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outside lands

For the majority of the year, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is a placid hub of serene wildlife and meditative arrangements located in the heart of the Bay Area city. At around 1000 acres, it’s easy to get lost in one garden or traverse a series of trails and meadows and totally forget the fact that you’re in one of the more claustrophobic cities in the country. Since 2008, however, the three-day Outside Lands Music and Art Festival has transformed the center of the park into a massive combination of live music, artisan cuisine, wine and cheese pairings, a plethora of local craft brews, and a surreal array of the kind of weird art you’d expect from San Francisco locals.

Peaking with an estimated 200,000 ticket holders and over a hundred performers, the 7th edition of the festival was the largest (and most crowded) yet. Given how integrated the experience has become – with the new “GastroMagic” area that showcases celebrity chefs, local restaurants, and sports its very own stage, along with separate areas entitled WineLands and BeerLands – Outside Lands is now, more than most festivals, a unique celebration of the city it calls home. Instead of divvying it up into its component days, then, here are 30 things I liked.

1. Short of Kacey Musgraves, Run the Jewels likely had the best set of the day (and about as far apart as you could get from Ms. Musgraves in tone, crowd, energy, etc.). Killer Mike and El-P perform like they were never meant to be apart, and in an environment like the titanic Lands End main stage, you got indelible moments like Mike and El-P hanging onto each other for dear life while the bass reached bowel-shattering proportions.

2. Where the rest of Warpaint looked deadly serious and perturbed by the feedback problems that plagued their set, pink-haired bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg was a beacon of positivity in what was otherwise a so-so set.

3. The secluded Sutro stage, off to its lonesome on the far north end of the festival, was the perfect place to catch southern roots rocker Phosphorescent. Matthew Houck has a rare ability to pour so much emotion into a song without really making much ado about anything on stage.

4. The intoxicating smell wafting over from Baconland was almost too good to be true. Nestled in a wooded alcove off the path between the main stage and Hellman Hollow, SF restaurants offered various bacon offerings, including da gawd level Bacon Flight, a five-course flight of bacon, and the world’s richest grilled cheese with bacon I have ever had the pleasure of devouring.

5. There’s no artist I’m more excited to see grow than Kacey Musgraves over the next couple of years. Her set at Sutro sounded as pristine and fresh as her 2013 hit Same Trailer Different Park, shot through with the brassiness I’ve come to expect from her personality. Arguably the best show of the day.

6. Mikal Cronin’s hair.

7. It’s always interesting to see a band that is fairly unknown in the greater scheme of pop music, and often critically underappreciated, nevertheless play to packed crowds at large festivals. Canadian synth-pop gods Chromeo did this at the main stage of Coachella, and again Friday evening (Flume on Saturday is another example of what I’m calling festival-core), playing to a packed house and acting more like rock stars than many of the actual rock bands this weekend.

8. It was weird to see Disclosure play a set to a packed house at the Lands End stage while the sun was still inching its way down the horizon. Outside Lands’ location in the middle of the city has led to the closing sets being perpetually pushed earlier so as not to interfere with neighbors as the festival grows in size. While it’s cool to be able to enjoy the rest of the city when the festival cuts off around 10:00pm, it leads to bizarre situations like everyone bouncing to “Latch” in broad daylight.

9. Kanye West. What’s there to say? It was telling of the crowd that his extended Yeezus bits and self-aggrandizing prepared banter (“skits,” in another day and age) were the worst received of the night, and led many a dazed, drugged concertgoer to demand the jams. West generally obliged, but the 21-song set was marred by these stops and starts and Kanye generally being as Kanye as one should expect in 2014.

10. Arctic Monkeys long ago reached that stage, when a band has been together for so long and played so many big shows together that you just know, if you see them, they will kick ass – regardless of how big a fan you are. I am not the biggest Arctic Monkeys fan, but I was hugely appreciative of their professionalism after Kanye’s haphazard set.

11. Given Outside Lands’ location in the heart of the city, getting back home is always a struggle, as tens of thousands of people stream out of the parks and into the streets, seizing on any sort of transportation available. Ride-sharing service Uber capitalized on this rush like true Americans – by charging a 5x surcharge. The ride a group of friends and I took from the park to about 15 minutes away came to a grand total of $275, although the poor girl who called it didn’t know this until the next morning. The next night, when my friends and I left a few minutes early to beat the surcharge, we learned the ins and outs of surcharge pricing from our new driver. As he was finally pulling up to a bar and letting us out, he told us a story of his friend who had taken “these idiot kids” out last night and nailed them for $275. “Dude, that was us,” my friend said, and our driver immediately sped away. An awkward lesson for all involved.

12. Outside Lands is considered a “summer” festival, yet the Bay Area’s unpredictable weather patterns on Saturday caused a freezing, overcast experience, while Friday and Sunday were a comparatively sunny (with a healthy dose of chilly fog at night, of course) joy. It made for an enjoyably offbeat alternative to the regular summer glare.

13. The dark, beer-drenched pit of the Heineken dome, where acts like UK house duo Gorgon City crushed beats in a cramped, kaleidoscopic rave-dome where it was impossible to tell the time of day. The majority of the people in there probably could have cared less about anything other than the beat.

14. The wildly contorted facial expressions from the sisters of Haim.

15. The bliss of laying down on a dirty blanket and chilling out to Tycho for a few minutes after walking and walking and walking some more.

16. Witnessing another flawless show from Death Cab for Cutie and then seeing, days later, that founding guitarist Chris Walla would be leaving the band. They will continue, but Walla was such an essential part of that group that it’s hard to see them as anything else.

17. It’s a shame the comedians were sometimes overshadowed by the events surrounding them, but this year’s lineup was still nothing to miss. Lewis Black, three stars of Silicon Valley (maybe the most SF thing I saw all weekend), and Garfunkel & Oates were the ones I caught a few minutes of. Lewis Black won the weekend heading a panel called BBQ & Drank, where Black determined whether beer, wine, or bourbon goes best with various BBQ offerings.

18. My moon, my man – Boys Noize remains my favorite EDM-centric, live DJ, largely because he eschews all that his more arena-tastic contemporaries do: brainless drops and Top 40-baiting choruses for bubbling, subversive techno and spindly, face-melting beats. His encore remix of Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” was the highlight of Saturday. It was unfortunate, then, that the festival disrespected him by placing him on the park’s smallest stage while Duck Sauce enjoyed the wide-open canvas of Twin Peaks a few hundred yards away.

19. I am of the firm belief that everyone who packed the Twin Peaks Stage to watch Macklemore & Ryan Lewis while Tom Fucking Petty was playing over at Lands End are all that’s wrong with America today, and that Macklemore’s “Same Love” shtick is condescending and contrived. Yet it was hard for even the most cynical attendee to hear about the live marriage proposal between two women that Macklemore let go on stage in the middle of his set and not feel a single twitch of the heart, Grinch-style. That’s a moment that couple will never forget.

20. Tom Petty is an American icon and if you get to see the chance to catch him and the Heartbreakers live there really shouldn’t be a “no” or “maybe” option. Just go. The guy is 63 and closed Saturday night with a two-hour set.

21. Sunday separated the wheat from the chaff. My friend’s girlfriend phoned it in, requesting him to sell her ticket. It took my friend seconds to sell the ticket, but before the transaction was completed, the (quite burly) individual took a picture so “I can find you and mug you later if the ticket is bum.” Given the news that hundreds of people had already been turned away for fake tickets, this was almost expected.

22. While my buddy was selling his ticket, I was almost immediately accosted by two teenagers, who I originally thought were ICP fans, but were instead merely offering to sell me “a fucking good” hit of acid for $10. In full view of the numerous cops and throngs of people milling around outside the entrance. I passed.

23. This donut bacon cheeseburger.
donut bacon cheeseburger

24. One of the greatest disappointments of the weekend involved electro-pop group Chvrches having to cancel due to “major mess ups by Vancouver airport and a healthy dose of bad luck.” Thanks a lot, Canada.

25. The ostensible drug dealer spotted by security in the heart of the crowd at Jenny Lewis, who proceeded to lead security through a chase up, through, and around the crowd for a good two minutes during “Rise Up With Fists!!” before being gang-tackled near the sound booth. As he was being led out, Lewis remarked, “damn, dude, you got busted.” And then proceeded to wish him the best and dedicated “The New You” to the future SFPD guest. Jenny Lewis rules.

26. Spoon playing my favorite song of all time – “The Beast and Dragon, Adored”; the first time I’d ever seen it live. That chorus at 2:35 gets me every time. It was also cool to see Britt Daniel grant a fan’s wish in the front row before launching into the requested “I Summon You.”

27. Wayne Coyne’s outfit, and the Flaming Lips outrageously out there set in general.

28. Few bands are more suited to the large crowds of a festival than Cut Copy, who strike the perfect balance between heady electro, thumping bass lines, and effortless control of the crowd that bring to mind EDM, and the pop songwriting and indie affectations that they have mastered as a band.Always a joy to catch live.

29. The Killers remain firmly in that group of bands (see: Arctic Monkeys) whom I won’t rush to see but who nevertheless know how to put on a damn fine rock show. The newer songs generally flopped, but Hot Fuss (and, sure, maybe Sam’s Town) has still got it.

30. San Francisco. Enough said.





klap
08.14.14
bands i missed:

Bleachers
Holy Ghost!
Tegan & Sara
Dum Dum Girls
Christopher Owens
Courtney Barnett

bands i saw but didn't get a shoutout but you should totally see them sometime:
Woods
Local Natives
Gold Panda
Tiesto
Flume
Deer Tick

theacademy
08.14.14
spacey kacey for LIFE

theacademy
08.14.14
also the beast and dragon adored for LIFE

klap
08.14.14
academy4life

BMDrummer
08.15.14
lol Wayne

scottpilgrim10
08.15.14
Awesome article, I need to see kanye live sometime

tommygun
08.15.14
nice writeup pal

spoon set looked good

Irving
08.15.14
Oh God so so so so jealous =/

I can count on one hand the number of bands I got to see live since returning from Canada =(

ExplosiveOranges
08.15.14
Nice writeup, man. Loled @ Kanye.

IronGiant
08.15.14
great writeup; setlist didn't have enough bands I care about to drop that kind of coin but it looks like a really fun festival to just kick it with friends and catch some good tunes

Yuli
08.15.14
Awesome work man

TheSupernatural
08.22.14
So much money for bands I mostly have no interest in seeing, not to mention the unenviable drive through San Francisco.

Good post though, I enjoyed reading

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