Day two of Outside Lands Music Festival flooded the fog bed forest with more concert-goers than the festival has ever seen. The day featured classic and fresh rock sets alike among a varied set of artists that made it difficult to choose between acts. An impressively huge crowd gathered around the Lands End main stage early in day two to see British rockers The Kooks for some feel good music to start the day. Opening the set with “Junk of the Heart (Happy),” lead singer Luke Pritchard’s nasal-y vocals paired with the upbeat tempos continued throughout the steady set.
The most successful moments rallying the massive crowd came predictably with their more popular hits like “Seaside” and “She Moves in Her Own Way,” giving the eager early afternoon crowd something to dance to. The highlight of the set was the encore where Pritchard yelled, “Everyone put their hands together!” and people chilling on the grass got on their feet to groove to “Naïve.”
Local Natives were at the main stage early afternoon, opening up the energetic set with “Breakers.” Beach balls flew through the air while the layered vocal harmonies rushed up like a wave over the audience and settled back down with the rolling clicks of the drum of crowd favorite, “Wide Eyes.” Drummer Matt Frazier’s crisp percussion in the foreground and lead singer Taylor Rice’s croon carried the hazy sunlight tune to a final peak of “aaahs” and slamming heads. The group performed faster paced and yearning “Black Balloons” before slowing it down for “Ceilings,” full of sweet harmonies and mid-tempo drums that had everyone with their heads thrown back, eyes closed and feet moving.
The band took a moment to thank the crowd, member Kelcey Ayer gave a shoutout to his alma mater San Francisco State, saying, “College is the first time you get to be a free man, and it was great to be a free man in this city,” before introducing the next song “You and I.” Tribal drums and slow beachy guitars started off this intimate and moody serenade, perfect for the gray misty day at the park. The pace picked up with a remixed version of “Camera Talk,” its catchy riff and reggae vibe getting the crowd riled up again. Rice gave a shoutout to members of the crowd: “I love that impromptu dance in the back, guys I see you! This is for you guys!” The piano intro began to cheers and applause for the bouncing beat and croon of longing in “Airplanes.” They again took a moment to thank the crowd, asking them, “How’s your Outside Lands going so far? Its so nice to be here cause we’re not on tour, we’re at home in Los Angeles making our third record right now. This is the biggest San Francisco show we’ve had. Thank you so much for the love!” The set finished strong as Rice leapt into the crowd and sang “Sun Hands” upside down as he crowd-surfed before returning to the stage for a guitar-slamming drum-clashing finale.
The main stage shows only got better as the foggy afternoon turned into a misty evening and the massive crowd grew to unholy proportions, flooding the sprawling polo fields for Haim. The three sisters commanded the enormous crowd from the moment they bound onto stage, long middle parted straight locks blowing around their faces, sporting black leather jackets, t-shirts and denim cut-offs. Gold stadium lights flashed with deep bass thumps as the crowd cheered before Danielle at center stage kicked off the set with a yelp and a, “Come on San Francisco!” for the beginning of “Falling.”
The sisters vocal round-offs started out the 80s-esque pop jam that echoed over the misty field. With a blazing guitar solo from Danielle, the crowd pressed forward as the three sisters stood with arms up, eyes closed, singing “never give up” as the crowd clapped their hands high. Keeping stride, next came “If I Could Change Your Mind,” full of head snaps and hair tosses with each vocal flourish. Blonde-haired Este yelled out “How we feeling San Francisco?” and the crowd erupted. She continued: “Holy shit guys this is so fucking crazy! We’re from the West Coast too and it feels great to be home. Now when we are at our house in LA we like to just jam with friends. We’re going to need you guys to pretend that we’re all in the Haim living room right now, there’s some snacks, maybe some Coronas…Are you with me Outside Lands? Can you fucking jam for me? Here we go!” Danielle ripped into Fleetwood Mac cover, “Oh Well,” with a searing electric guitar riff while Alana’s thick mane flew through the air in huge head-bangs behind her, leaping across the stage. The lights flashed with the final crescendo of electric guitar flurries and licks as Este held her guitar vertical.
Next came sweet soft rock tune, “Honey and I,” given depth by Danielle’s alto and heightened by the harmony of the three sisters’ interlacing voices. Este took the mic again saying, “Are you still with me Outside Lands? Now I love this next one because it makes your body fucking shake your ass. I want to see massive amounts of ass shaking, can you do that for me?” The hard-hitting boom and shake of “My Song 5” had tens of thousands of asses shaking, the trio breathlessly singing “honey, I’m not your honey pie” while flipping their hair and slamming their heads, guitars blaring out the riff. Alana raised her drum stick high and let it fall with each heavy stroke of the beat.
The quick whispered lyrics and Michael Jackson yelps of funky dance tune, “Don’t Save Me” proved a crowd favorite. Up after that, “Forever” kept up the throwback feel and had a great moment when the sisters went a cappella with just a drum click and thousands of hands held high clapping to keep time. “That was so beautiful San Francisco! Now we’re going to try an experiment. When I say right you guys respond right! Just repeat after me. This is some serious festival shit. Shit just got real SF.” The crowd shouted “right!” with a fist pump at every chorus of “The Wire” for an awesome spectacle. The trio closed out the set with “Let Me Go” in a jam rife with hair flips, cherry electric guitar solos, yelps and a salute to the crowd before all three got on the drums for a rapid fire tribal drum jam session to finish the best set of the day on a high.
Across the sprawling fields, through art tents and food lines and over dusty hippie-covered hills, the smaller Panhandle Stage featured booty-bouncing extravaganza of self-declared “number-one diva,” Big Freedia. Crowds leaving Capital Cities trickled in to watch the twerkfest and get down with the blue-haired New Orleans Queen of bounce music. Freddie Ross, aka Big Freedia, rapped to a mix of The Luniz’s “I Got 5 On It” to warm up the Bay Area crowd, flanked by some of the biggest and best booty shakers in the game. The whole crowd got low for Big Freedia’s hit “Gin In My System,” where the number one diva got down with the bounce, upshowing his dancers for those luck enough to catch the dance party there.
Back at the main stage, “Death Cab For Cutie” proved a bit out of date for the day of invigorated sets in a low-energy but well executed set. The highlight of the set came with an acoustic playing of “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.” Every other song seemed to provide background music for the cold damp afternoon sitting on the wet grass. They closed out the set with “Soul Meets Body,” reaffirming that they need to reinterpret the angsty energy of their heyday to translate beyond early 2000s high school CD players.
Saturday night brought Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the first artist to headline the festival twice, to the Lands End stage. He started the two hour set with a cover of The Byrd’s “So You Want to Be a Rock n’ Roll Star,” emerging in a maroon bomber jacket, neck tie and tattered blue jeans like the true American hero he is. Moving right into “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” billows of sweet smelling smoke rose into a giant cloud as Petty effortlessly strolled around the stage for well-worn guitar solos and the Heartbreaker’s signature harmonica. Petty took the mic saying in his stubborn Florida drawl, “Oh baby we’re out here in San Francisco at the park. We’re gonna have a great time tonight, I feel it. I feel the cosmic mojo spreading through the crowd out there.” He talked a bit about the newly released Hypnotic Eye, and played the new album’s “American Dream Plan B.” Red lights bathed the stage and crowd in a warm light for the old country style rock and familiar Petty nasal twang. Introducing the next song, Petty said, “ I wrote this song in 1991. This one’s for all the marijuana out there tonight.” The audience erupted as the opening chords to “Into the Great Wide Open” began the expansive sing-along, hands raising up to the sky singing, “the sky was the limit.”
After “Forgotten Man,” Petty spoke to the audience, “Thank you very much, you’re so sweet. Well we got one here that whenever we go on a camping trip, we sing this around the campfire.” The crowd sang along once again to “I Won’t Back Down” before a dedication to “all the romantic couples out there” introduced Petty classic, “Free Fallin,’” where the chorus sung by tens of thousands could be heard for miles.
The show lost steam for a bit as Petty played “Spike,” a cover of the Traveling Wilburys’ “Tweeter and the Monkey Man,” and “You Get Me High.” However, the San Francisco crowd got dancing again for his cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil,” which Petty dedicated to Jerry Garcia on the anniversary of his death. “Learning to Fly” continued the high, followed by a psychedelic jam sesh in “Shadow People” and “Refugee,” slowing down the end of the set before the encore of “American Dream” got the whole place moving for the last song of the night. Probably more appropriately suited for the festival’s closer, the American hero nevertheless rocked the top billing spot of Saturday night.
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