Dedicated to pop, Sunday (6) was the first day of the edition with tickets sold out so far. Furthermore, there was a DJ closing for the first time in the event's history. Check out the highlights of the performances on the main stages.
By Braulio Lorentz, Dora Guerra, Felipe Fernandes, Marília Neves, Aline Pollilo, g1
The date was also marked by having, for the first time in the festival's history, a DJ -- Calvin Harris -- closing the day on the World Stage. Pop day was the first date of this edition to be sold out. 100 thousand tickets were made available.
Read also: Roberta Medina about charging for rock at Rock in Rio: 'Rockers make noise, but the first day that sells out is pop'
Barão Vermelho said goodbye to rock at the festival, but managed to win over the younger audience who were there to follow artists who were their soundtracks to parties and clubs in the 2000s and 2010s. Ne-Yo, BaianaSystem and Calema completed the list of attractions on the main stages.
All bands performed in the rain. Oscillating between drizzle and heavy rain, the water didn't let up and was persistent, but not enough to scare away the public, who stuck to their covers and stood firm in front of the stages and in the queues for the activations.
Find out how the third day of Rock in Rio 2026 was:
Follow the coverage of the next few days in real time on g1
See photos of celebrities on this first day of the festival
Calvin Harris
Calvin Harris took to the Rock in Rio World Stage early this Monday (7), after midnight and in heavy rain. He chose “Sweet Nothing”, a partnership launched in 2012 with Florence Welch to open his set. The track is part of “18 Months”, precisely the album that established him as one of the biggest hitmakers in international electronic pop.
The choice couldn't have been easy, I imagine, given the number of successes that Scottish Adam Richard Wiles had throughout his career (no, his real name is not Calvin Harris).
For the period that followed, around 1h30 of the show, that was the tune: the 42-year-old DJ and producer put on a sequence of hits (“Blame”, “Summer”, “Outside”, “Desire”, “Under Control”), released a funk bubble beat and made the Brazilian audience feel as if they had played “The Best Of Calvin Harris” on Spotify. Only better.
During the live audition, lasers, fire, fireworks and smoke came from the stage. From the big screens, colorful projections flashed incessantly, emulating the track of a good club. Also the words “eat, sleep, rave and repeat”. Read more about the Calvin Harris show.
Ne-Yo
What does an artist do who comes to Brazil several times in a short space of time, but hasn't had any new hits in 15, almost 20 years? It varies here and there, reverses the order of some songs, thinks of new jokes, of course – but there’s not much way to reinvent the wheel.
This was the challenge for Ne-Yo, who was among the main attractions at The Town 2023, Rock in Rio 2024 and, this Sunday (6), played at Rock in Rio 2026 (in addition to others coming outside of festivals). At this point, almost everyone knows the tricks the musician has up his sleeve.
Like opening with “Closer” and moving on to “Because of You”, which he did in all of Rock in Rio and The Town; or take a moment for “Irreplaceable” and “Take a Bow,” tracks he wrote for Beyoncé and Rihanna.
Not to say that he didn't try to innovate, Ne-Yo even got off the stage and exchanged his “anonymous brim” hat for a cowboy one. And he ventured into playing new ones like “Ms Tundra” and “Up Out Gone”, from the country album “Highway 79” (2026). Read more about Ne-Yo's show.
Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas performed a high-spirited, slightly chaotic show, and left Rock in Rio 2026 looking like a nostalgic party this Sunday (6).
The last time the group came to the festival, in 2019, they tried to compensate for the biggest change in their history – Fergie's departure, made official in 2017 – by pulling several rabbits out of the hat: from Will.I.Am on the zipline to Anitta's participation.
This time, it didn't take more than the two hits (appropriately, “Let’s Get It Started” and “Boom Boom Pow”) to kick off the party and make the audience overlook any absence.
Producer Papatinho even participated: he released a “Rap da Felicidade” and then they announced the release of a new song, “We live up in here”. This is complete with an AI clip displayed on the screen.
Throughout the show, of course, there were questions “where is Fergie”, “why did she leave” and “will she come back” among the crowd. Fergie's “shadow” was never completely left behind: it was her distinct voice in the choruses that marked soap operas, parties and adolescence in Brazil, from the 2000s onwards. Read more about the Black Eyed Peas concert.
Jota Quest plays Tim Maia
Jota Quest's fifth time at Rock in Rio, the first on the Sunset Stage, was with a very different repertoire. This Sunday (6), the band from Minas Gerais presented the show based on the album "Jota Quest & Tim Maia – Dance While É Tempo", released in August.
The participations, very welcome in shows at major events such as Rock in Rio, made the show even more rounded. Tony Tornado, 96 years old and now the oldest to perform at the festival, sang “Sossego” alongside his son Lincoln. Negra Li, in turn, was a guest on “Discoverer of the Seven Seas”.
Last year, Jota Quest had announced this tribute at The Town, the São Paulo cousin of Rock in Rio. The biggest news of that night was precisely the good version of "Acenda o Farol", recorded by Tim in 1978, with the singer's voice used in a posthumous feat.
That tribute began the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Jota's first album, from 1996. It wasn't a forced choice. Tim helped rename the group when J. Quest became Jota Quest after a lawsuit from Hanna-Barbera, producer of the Jonny Quest cartoon.
From that stage, they played “Encontrar Someone” and “As Dors do Mundo”, a cover of Hyldon and their first single. Rogério Flausino said that they chose the difficult path: they were white people playing a repertoire associated with black artists. Read more about the Jota Quest show plays Tim Maia.
Nelly
It's hard to believe that Nelly made his debut in Brazil this Sunday (6) at Rock in Rio. Cornell Iral Haynes Jr., the 51-year-old rapper's real name, made a lot of people sigh, dance and stick a Band-Aid on their face back in the 2000s.
He, of course, knows this very well: songs from that phase dominated the 55-minute setlist, especially those from the albums “Country Grammar” (2000) and “Nellyville” (2002).
On this rainy third day of the festival, Nelly made it clear that she didn't come to invent things. With a DJ and a hype man (supporting rapper), he led a nostalgic party in which he basically shouted slogans, rhymed and sang, wearing a basketball shirt from the Nike collection dedicated to Michael Jordan and the Brazilian team.
There is no backing band, well-thought-out transitions between songs or artistic direction to make the most of the mega screen. It's as if three friends took the stage and turned on a This is Nelly karaoke-style playlist, including the R&B “Just a dream”, from 2010, one of the most sung. Read more about Nelly's show.
BaianaSystem
The award-winning BaianaSystem arrived at Rock in Rio's Sunset Stage, this Sunday (6), paying homage to the past and giving a message about what it wants for the future.
They entered with the song “Água” (2019), whose lyrics say: “Little rain doesn’t kill anyone”. At that moment, a storm like that was falling in the city of Rock. “Let it get wet, people, it’s a blessing”, tried to soften Russo Passapusso, vocalist. Then it was followed by “Sulamericano”, also released in 2019, one of the group’s biggest hits.
The band from Bahia, formed in 2009, presented in just under an hour a performance capable of exploring almost all the paths that helped build its history. References from the Jamaican sound system, Bahian guitar, orchestral music, samba, reggae, cumbia, rock...
The show, called "O Ciclo", was designed and directed by Passapusso, Filipe Cartaxo and actress Alice Carvalho, who also participated in the presentation. Read more about the BaianaSystem show.
Red Baron
One hour to summarize the Red Baron's career is not enough. So much so that the shows on the “Encontro: For the whole world to wake up” tour, which features Roberto Frejat (voice/guitar), Dé Palmeira (bass), Maurício Barros (keyboards) and Guto Goffi (drums) -- all from the band's original lineup --, and the participation of Fernando Magalhães (guitar), last almost three hours.
With the reduction in time, some hits such as "Amor, meu grande amor" ended up being left out of the performance on Palco Mundo, at Rock in Rio, this Sunday (6). But classics like "Bete swing" and "Meus bom amigos" still excited the audience, full of the band's fans.
And even more fascinating: it also managed to win over and lift up a younger audience that was waiting for the first pop attractions at Rock in Rio 2026. After Barão, the World Stage will be taken over by Nelly, Black Eyed Peas and Calvin Harris.
Even with everyone under persistent rain that had been falling on the city since early in the morning. And he brought an asset: the romantic "Por Você", released in 1999, for those who didn't live with the Barão in Cazuza's time. The track had the audience singing in chorus. Read more about the Red Baron show.
Calema
Scheduled to open the Sunset Stage this Sunday (6), Calema faced the challenge of winning over an audience that still arrived in Cidade do Rock and had little knowledge of part of his repertoire. The intense rain that fell throughout the afternoon made the mission even more difficult, keeping part of the public away. But it also created the opportunity to show, live, why the brothers are already attracting crowds in Portugal.
Fradique and António already had an idea of what Rock in Rio was. The brothers from São Tomé and Príncipe debuted at the festival in Lisbon, in June, in a performance that served as a kind of warm-up for what they would show in Rio de Janeiro.
The bridge with Brazil began well before the debut in Cidade do Rock. The duo has partnerships with country singer Lauana Prado, in “Xê Dama”, and with Leo Santana, in “Oi Amor?”, a single released a few days before Rock in Rio. They also shared the stage with Anitta when participating in the first edition of “Ensaios da Anitta” in Europe.
At Rock in Rio, this connection gained a new chapter when Dilsinho was invited to sing “Leva Tudo”. Read more about Calema's show.
