After 3 months of expectations and excitement for Outsidelands it took 3 days to drain that enthusiasm and replace it with ennui and exhaustion. August in San Francisco is the preferred vacation spot for Karl the Fog and he really likes to hang out in Golden Gate Park. So forewarned and forearmed with layers and liquids the women in my life and I tried different approaches to survive the joys of portapotties, freezing winds washing away any sense of warmth seeping through the cloud from the anaemic sun and the additional 10,000 guests (yes, just an extra 10,000 for this year) the organisers decided to share the event with each day.
So lets get some quick throwaway rants in early in a belated attempt at cathartic release:
Portapotties - you can't walk within 200 yards of the multiple recycle facilities without stumbling over a 'volunteer' to guide you as to the puzzle of which coloured bin your trash du jour is destined for. Yet they can't clean the piss soaked, shit sprayed, paper strewn Hades masquerading as toilet facilities that you have to line up for 20 minutes to endure more than once a day. Thanks for that Outsidelands. I mean seriously, what is wrong with people? why can't they just do their bidness in the correct hole?
Stage frights - Outhouselands has 4 stages, one big enough for Woodstock on the Polo Fields where the headliners play and all the fast track stars jostle for earlier slots. One in the hollow over the hill at Land's End which in less packed times hosts male nocturnal bonding the type of which you would expect in SF, if you get my drift. This stage named for resurgent local hero Sutro is notable for nothing other than is in a natural bowl so acoustics are good but suffers from 2nd child syndrome and gets forgotten so it hosts what you could describe as oddities, or people who they know are too big for the small act stage but too small for the two main stages. They often get it wrong like Alabama Shakes, last year, who drew more than either of the main attractions. As the bowl only occupies the very end of Land's End and is lower than the rest of the field the sound stage manages to block the view for anyone beyond the first 200 feet of crowd. Luckily this year for both Jessie Ware and Thao that was not a problem. The training wheel stage is Panhandle and features small or breaking acts and is usually the best venue to catch the up and coming, except this year when Daughter were scheduled there mid afternoon on Friday and the hype around 'Get Lucky' drew out the curious and it was a zoo. The sound system is set up for a small stage so good luck to the poor bastards half a mile away enduring a crap mix and the rain that Karl decided to share with us. The other headliner stage is distinct only in so far as its fucking
miles from the other one so the egos of the battling superheroes don't
get tweaked by being able to hear each other. This Twin Peaks stage has a bias to EDM it seems, but not uniquely.
The Old Bait and Switch: So when you first see the line up in April you are excited about SO many bands that you want to check out. The first disappointment is when the daily roster is released in May and you realise that your favourites are on Friday, followed by Saturday, and then Sunday looks slim pickings. The next deflation is when they release in July the play order and stage allocation and you realise that most of who you want to see are early afternoon and playing not only at the same time but at different ends of the park.
So how did we approach this marathon endurance event masquerading as a fun filled music lovers dream weekend?
So we tried 3 different strategies. Friday we did the "bounce", going from stage to stage, feeling like Salmon swimming up stream but instead of avoiding dams and Grizzly Bears you are ducking round bro's with beers, stoned Marina girls in 'festival garb' and yet more recycle 'ambassadors'. Result: exhaustion and sore feet. Saturday we were late, again, and missed most of Gary Clark Jr but decided to avoid the bruising mid stream battles and do the "bunny hop", just do two stages and take a break and visit Winelands. Young The Giant were quintessentially LA and pretended to enjoy playing in the mid afternoon gloaming, they are good and he has a great voice so the new album should sell like cough syrup. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's dialled in a professional set which please the masses although it was funny when Karen O needed to get 'refreshed' two songs from the end and disappeared off stage for way too long. Sunday we were late, yet again, there is a pattern here I know. Exhaustion was a current and present danger so we tried the "camper" move and decided to get a spot and camp on our blanket and actually not move. The Foals totally killed it and grabbed the crowd's buzzed attention early afternoon by the throat and left many converts in their wake. We made fast and firm buds with the groups either side of us in a Woodstock-redux kind of communion and desperate to avoid Hall and Oates we went for food and beers naively thinking we will be able to find our way back to our little blanket oasis before Vampire Weekend. H and O are a lot more popular than I gave them credit for so the salmon upstream spawning runs of Friday paled into insignificance compared to the interminable interloping we did to inveigle ourselves through the drunk stoned millennials and the not insignificant number of 40 somethings who are normally found at H and O's more traditional venues of late, ie Harrah's Reno and assorted tacky wineries. At one point their guitarist took photos of the crowd, I guarantee it was the biggest crowd he had played to. When we finally reached our erstwhile inner sanctum our new buds had fought a brave rearguard and our bags and shit were intact but as they then disappeared to watch Willie Nelson over on Sutro the extra 10,000 attendees each personally walked over our blanket to get better positioned for Vampire Weekend. Having watched the excellent Weekend at the Fox in May discretion became the better part of valour when our view was blocked by not 1, but 3, butt cracks as the chicas way-hayed on the shoulders of the young gallants right in front of us and we decided enough, already.
One of the overall treats was the ebullient local hero Thao Nguyen on Saturday. Thao and the Get Down Stay Downs played an amazing and bouncy fun yet superbly tight sets with the addition of horns. The first thing that struck me is how Zappaesque her music is, especially with the great brass section channelling the funk of Napoleon Murphy Brock and the Fowler brothers of the great mid 70's line up under Frank's challenging direction. She plays with unusual time signatures, sings serious songs about serious shit and has a great sense of humour, she also is a hell of a guitarist as well as playing mandolin and banjo, without any risk of Deliverance parodies. She was playing to a loving and growing home crowd but everyone realised how fucking good they were, one of those occasions where the added frisson of the improvisation around the brass really helped them get into a new place. So the Foals grabbed the most hearts by being on the main stage but on that Sutro stage on a grey afternoon Thao kept the faithful rewarded.
So if you were stranded in the fog amongst at least 10,000 too many stoned people and badly needed a drink then for certain the overpriced wines in Winelands would not cut it and who really needs to pay $9 for Heineken? so my $9 was spunked down on Sierra Nevada's Torpedo, guaranteed to sink the S.S. Sceptic and leave you floating like flotsam amongst Thao's uncommon terpsichore.
