Start the Presses: Rocking out with sign language interpreters at BottleRock
Dan Evans
Dan Evans
Stage right of the Prudential and T-Mobile stages at BottleRock, just above the photo pit, is a blue-background sign with a set of hands in white. The thumb and forefinger of each hand makes a circle, one up and one down.
It looks a bit like a Mardi Gras mask. It is not. It is the symbol for sign language interpretation.
At the later shows - the final headliners at a minimum - there are American Sign Language interpreters performing along with the musicians on stage. What is particularly wild, at least to me, is that at least some of these performers are deaf or hard of hearing themselves. (The abbreviation for such folks is often shortened to DHOH.)
Facing the audience-facing signer - with their back to the crowd - is a hearing signer, following along to the music on a tablet and relaying the lyrics to the performer. The AJR show and, later, LCD Soundsystem on Saturday afternoon each featured the same signing performer, dancing and moving to the pounding beats beside them.
To the untrained eye (aka mine), it looked like a vigorous air guitar session supplemented by ASL. I mean, I don't know enough about sign language to know whether an upward trilling of fingers is the official sign for a rocking synth intro, or whether a downward smash on an imaginary hi-hat isn't the one for a sick drum solo - but I'm guessing not.
To get a bit more understanding of it all, I spoke to Christine Morrison. She said she has been involved in accessibility and ADA requirements at the local festival for "seven or eight years" and is the on-site coordinator this time around.
"I used to do festivals full time, but not anymore," said the Los Angeles resident. "But I do this one because they really genuinely care about accessibility here."
Morrison said she doesn't have a particular personal reason for doing this kind of work, or at least none she wanted to share. But in general, she said, it's about letting people enjoy the moment, the beat and the full experience.
"You don't notice people need it unless you see someone close to you that needs it," she said.
BottleRock is just a bit more buttoned-up than your usual festival. Maybe it's because people expect it - and pay the entry fees to match - but the VIP areas are really VIP. No frayed carpet here. And that attention to detail extends to the ADA accommodations as well.
There is a significant amount of wheelchair space available, the ADA viewing area near the main stages is massive, and for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community there are a variety of different options available, including assisted listening devices, closed captioning and, of course, the sign language interpretation.
Morrison said there is a fairly straightforward reason for this: Just because you are deaf or hard of hearing doesn't magically make you fluent in sign language.
"ASL is a language," she said. "Not everyone knows it. You might have just lost your hearing, or maybe it's temporary, or maybe you never learned."
Regardless, you don't need to have partial or complete hearing loss to enjoy the signing performances. The clear joy on the faces of the people doing it indicated, to me at least, that it's not just a job for them.
I can't speak to the precise reason BottleRock goes through the effort of having a hearing-signer-to-DHOH-signer-to-audience relay system, though there is a fair amount of precedent for it. For example, Celimar Rivera Cosme, who did the sign language interpretation of Bad Bunny's Super Bowl LX performance, is partially deaf. (More notable, in fact, was that she did her signing in Puerto Rican Sign Language rather than ASL.)
The idea, according to people in the DHOH community, is that it makes the live performance more immersive and more accessible. The person doing the signing can better relate to the needs of the audience because they understand, through direct experience, what makes the performance feel authentic and accessible in the first place.
And maybe that's the larger point: not simple compliance, but participation. Not just making sure someone can technically attend, but making sure they can actually feel like they are part of the show.
Like most things at BottleRock, a lot of that work happens just out of sight. The crowd sees the performance. They don't always see the people behind the scenes making the experience function for everyone else.
Which, in its own way, is also true for us.
I attended the festival Saturday. Keith Cousins took the Friday shift, writing an excellent piece about why people continue to show up at the culinary stage year after year. After all, it's not about the music and - except for a rare, lucky few - spectators aren't even going to be able to taste the food.
Brett Marsh will handle Sunday, while photographer Nick Otto did his usual marathon, covering all three days.
Backing us all up is the indefatigable Howard Yune, dealing with the photos and copy from Register headquarters - or his home, depending - editing our stories and images and making sure we don't completely embarrass ourselves on deadline.
BottleRock is exhausting to cover. It is loud, chaotic, crowded and occasionally sunburn-inducing. It is also, somehow, one of the most Napa things imaginable: music, food, wine, celebrity sightings and logistical headaches, all blended together into a three-day civic ritual.
And somewhere beside the stage, just above the photo pit, someone is signing every beat of it.
GALLERY: Photos from the first day of BottleRock Napa Valley
A look at the star-studded first day of BottleRock Napa Valley, which kicked off on Friday at the Napa Valley Expo.
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This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 6:05 PM.