The grounds are being prepared in Golden Gate Park for this weekend’s second incarnation of the Outside Lands Music Festival, an event that I’ll be in attendance for once again this year. I’m excited for the weekend and the good lineup, and I’m looking forward to seeing a few bands that I’ve never seen before. I’m going to run down what I think I’m going to see this weekend and why I think you should join me. If you’re going to the fest tomorrow drop me a line and maybe we can hang out.
Friday, August 28
Tomorrow is the first day of the festival and I’ll likely be at West Indian Girl on the Twin Peaks stage to start things off at 1pm. Their former lead-singer, Mariqueen Maandig, who posed for Playboy and got engaged to Trent Reznor, just parted ways with the band. So we’ll see how this one comes across. Their music can be pretty cool pop-psychedelia at times and should be a good start to the day.
What Are You Afraid Of? By West Indian Girl (Live)! [YouTube]
From there I’ll be checking out Akron/Family at the Sutro stage as another band warming up my day. I’ve never caught them before and not too familiar with anything in their catalog, but they seem like an obvious choice before the set from Built to Spill on the big stage. I’ve caught them once at a festival and once at a club, and it’s hard for me to get super super into this band. But they seem like the perfect festival rockers to me, much like I felt the Broken Social Scene set from last year’s Outside Lands felt. Lots of guitars seems to work well in a festival crowd.
Plus, if they cover “Paper Planes,” I’m pretty sure everyone is going to lose their s***.
Built to Spill- Paper Planes [YouTube]
I’ve been hearing a lot of great things about The Dodos and they’re playing back at the Sutro stage after BTS.
I’m excited that I’ll actually be seeing lots of new stuff on Friday, including the main stage act after with Silversun Pickups. That’s already a lot of new music right there, and I have no doubt that I’ll be enjoying myself at this festival once again. I may actually skip The National as I’m not much of a fan, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m actually pretty excited to see Incubus. They’ve long straddled the line between way too mainstream rap-rock and instrumentally stunning stoner space rock, in my opinion — so I want to see how they bring their show to the main stage. I hope that the girls in the audience can keep it together because there’s no way the lead guy will have his shirt off in that San Francisco summer weather.
INCUBUS – Megalomaniac (Live RAR 2008) [YouTube]
If that sucks I’ll definitely find my way over to Tea Leaf Green, but I’m in no rush considering how many times I’ve seen those guys already. Some of my better moments at a music festival have been when I’m watching some band new for the first time and not when I’m going to see someone I’ve already seen do a festival-style set with the hits. But wherever I’m at around 6:50pm, I’ll definitely be hoofing it over to see Tom Jones on the Sutro stage. I have an odd feeling this is going to be everybody’s standout set of the weekend; call it a hunch.
TOM JONES – She’s A Lady (Live at Glastonbury 28-6-2009) [YouTube]
For the headliner I’m definitely a bit torn. I’ve seen both Thievery Corporation and Pearl Jam before, both at Lollapalooza (2006 and 2007, respectively), and I really think I’m going to be more in the mood for a dance party vibe and not a set of rocking good music. I’m not huge on Pearl Jam even though I respect everything they do and what they stand for and all that good stuff, but I’m remembering the Thievery Corp. set from when I saw them and I think that’s going to be a better cap on a long day’s worth of music.
Thievery Corporation – Sound the Alarm (Live) [YouTube]
I’m predicting good times and good vibes. Drop some comments with your dream schedule if you’re going and planning ahead like me.
