Inside Outside Lands: Friday

Inside Outside Lands: Friday

 

Our west coast correspondent braved the clouds of rain, dust, and funky cigarette smoke at this past weekend’s music and arts festival in San Francisco.

For some reason, I can’t wrap my head around festival punctuality. The concept of showing up on time for a multi-act concert is foreign to me. Last year, I thought it would be an okay idea to go to work on the first day of Sasquatch, only to sit in traffic on Snoqualmie Pass and ultimately miss Girl Talk’s set. Years earlier, leisurely eating lunch with my summer housemates meant missing Relient K and Reggie and the Full Effect at the Warped Tour (this sounds silly now, but at the time was pretty upsetting). And when Lollapalooza was still touring, I was dumb and in high school and far too preoccupied with the festival scavenger hunt (where the prize was going backstage with Incubus) to catch any of the acts before the late afternoon. This year, however, I was determined to not make the same mistakes. I shifted my work week to Sunday-Thursday and cleared my schedule for the entirety of Outside Lands. I was set.

 

Of course, this was very nearly derailed by my own inability to mobilize in the morning hours of the weekend. After consuming far too much ribs and fried chicken and beer the previous night (I had a serious craving for soul food), I was feeling rough on Friday morning. I left far later than I had intended, and subsequently underestimated just how long it would take to BART to Embarcadero, hop on the N-Judah towards Ocean Beach, and actually arrive at Sunset Boulevard south of Golden Gate Park. The morning was a typical Bay-Area-in-August mix of wind and fog, but as I stepped off the Muni and caught a glimpse of the Pacific, the sun came out, warm and optimistic. As luck would have it, the start of the Smith Westerns set had been slightly delayed, and while I spent some of it in line getting my ID checked, I was still there for it. I’m going to count that as a win. By the time they closed with the catchy “Weekend”, it was, in

fact, time to celebrate the weekend. We lingered in the grass and the sun briefly, but decided to spend this downtime exploring the grounds.

 

We sauntered by booths of merchandise, food, and libations, checked out the already-long line to get into The Dome (designed to be an enclosed club for all the smaller DJ sets), and passed thousands of revelers, many of whom – in usual festival tradition – were dressed either as crazily or as trendy as they possibly could be. For the ladies, it seemed the “in” thing for this year was cutoff shorts with a waist line up to the navel and an exposed midriff. For both guys and gals, much to my chagrin, one of the most popular accessories seemed to be the exact backpack I was wearing. It was everywhere.

 

One pack.

Two pack.

Red Pack.

Blue Pack.

Sigh.

The grounds were separated into three parts, split in the center by McLaren Pass, a brief venture through the woods in between large swaths of open lawn. Within the trees, among other things, was an interactive art piece put together by Mike Shine known as Flotsam’s Wonder World. It was themed like a demented carnival, featured guest musical acts throughout the weekend, and was populated mostly by clown-face-painted people in kilts. It turns out this has been a recurring event for the last few years, but at the time, I was caught a bit off guard by the forest-dwelling carnies.

As we made our way through the pass we went by Choco Lands and eventually emerged at Wine Lands, also known as the two places my wife goes in her fever dreams. The latter of these two fantasy locales was populated by representatives from nearby California wineries with a few different of their own varieties at each booth. For an extra two dollars, you could get a plastic Outside Lands cup in which to consume these. Or you could just get a regular plastic cup for free. But thank you for offering to allow me to spend more money.

While we were down in this area we happened upon the Panhandle Stage, a side venue which was completely powered – including all lighting and amplification – throughout the weekend by only alternative and solar energy – pretty cool. The folk rock group Houndmouth played during our time there, providing a great backdrop to what was shaping up to be a relaxing afternoon.

 

We made our way back to the Lands End Stage in time to catch Surfer Blood, perhaps the perfect name for a band whose music is a fusion of fuzzy surf rock and indie allure. I had only been turned on to them a few days prior when a friend was looking at the lineup and recommended them, but I was pretty pleased I had inserted them into my schedule, as they were another awesome midday act. They opened with “Floating Vibes” and closed with “Drinking Problem”; again, perfect names for songs to be played at festival.

 

We had another brief intermission before Band of Horses would begin to play, a time spent in an area of the grounds that was my own little happy place.

Band of Horses came out ready to rock and happily playing to the crowd’s energy. Things built to “Is There A Ghost”, played in the middle of their set, and continued on towards “Knock Knock”. Their finale was the wildly popular “The Funeral”, the quiet arpeggios expanding to a full-on onslaught of guitars, vocals, and drums. At its conclusion, their lead singer told us “it [was] a great fucking day.” We believed.

 

One of the funny things about having multiple live music stages within a relatively small amount of space is the frequent occurrence of ‘accidentally’ hearing an act on one’s way to do something else. My first encounter with this phenomenon on this particular weekend came while I was taking care of the state in which Beer Lands had put my bladder. I hadn’t been to the Sutro Stage just yet, but the silky smooth grooves and vocals of Rhye managed to float their way over to my place in line. I don’t know much about Rhye other than the biography I’ve read and the few songs I heard that afternoon, but that’s another one of the beautiful things about a high density of live music – you don’t need to know what you’re hearing to appreciate the experience. Thanks, Rhye.

 

I walked over to where The National was about to come on as the sunlight morphed into fog. Matt Berninger, their singer, came out, briefly lamented about the weather, and then launched into “Fake Empire” and “I Should Live In Salt”. The melancholy nature of the songs actually seemed to go hand in hand with the darkening skies, as they breezed through other standards like “I Need My Girl” and “Graceless”, playing over half their set accompanied by the musicians of Kronos Quartet; it was a nice touch to have live strings at a concert. During an emotional, extended “Mr. November”, Berninger jumped off the stage, over the protective barrier, and pushed his way deep into the crowd, howling the refrain alongside excited, adoring fans. It would have been quite a way to end a set list, but just when we thought it was over, the band went ahead and performed one of my favorite festival tricks – bringing out another famous musician to collaborate on a song. In this case, it was San Francisco’s own Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, who jammed along to a fantastic rendition of “Terrible Love”. Really great stuff.

 

We tried to make it over to the Zedd set prior to its conclusion, but got distracted by the delicious smells coming from Outside Lambs (sweet pun, guys). Lamb poutine, lamb gyros, and lamb paella? We were not making it over to Zedd, even if he did have a remix of the theme from Legend Of Zelda. During The National’s set, we had noticed that, oddly, we were among the younger members of the crowd; this is strange as festivals are not an old man’s game. However, we got our answer to “Where are all the drugged-out teenagers?” shortly thereafter amid the mass exodus from the end of the Zedd show. They were at the DJ set. Of course they were.

 

We caught a little bit more surfer rock in that of Wavves at the Panhandle Stage (still kicking!), then swung by the Sutro Stage to get a glimpse of the end of what I thought was going to be D’Angelo. Unfortunately, I was sadly not up to date, as disco funk group Chic had subbed in at the last minute due to the originally scheduled act’s illness. This was very disappointing, as the little bit we did catch – including “Le Freak” and the oft-sampled “Good Times” – was incredible. The crowd was bumping and the band was having fun. There had apparently been rumors earlier in the week that Daft Punk was going to be D’Angelo’s replacement (I would not be able to live with myself if I had missed Daft Punk due to my own misinformation), and Chic closed with a nod to this notion, dancing along to “Get Lucky” before finishing.

 

Of course, all of this was simply an appetizer to the final act of the night, Paul McCartney. We made sure we were at the stage with plenty of time to spare; this was not a show to be missed. Shortly before Sir Paul took the stage, a silly little monkey popped up on a stick just a bit in front of us. I assumed he was there to request “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey”, off of the White Album.

 

Silly monkey – John Lennon sings that one.

But wait. Does he have something to hide?

He turned and looked right at me.

Don’t worry about me. Enjoy the show.

 

That was weird.

 

There were some grumblings beforehand about how McCartney’s set would overlap with the entirety of Pretty Lights. I’ve seen this act before and genuinely enjoyed the show, and even I briefly entered my own mental debate as to whether I could slip away for half an hour or so to catch part of the DJ’s light show.

 

Then Sir Paul emerged. And “Eight Days A Week” started. And that was the end of that foolish debate.

 

The hits were endless. Every Wings song was preceded with, “this is for the Wings fans”. He teased “Foxy Lady”, told a story about hanging out with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and then launched into “Paperback Writer”. The man was a machine. He played for three hours and forty songs straight. When the other musicians needed a break, he performed “Blackbird” solo, or a stripped-down “Something” on the ukulele. We all sang “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” together. The monkey was having a great time.

The songlist grew and grew, each more spectacular than the last. “Band on the Run” led into “Back in the USSR”, followed by a story about meeting the Russian government and hearing from the defense minister that he had learned English from The Beatles’ records. This guy was unbelievable. We laughed with him. And then the piano chords to “Let It Be” began, and as embarrassed as I may be to admit this, the floodgates to my tear ducts absolutely opened up. I couldn’t handle it. “Live and Let Die” followed, complete with explosions of fireworks and fire in sync with the song. And finally, he closed with “Hey Jude”, a singalong that unquestionably ranks among the greatest live concert moments I have ever experience. Truly a wonderful moment.

 

Of course there were encores. Plural encores. “Day Tripper”, “Get Back”, “Yesterday”, “Helter Skelter”, and appropriately, “The End”, among others. He came out waving the flags of America, California, and Great Britain. And he brought two girls onstage who wanted to have their wrists signed so that they could get the imaged tattooed on their arms forever, the second of which was dangerously close to fainting right then and there. Think of that – it’s been FIFTY years since The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, and Sir Paul is STILL making young women lose their collective shit with his mere presence.

 

There’s always a slight worry when you see a legendary older musician play a show. Can they possibly live up to your expectations? Will they even still “have it”? The stakes are even higher for arguably the most accomplished rock musician of all time (I will listen to your arguments for Dylan or Elvis, but not much beyond that). Well, I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that Paul McCartney still has it. Good God, does he still have it.
There’s always a slight worry when you see a legendary older musician play a show. Can they possibly live up to your expectations? Will they even still “have it”? The stakes are even higher for arguably the most accomplished rock musician of all time (I will listen to your arguments for Dylan or Elvis, but not much beyond that). Well, I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that Paul McCartney still has it. Good God, does he still have it.

Andrew Rose

About Andrew Rose

Andrew Rose is a writer and editor for Rookerville. He also manages a travel blog for his friends and family. His book, “Seizure Salad”, is a work of fiction - not in that it is a tale of fantasy, but in that it does not actually exist.

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