Headliners Radiohead rocked the first night of San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival. Photos by .
Reverb contributor checks in with this report from the , which took place at San Francisco’s Aug. 22-24.
— Day 1 —
The uncomfortable feeling you have when your get your shoes wet upon arriving at a campsite was much like my first day at the very cold, very foggy . I spent the first day trying to acclimate to the elements. We got to the lush emerald park toward the beginning of the already late Beck set, and my journey to the photo pit was an impossible feat.
The stage was shaped like a bottleneck and didn’t allow for much wiggle room, so I got as close as I could to score some meager shots. The new material off Beck’s “Modern Guilt” plays a bit stronger live, with “Gamma Ray” sounding especially crisp and the top hat-toting Beck looking cool as ever. Why had I not seen Beck before? More importantly, I’m eagerly anticipating a stop in Denver when he tours his latest album.
It was at this time that I had to examine the collateral damage from being stuck in traffic. I had missed the Black Keys, Black Mountain, Cold War Kids and a couple other groups that I don’t want to remember for the sake of not working myself into a fit.
Beck works his black hat magic on the Outside Lands crowd.
Don’t hate, but this was my fourth time seeing Radiohead. Ever. It’s not as many as the other fanatics, but very respectable. Never had I been to a show where the audio had been blanked out for more than 30 seconds on two separate occasions for the biggest band in the world. (Sorry, Coldplay.)
It was like a bad dream, the kind you have when you’re naked in a desert and people start throwing pickles at you. The shock was so much on both occasions that nobody could speak or yell, the crowd crippled to a dull roar. The last 30 seconds of “Airbag” (one of my favorites off the epic “OK Computer”) and a minute of “All I Need” seemed like two eternities — the kind when you get into a car accident and everything seems to go into slow motion.
Audio and visual difficulties aside, the show was pleasing as one could imagine. Jonny Greenwood doesn’t get enough credit, as always, and Phil Selway is the kind of guy you need on stage at all times. Oh, and there was Thom Yorke doing what Thom Yorke does. Le sigh.
“Everything in Its Right Place” ended the night a bit anti-climatically. No second encore, and the band complied with the ten o’clock noise ordinance placed by the city (Radiohead popped the proverbial cherry by being the first group ever to play after dark in Golden Gate Park). I am willing to cut the festival some slack, but here is where we assess the damage. The crowd control lacked and the stages seemed TOO far apart. I’m OK with walking, but the stages were a huge hassle to maneuver while trying to walk from one to the other.
— Day 2 —
I’ve come to realize that the second coming of Bob Dylan has not manifested itself in one person (i.e. Conor Oberst) but in bits and pieces drizzled among our generation’s singer-songwriters. More than a handful has been sprinkled on M. Ward. The Oregonian troubadour’s ability to create simple song structures with poignant lyrics has garnered him a steadily increasing fan base.
Ward’s short yet effective set took place in the Sutro Stage (a.k.a. The Death Trap) due to the horrible bottleneck that the stage setup created. My belly was on the empty side so I decided to take the plunge and splurge on festival food. Two slices of pizza and a Coke would normally run me about $5 or $6 at Famous Pizza on South Broadway in Denver. Inflation at festivals is a bitch and it was exploited by 300 percent. Talk about sticker shock.
The wonderfully-curated festival represented its large California Hispanic population by including Mexico’s eclectic migrant-worker-tinged art rock band, Café Tacuba. People describe Café Tacuba as Mexico’s version of Radiohead, and lead vocalist Cosme’s endless font of energy poured forth in one of the day’s highlights.
Thankfully, the Walkmen played right next door in the Pan Handle stage. The Pan Handle stage was the smallest at the festival, but don’t tell that to the acts playing it, because some of the best acts were at that intimate locale.
The Walkmen brought their newest offering, “You and Me” — an album instantly welcomed by the blogosphere. It’s unlike anything fans would expect from the band, with several horn arrangements (a facet unknown to previous efforts). The manic group that once was matured onstage to a quiet/loud version of its former self. When lead singer Hamilton Leithauser croons his raspy songs, I can’t help but feel nostalgic for vintage Rod Stewart. There, I said it.
Tom Petty headlined Day 2, but since I’d caught him previously at Denver’s (in hindsight, the MHMF was smooth sailing in comparison to the inaugural Outside Lands), I decided to end the night with Primus. Tally-ho to the “Seas of Cheese.”
Early teen years found me ignoring the testosterone musings of mad bassist Les Claypool, but I later learned to appreciate “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver.” The rambunctious homestate crowd hosted a welcoming party of sorts for their heroes in Primus. I tried desperately to stick around for a third of the set but the crowd ruined the potentially curious evening.
— Day 3 —
I made it. The last day was upon me and the mirage of my bed was on the very near horizon. I mapped the day’s shows and precisely pinned them down so they would be side by side. This meant forgoing Bon Iver, Los Amigos Invisibles, Drive By Truckers and yes, Colorado’s favorite, Widespread Panic.
Meeting up with some friends to catch an early Andrew Bird show at the Twin Peaks stage made it the friendliest of all. “Friendly” because it was closest to the entrance/exit. Again, I had seen Andrew Bird recently at the Mile High Music Festival and he didn’t disappoint. I’m quite fond of his innovative use of two Delay Stompboxes Modelers.
The Cool Kids did their thing by paying homage to their late ’80s hip-hop heroes and dropping slow rhymes and thick beats. The second highlight of the weekend came with Canada’s Broken Social Scene. The indie supergroup is known for performing with different acts on its label, Arts & Crafts, and virtually anything Canadian — with the exception of Mexican band, Chikita Violenta.
The stage was just barely big enough for all the members, including some from Stars, Land of Talk, Apostle of Hustle, Pavement and the collective themselves. The downfall was that the group played for less than an hour. They performed their proper material but also material from solo players Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning.
The crowd was brought to its knees when Amy Milan from Stars delicately chanted “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl,” and the surprise of the evening had Spiral Stairs (Scott Kannenberg from Pavement) sitting in on the final number, “Ibi Dreams of Pavement.” It was a fitting way to end a highlight of the festival, and perhaps a bit of foreshadowing from Broken Social Scene and Spiral Stairs. (I had read that the two would be performing as a supegroup named Human Milk.)
The final act of the festival was Chicago’s finest, Wilco. The guys opened with a Woody Guthrie song, and it had me thinking how great it would be to see them perform both versions of “Mermaid Avenues” live.
Golden Gate Park is beautiful and the lush grass is what I could imagine it would be in Scotland. But the first two days had zero sunlight and thick fog. The weather was like a late, cloudy October Denver day.
Overall, the Outside Lands Festival has room to improve, just like any other festival, and it has the potential to be something that rivals its older brother from down south, Coachella. The location is more desirable and the weather is more amenable when comparing the cloudy, foggy climes to Sahara-like elements. The experience has me salivating for mid-September when Monolith sets up shop at Red Rocks.
Regular Reverb contributor edits the Cause=Time blog.
