” (written by Hawkins) and a special appearance by the late drummer’s son, Shane Hawkins, on first-album rager “I’ll Stick Around.”

“I do have to say it takes a lot for every single one of these people here tonight on this side of the stage to be here,” said Grohl, referring to the band members’ literal family members looking on from the wings. “And we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you people. Just as we’re one big family on this side over here, I hope that you guys feel like we’re family, too.”

The legendary rocker’s proclamation drove it home: the festival exuded a sense of loyalty to its fans and artists, to preserving connections between them, particularly among the locals, year after year. In spite of an era where live music is taking a backseat to many other industries, especially in terms of government-backed financial support, Boston Calling represents a stronghold — its presence is just as and in some ways more vital than any other premier festival.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.