Ever since we first heard of Outside Lands festival in Golden Gate Park in San Fran, we were excited. Ok.. so a lot of it was based on the fact that Radiohead was headlining a night, but the timing was perfect. Early in the year when we were scheduling the summer tour we left open two weekends in mid August for the 5th annual ice cream social. Once Outside Lands dates were announced, so were the social dates.
Its gotta be tough starting from scratch and throwing a festival for over 100,000 people, especially in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the country. Id heard of past shows in Golden Gate Park and after checking out a satellite map I was curious to see how itd all play out. Although the festival was quite spread out, everything was nice and green and there was very little, if any, audio spillover from the stages.
Friday was all about Radiohead. There were other great bands on that day, Manu Chao and Beck to name a couple, but people shelled out the big bucks to see Radioheads only stop in the bay area this year. It was understandable though. Radiohead is arguably the biggest and best band in the world and their live shows are not to be missed, even if it means shelling out $95 at the gate to hang out with 50,000 of your closest friends. Taggy Lee and Simeon headed over from Oakland and Jeremiah, Vanessa, Dawn, and I camped out on a hill on the left side where the sound and site lines were better than I expected.
They kicked things off with “15 Step” >”Reckoner” which is how theyve been kicking off most of their sets this tour. From there, they kept the pace upbeat with a lot of songs off In Rainbows as well as “National Athem”, “Idioteque”, and Talk Show Host. For the encore they threw in some crowd favorites from their early days (“Paranoid Android”/”Fake Plastic Trees”) then closed out with “Everything In Its Right Place”, which is perfect because it ends with loops that allow for the band members to exit individually from the stage while the word EVERYTHING crossed the stage ticker tape style in lights.
Saturday got off to a great start with a stop at Merritt Bakery in Oakland for some chicken n waffles and cheese grits. I had to get to the festival a bit early to park the truck backstage before everyone arrived and it was nice to have a bit of down time to relax before everything started. Another plus was that the bar area was LOADED with all kinda of great games. There were four pinball machines (including a near mint Theater of Magic), Foosball tables, ping pong, Whac-A-Mole, video games, pool, and more. We took advantage of all the games, especially at the end of the night while we waited for people to leave so we could drive the truck out.
There was all kinds of great music on Saturday and it started early with performance by Devendra Banhart. While slinging I ran into Devendra and he mentioned we could give away cream at his set. I thought itd be too much trouble but he kept saying he wanted to so I finally got approval and headed over there with a hundred ice creams to give away. Devendra and a couple other guys in the band each grabbed a box and we threw them out to the crowd. If ever given the chance, I highly recommend giving away ice cream from a stage, its quite a rush.
Since traffic was pretty sparse by the truck we were making lots of cream slinging trips around the fest. In the process I saw Lupe Fiasco tear up the far stage and saw a li’l bit of Steve Winwood doing Dear Mr. Fantasy. One of the artists a lot of the crew wanted to see was Regina Spektor so we headed back to the cozy Sutro stage and gave away some cream while being mesmerized by Regina performing solo on piano and guitar.
While grabbing some coffee before heading to Tom Petty I ran into Ben Harper in the catering tent and asked if he wanted some cream. He didnt want me to run back to the truck just to get a sandwich but I just remembered that I forgot to get ice cream for the nice coffee ladies so I ran back and got cream for them both. Tom Petty has to have one of the best songbooks ever. Hes like a top-ten hit factory. The two highlights of his set were Steve Winwood joining in on Cant Find My Way Home and Gimme Some Lovin and their final song, the all-time classic American Girl.
I was excited for Sunday because my brother Ryan was coming along and he hadnt been to a festival with me before. Once we arrived we parked Newt then I kicked his ass in ping pong. His punishment for losing was to man the truck while I wandered around, trying to look busy. It was nice that hed heard the Ice Cream Man spiel enough to be informed if anyone asked them what we were up to. He was also smart enough to pick the few bands he wanted to see and make sure he wasnt going to miss them. Since we have similar taste in music it was good that Id been on the road all summer and got to see a lot of the bands that he was checking out.
So the bands I wished I woulda seen on Sunday are Sharon Jones , Nicole Atkins, Grace Potter, Andrew Bird, Stars, Wilco, Broken Social Scene AND Bon Iver. Yeah. it was one of those days. I think because Jack Johnson has gotten a lot of slack for not being a big name headliner they stacked the lineup with tons of other great bands.
I cant believe I missed so many bands on Sunday. How am I supposed to write (or right) a review with so li’l exposure. We started wrapping things up during Jacks set when Paige returned from shooting pics. My brother and I were quite hungry and so was Paige so we made the executive decision to get out before Jack finished and head to one of my favorite restaurants in the universe, House of Nanking. Its in the Chinatown/North Beach area of town and theyve got the bestestest food out there. Just dont expect the best service and youll love it.
Outside Lands has something good going on. Ive heard people say, theyve just gotta figure out a couple things but Im not sure what those things are. It wasnt perfect, but no fest ever is. If you came to have a good time and rock out for three days you prolly had a great time, like we did. I just wish I coulda seen a li’l more music. We had a great crew on board (thanks Dawn, Kevin, Danielle, Paige, Peter, Vanessa, and Jeremiah) but we could have used a bit more help because, with one person at the truck and at least one at slinging, there wasnt much time to catch the music. Ok were spoiled and we want it all, thats not too much to ask. Mine mine mine.
Thanks to Blue Bunny for donating all the ice cream and Wonder Ice Cream for allowing us to pick it up at their Hayward warehouse. Thanks to my brother Ryan for the floor to crash on for almost a week (and for owning a TV that likes to show Fletch and the Olympics). With no Vegoose happening this year, Im really hoping Outside Lands come back for another year, with Radiohead in tow.
