I saw Jack Johnson in the crowd at Outside Lands on Saturday night. It was just before Aussie rockers Royel Otis jumped into their bombastic, viral hit, “Oysters In My Pocket,” a total highlight moment of the festival. The familiar San Francisco fog was sitting atop the cypress tree canopies the way it always does in the early evening at Twin Peaks stage, and here was Jack Johnson, flashing me a smile as he walked through the crowd.
The encounter might’ve otherwise just been the happenstance of seeing a famous musician hanging out in a place where a lot of other excellent famous musicians were doing their thing. But it took me back to year one of Outside Lands in 2008, when Johnson headlined the Lands End main stage at the Golden Gate Park polo field, closing out the first of the festival’s now-seventeen years in San Francisco. I was struck by the circularity of it all and how it spoke to a sense of continuity in the community, production, and execution at Outside Lands that the more I marinated on it, the more it was ever-present at this year’s edition.
Closing out the Twin Peaks stage on Saturday night after Royel Otis was Vampire Weekend. It was the band’s third time playing the festival, not including earlier in the day when they opened things up on the same stage. Vampire Weekend brought their day/night concerts concept to a festival for the first time after a few attempts at it on tour in 2024, and frontman Ezra Koenig was beaming. “It’s so nice to be back on this stage,” he said. “How was your last seven hours?”
As a whole, Vampire Weekend was easily the most thorough of any performer this year. How could they not be? When the NYC staples opened the evening set with “Mansard Roof” — after an abnormally gigantic crowd for a 12:45 p.m. set heard a completely different setlist — I couldn’t help but think about how there are concepts that music festival curators have yet to explore fully. It was a genius stroke to get people into the grounds early, and here was Outside Lands’ promoter, Another Planet Entertainment (APE), leading the way. They did something similar in taking a leap and loading up on country stars on the lineup in 2024, correctly betting on the upward swing of the music industry’s current country wave. The same goes for booking SZA to headline in 2022, Lizzo and Tame Impala in 2021, Kendrick Lamar in 2015, and so on.
Over and over again, Outside Lands finds itself in the right place at the right time. Sure, it did turn out to be a stroke of luck that when Tyler The Creator cancelled as a headliner last year, he was fortuitously replaced by Sabrina Carpenter, and then headlined this year, two weeks after dropping a new album. But for the most part, after a while, it stops being about luck and becomes about knowing exactly how to pull the right strings on a given year to ensure that one of the best festivals in the country just keeps getting better. And it’s more than just the music. From headliners and food to alternative stages, experiential touches, and more. Here’s what stood out from another memorable weekend in Golden Gate Park.
The Music
APE’s Head of Concerts and Festivals, Allen Scott, told us before the weekend that he was expecting 70,000 people a day at Golden Gate Park. Well, a healthy half of that number was at Doechii’s Lands End set on Friday night, and the dynamic LA rapper was dazzling. Her set was filled with metal and rap tropes, callbacks to pop music mementos, enamoring choreography, and a nerdy-but-cool boombox stage design that seemed to connect with everyone in one way or another. This was easily a weekend winner.
Mind you, this was yet another year of “The lineup isn’t that great” narratives leading the way in Bay Area social circles. Yawn. This was yet again a prescient lineup from a festival that keeps its finger on the pulse.
Destroy Boys played Lands End Stage early Friday, and the Sacramento punks had the kind of palpable angst, inclusive message, and hard-headed rock and roll that we desperately need dominating alt-rock radio. It was an effective bridge into a set from Philadelphia’s Mannequin Pussy. Of the countless artists who used their platform at the festival to voice activist stances against the current administration’s positions on immigration, Palestinian freedom (or lack thereof), and generally hateful policy agenda, none rang more emphatically than the words of singer Missy Dabice.
“I believe that we all come to places like this because you, too, have this deep simmering pit of rage and anger inside of you” Dabice said, after marching towards the crowd on a catwalk built for Doja Cat’s headlining set later in the evening. “And if you don’t find a way to channel that rage into something else, that rage is gonna eat at you like a poison.” The band’s performance used those words as a guiding light, delivering an impassioned set filled with bangers from their fantastic latest album, I Got Heaven.
Speaking of Doja Cat, she was nothing short of a superstar in her ’80s hair-metal wig and skin-tight zebra print two-piece get-up. Doja never broke stride, channeling equal parts Lil Kim, Cardi B, Gangsta Boo, and Tina Turner. Trouble is, the energy from the crowd didn’t quite match her greatness. It’s a shame, because this was hip-hop as pop music in a chiseled state, but it didn’t come close to drawing the size of a crowd that Doechii did.
Vampire Weekend would’ve pitched a no-hitter had the band not decided to end the evening set by taking audience requests for cover songs. They would’ve been better off continuing to pluck from their five-album catalog, which was firing on all cylinders. But we’ll chalk it up as a minor blemish on an overall unforgettable time.
Argentinian trap pop duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were the revelation of the festivities. The whimsy and charisma of their viral NPR Tiny Desk Concert exploded onto the Sutro Stage, and it is evident that revelers at the front of the crowd had pretty much bought a ticket specifically to see them. Meanwhile, Jorja Smith was the finest pure vocalist at the festival. The divine modern R&B singer from the UK has a cool, poised, methodical delivery that’s schooled in the trade. But her Sunday 6:40 p.m. Twin Peaks stage time slot is notoriously tricky, asking an artist to command the pulse of the festival when it’s winding down after three days. Smith’s evocative lyrics hit hardest as it got darker, especially on the sublime “On My Mind,” a blissful moment where the crowd synced up harmoniously with the star.
Fcukers probably drew the weekend’s largest crowd on the intimate Panhandle stage. The pulse of the people was intense, much like it was at the band’s festival night show on Thursday at San Francisco’s Popscene at the Rickshaw Stop — a club party about to celebrate 30 years of going strong, that’s broken acts from Billie Eilish to Sam Smith. The sweaty, hazy set was the tightest 40 minutes I’d seen in a while, and Fcukers has “next big thing” written all over them.
Thundercat also played an official night show on Friday evening at the Independent, turning the venue into a lively jazz club for nearly two hours. It showcased both the wizardry of Thundercat, keyboardist Dennis Hamm, and drummer Justin Brown, as well as a versatile venue that has served as the heartbeat of live indie music in the city for over 20 years.
Building On The Past
The curatorial continuity was strong throughout the weekend. Traditionally, a Bay Area rapper of the moment graces a secondary stage. But this year, Vallejo’s LaRussell poured his heart and soul out on Lands End. The consummate rap showman’s gratitude was on full display. “I had more people in my car than I had at a show,” he reminisced. “To be here today is a real testament of will and perseverance. You gotta show up for yourself. Can I get a ‘YEEEE’?!”
Legacy acts were few, but Ludacris was the festival’s great equalizer, playing every hit and notable featured verse imaginable (even Justin Bieber’s “Baby”) to resounding crowd approval on the main stage. NOLA bounce royalty Big Freedia, an Outside Lands mainstay if there ever was one, opened day three on Lands End backed by the SF Gay Men’s Chorus. It was a spiritual oeuvre, and felt very much like being in a vibrant gospel church; a truly inclusive Sunday service.
Jamie xx came back to the same Sutro Stage he played on in 2018. After seeing him in Brooklyn last weekend at the Under the K Bridge venue, it was illuminating to see him execute completely different mixes of his tracks for this show. He seemed to lean more into ’90s R&B dance grooves and versions truer to the album mixes of In Waves, instead of the techno and jazz from the NYC gig, cementing his DJ sets as ones you really shouldn’t miss because you never know what tricks he has up his sleeve.
Finally, there was Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals closing out the Twin Peaks Stage. .Paak acted like he owned the place (in the best way possible) and brought out Cordae for “RNP,” then stepped back and welcomed out E-40 to coarse through “Tell Me When To Go” and his verse on Big Sean’s “I Don’t F*ck With You,” an ultimate sign of respect for the Bay. Then, with purple light-pigmented fog hovering above and lasers shooting out from the stage towards the crowd, he played his 2016 collaboration track with Kaytranada, “Glowed Up.” Given that on this same stage last year Kaytra played the song during his closing set, this touch of curatorial continuity wasn’t lost on me; It felt like the festival was telling a greater story rooted in its history. At the same time, on the main stage where Hozier played, there were surely people thinking about when the Irish crooner first played the festival in 2019. Ultimately, no matter where you were and how packed a set was you were watching, there was a gigantic crowd adding to their unique memories somewhere else at Golden Gate Park, too. There was something here for everyone.
Food & Drink
While some festivals have seemed to be getting too big for their britches, Outside Lands just hums. The food and drinks slate here is equally as impressive as the music. Food curator Tanya Kollar, who has worked at the festival in some capacity since year two, leads an effort that’s an accurate reflection of the world-class food scene in San Francisco.
From Michelin-starred spots like Angler and Sorrel, to buzzy pop-ups like Oaxacan-fusion sensei Provecho and Peruvian-Eritrean wildness from Michoz, to food from alumni and current members of the inimitable nonprofit La Cocina, it’s an eclectic and downright delicious slate of 99 all-local vendors. Check out our round-up tomorrow of the best food and drink at the fest for more details on what we ate and drank.
The Bay Area has one of the most incredible craft beer landscapes in the country, and Beer Lands captures it all so well. The footprint of Beer Lands shifted over into a more central spot near the head of the Polo Field, making it more integrated with the festival. Back for a seventeenth time, Wine Lands was once again bustling as an open-air corral of Napa and Sonoma County wineries. I popped in for half an hour, dropped less than $20, and got tastes from a few different winemakers before taking my buzz over to see Jorja Smith.
Experiential Elements And Then Some
Last year, I wrote about how Outside Lands is about so much more than the music on the main stages. And in this regard especially, Outside Lands showed a commitment to continuous improvement. Stages like the EDM-focused SOMA and the queer-centered Dolores’ continue to carve out their lanes in the sweeping grounds. The former, with yet another new layout in Marx Meadow that felt like a massive outdoor Boiler Room set with LED-triangles through the field, looked like the structural backbone of the stuffy tents that once stood here instead. Dolores’ is such a crucial and awesome space that hosts DJ sets, ubiquitous drag queens, and a large swath of LGBTQ+ programming curated by local collectives that have legit influence and are held in high regard.
New for this year, the Duboce Triangle stage felt like a hideaway in plain sight in idyllic McLaren Pass, with both an open mic slot and some of the festival’s earlier-slotted artists returning to play a second, more personal set. I sat down on an antique couch (why not?) in the quirkily decorated stage in the woods. I sank into the experience of seeing XL Recordings’ signee Nourished By Time playing avant-R&B for a second time that day, connecting more deeply with his tunes. At the same time, he and other artists who played the stage were certainly forging deeper connections with the festival community and the ins and outs of Golden Gate Park, too.
There was so much more that I engaged with inside of this glorious representation of San Francisco in the park; big things and little things alike within an unpredictable, yet enjoyable weather system. There was graffiti art from iconic SF artist Apexer everywhere, including on the framing of stages. I browsed through the booths of nonprofits trying to bring awareness to their efforts at The Mission. I danced through electrocumbia cuts at Casa Bacardi and then to local DJ and promoter DJ Sep spinning dancehall in Grass Lands, a grove dedicated to legal cannabis sales and consumption. I passed by a bartering art cart with vintage wares to sell and swap from Grand Artique at the foot of the Flower Lands activation, while watching another couple get married at the now two-year-old on-site chapel.
Refillable water stations were everywhere, and Clean Vibes once again led Outside Lands’ unsurpassed sustainability efforts, with volunteers seemingly tending to every trash bin to ensure the best-in-class waste diversion rate at the festival remains about 90 percent. Heck, I even hugged a nerd (like the candy) and it was a lovely moment (sorry, not sorry). But many attendees were lamenting the absence of the West Coast Craft marketplace of local vendors. Instead, there were new activations like a Pacsun booth and a design-your-own-hoodie house from Gap. The latter makes sense, given Gap is headquartered in San Francisco, and it was a collaboration with nonprofit workforce youth development program Holy Stitch. But should these new sponsorships have to come at the expense of local craft makers who’ve been a fixture here for years?
Community
By day three, there was nowhere else I wanted to be. I usually arrive later on Sunday, exhausted from the previous two days. But I woke up like it was Christmas morning and hopped on a public e-bike just after noon. Because when the weekend was over, it’d all be gone until next year.
I love San Francisco, and despite all the criticism the city has faced as a supposed hellhole, Outside Lands is a vessel that calls attention to all that is great about this place. The demographics of Outside Lands are all over the map, with 50 percent of attendees coming from the Bay, 25 percent from other parts of California, and the other 25 percent from out of state. Fittingly, I met a family of four who came from North Carolina because their daughters wanted to see Gracie Abrams. I swooned over food choices with a couple from Phoenix in the VIP section. Folks from LA were everywhere. This festival has become a real community, where people take care of each other and are thrilled with each other’s presence, year in and year out.
Oftentimes, San Francisco gets characterized as a tech industry hub above all else. It’s a reductive description of one of the most effervescent American cities. Outside Lands did a masterful job of shining a light on that vibrance. I never felt much of a heavy-handed tech presence on-site, until maybe on my way home Sunday night, but it was sort of beautiful. The Lyft/Bay Wheels bike station just outside the exit was more well-stocked with e-bikes than I’ve seen in years past. It’s for sure the smoothest way to get out of the festival and head home or to an afterparty quickly; hills and inclines are no match for these machines. I hopped on one of the abundant bikes that were ready to go, along with countless other people forming a cavalcade of sorts. And as we rode through the glowing fog of Golden Gate Park, hundreds of bike lights flickered alongside each other while we made our way back into the heart of the city.
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