Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco, Night 1

Friday, August 22, 2008 marked the first day of the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival in San Francisco, CA. Part of the growing series of multi-day, many-artist summer music festivals in the tradition of Bonnaroo or All Good, this fledgling effort attracted nearly 100,000 people over the course of three tuneful days in Golden Gate Park. Four stages, 3 entrances and endless Port-O-Johns were erected around the fields where the festival was held.

The park was both a good and a bad place to host such a popular event. Good, because the enormous size and scenic natural setting complemented the music. Concertgoers were able to take public transportation to the park but didn't feel like they were in the middle of a huge city. Bad because the stages were set up at some distance from one another and narrow passageways that got crowded and slow delayed the process of moving between venues and caused no small amount of frustration.

I attended Friday, the kickoff night, because I found the lineup to be the most consistently appealing (and because I didn't think I could hang for three full days without having a place to nap). My viewing schedule went like this:

5:25 pm The Cold War Kids took the Sutro Stage in Lindsey Meadows. We hustled in as they sang "We Used to Vacation" as streams of other concertgoers made their way over from the other stages. We had wanted to check out a little of Steel Pulse but arrived a bit too late and CWK took priority. They played at least 4 songs from their upcoming September album including the stellar single "Something is Not Right with Me."They wrapped up their set at 6:10 pm, 30 minutes before Beck was due to play on the same stage and we took off for points deeper in the park. Namely, we were headed for the Lands End stage at Polo Fields where we could hear Manu Chao rocking out. This was where we ran into trouble. The passageway (fenced, through the woods) between the Sutro stage and the main grounds of Polo Fields was too narrow for the crowds attempting to traverse it and once some clever concertgoers pulled open the fence at another point in the woods all semblance of orderly crowd movement was lost. The lines at the restrooms and the ID checkpoints did little to ease the antsy, eager music fans still arriving en masse for the night. We reluctantly decided to skip Manu because of the crowds.

6:45 pm, having cut through the woods and shopped around in the Microsoft tent for a while, we struck out on towards the opposite side different side of the Polo Fields where the Black Keys were playing on the Twin Peaks stage. A 2-person rock outfit, the Black Keys manage make more noise than most traditionally staffed bands. And it's great noise. Of the 25 min or so that we watched, they played a few of their more popular songs (like "10 am Automatic") that were slightly more jam-y than their album versions and pleased the crowd immensely. We would have stayed longer but a Bay Area rapper named Lyrics Born was up on a different stage and we were ready for something a little more upbeat.

7:15 pm, The Avenues stage at Polo Fields. Lyrics Born threw down with a sick live funk band that included a dancer/backup singer, keyboardist, bassist, and drummer. A natural entertainer (rather than simply a rapper), he cranked out at least 6 songs while we watched and kept the us dancing the entire time. He refused to end his set early, even though the headliners were due to start at the opposite end of Polo Fields, and may have been the highlight of my night.

8:00 pm, Radiohead came on the main stage on Polo Fields. It was the only show for its timeslot (and the first evening show ever played in Golden Gate Park), so everyone at the festival congregated on the big field in front of the stage. The crowd was around 50,000 large and views were at a premium but the sound quality was excellent and the band played a great set that included "Airbag" and "Fake Plastic Trees." Everything was going swimmingly until the sound cut out twice, the second time for almost 2 minutes, during the course of the show. Thom Yorke was not pleased and neither was the audience. Radiohead wrapped up at 10:00 pm and we headed home.

In all, attending Outside Lands was a good experience. The weather and layout of the festival left something to be desired (hopefully at least the layout can be improved next year even if the weather can't be helped). I'm glad I didn't try to tackle all three days since I learned my lessons from Bonnaroo a few years ago, and to be around that large a group of happy music lovers is always a pleasure.