If Friday served as a preview of the weekend Outside Lands had in store, Saturday felt like the moment the festival fully hit its stride. Surprise performances, unexpected guests and a schedule packed with conflicts made the second day feel considerably more frantic, forcing festivalgoers to make decisions between artists who could have easily commanded their own headlining shows. From the songwriting of Lucy Dacus and Dijon to the infectious pop of Audrey Hobert, the atmospheric world of Ethel Cain and the closing rush of The Strokes, Saturday offered little opportunity to slow down.
That was reflected in the way crowds moved throughout Golden Gate Park. Rather than one obvious migration from stage to stage, festivalgoers seemed to be constantly splitting off in different directions as overlapping sets pulled audiences toward Lands End, Sutro and Twin Peaks. Even some of the park’s smaller spaces became destinations of their own, proving that one of the best parts of Outside Lands is occasionally finding something memorable away from its largest stages.
Tycho Surprise DJ Set
One of the perks of attending a festival as sizable as Outside Lands is knowing that the schedule does not always tell the entire story. When it was announced that Tycho would perform a surprise DJ set tucked away at Duboce Triangle, the number of festivalgoers who quickly filled the area should have come as no surprise.
The Northern California native brought an early dose of good energy through a blend of soothing house music, atmospheric electronics and danceable beat breaks. Duboce Triangle made for an especially fitting setting. Surrounded by mushroom art installations and giant couches where festivalgoers could lounge between sets, the space felt removed from the chaos happening elsewhere in the park. For a moment, one of Saturday’s biggest surprises was also one of its most relaxed.
Haute & Freddy
Over at Lands End, the second time slot of the day belonged to Los Angeles art-pop duo Haute & Freddy, who wasted little time proving they could handle the festival’s largest stage. Their theatrical approach blended operatic vocal flourishes reminiscent of artists like Kate Bush with colorful art-pop production and an equally eccentric performance style.
Songs like “Freaks” and “Scantily Clad” brought some of the strongest crowd reactions, but Haute & Freddy seemed equally interested in treating the set as a performance piece. At one point, that meant breaking into an actual juggling routine. The biggest surprise came with “Touch Touch,” a new and still-unreleased song that fit naturally alongside the duo’s more established material.
Wunderhorse
Anyone looking to trade theatrical pop for guitars could head toward Sutro, where Wunderhorse kept Saturday’s rock presence alive. The English band pulled primarily from Cub and Midas, maintaining a steady intensity without needing to manufacture constant spectacle around the songs.
Frontman Jacob Slater even seemed aware that some of the audience was still recovering from Friday. Thanking everyone for showing up, he joked about how early it still was before the band pushed ahead. “Emily” emerged as one of the strongest moments, its gradual build highlighting Wunderhorse’s ability to make restraint feel just as impactful as distortion.
Audrey Hobert
From there, Saturday entered a stretch that showcased some of the festival’s strongest young singer-songwriters. Audrey Hobert brought a completely different personality to Lands End, carrying herself with the quirky and conversational energy that makes her songs feel immediately relatable.
Before stepping into her own career as a performer, Hobert had already established herself as a songwriter, including collaborations with longtime friend Gracie Abrams. Hearing her own material in front of a festival crowd demonstrated how naturally that writing translates when she is the person standing at center stage. “Sue Me” encapsulated that appeal particularly well, while “Chateau” and “Silver Jubilee” provided another standout.
Hobert ultimately returned to “Sue Me” at the end of the set, this time asking the crowd to put their phones away. Repeating the song could have felt redundant, but stripping away the screens changed the atmosphere entirely, turning the final few minutes into something shared only by the people standing in front of her.
Sienna Spiro
Sienna Spiro continued the singer-songwriter run with a voice powerful enough to command the field almost immediately. Pulling heavily from Visitor, Spiro performed tracks including “He’s Not My Baby, I’m His” and “Die on This Hill,” the latter becoming an especially strong showcase for the emotional directness of her songwriting.
The song’s willingness to turn devotion into something almost self-destructive gave Spiro plenty to work with vocally, particularly as she reached its central declaration about being willing to “die on this hill.” Toward the end of the set, she shifted toward a song nearly everyone recognized, covering Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing).” The opening recognition alone was enough to draw screams from the crowd.
Lucy Dacus
Lucy Dacus already had a presence at Outside Lands before her own Saturday performance. The previous night, cameras had unexpectedly found her alongside Julien Baker during Turnstile’s “DULL,” with the pair holding up a toy phone from the crowd. On Saturday, that cameo became something more substantial.
Dacus’ stage was dressed with wooden frames reminiscent of those surrounding the artwork for Forever Is a Feeling, creating an elegant backdrop for songs whose power rarely depends on elaborate production. Her writing remained the focus, giving the middle of Saturday a quieter kind of intensity after so much movement around the park.
Then Julien Baker appeared.
With two-thirds of boygenius suddenly occupying the Lands End stage, the pair performed “True Blue” together before Baker also joined Dacus for “Bullseye.” Dacus eventually closed with “Night Shift.” Already one of the defining songs of her career, its slow emotional build provided an appropriately cathartic ending to a set centered on songwriting rather than spectacle.
Yard Act
Sutro offered another immediate change of pace with Yard Act. The Leeds post-punk band kept its presentation appropriately blunt, performing in front of a black screen bearing the band’s name in stark white lettering.
That simplicity left the focus on the band’s wiry instrumentation and restless stage presence. Pulling from their 2026 album You’re Gonna Need a Little Music, Yard Act worked songs including “New Beginnings” and “Thrill of the Chase” into the 11-track set. “Dead Horse,” from The Overload, provided a connection to their earlier material and remained one of the set’s highlights.
Malcolm Todd
By the time Malcolm Todd took over Twin Peaks in the late afternoon, the area had become packed. His rise has given songs like “Roommates,” “Sweet Boy” and “4Me 4Me” increasingly large audiences, and the crowd gathered in front of him made that growth easy to see.
Todd also embraced the loose unpredictability of a festival performance. Audrey Hobert returned to join him for “Phoebe,” extending her presence beyond her own earlier set and adding to Saturday’s growing list of crossovers. Even more unexpected was Todd’s decision to cover “Leave It All to Me,” the Miranda Cosgrove theme from iCarly. It was the kind of choice that needed little explanation. Recognition spread through the crowd almost immediately, transforming a nostalgic television theme into an unlikely festival singalong.
Ethel Cain
Ethel Cain’s set existed in an entirely different world. Woodland grass covered the stage as smoke and fog rolled across it, while her microphone stand, modeled after a scythe, made the entire setup feel somewhere between pastoral and ominous.
Opening with “Fuck Me Eyes” before moving into “Nettles,” Cain leaned fully into that atmosphere. Saturday also happened to mark the one-year anniversary of Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, giving “Nettles” an added significance within the performance.
Cain’s music rewards patience, and her set provided a striking contrast to the constant movement happening throughout the rest of the festival. Rather than demanding energy from the audience, she seemed to pull people inward. By the time she reached “Crush” and “American Teenager” near the end, tears could be spotted throughout the crowd. In a day filled with spectacle and surprise appearances, Cain created one of its most affecting moments simply by allowing the weight of the songs to linger.
Dijon
Getting back to Twin Peaks for Dijon was becoming a physical challenge in itself. After nearly two full days of walking across Golden Gate Park, fatigue was beginning to show throughout the crowd, but so was anticipation. Dijon’s performance had been one of the most saved sets on the Outside Lands app, and the audience waiting for him reflected the momentum his career has accumulated.
His work alongside artists including Mk.gee and Justin Bieber has introduced his sensibilities to increasingly enormous audiences, but Dijon’s own performances remain strikingly raw. His raspy vocals often feel as if they are being pulled from the song in real time rather than recreated from a recording.
“Big Mike’s” and “The Dress” represented Absolutely, while “Yamaha” and “Kindalove” brought his more recent Baby material into the set. What stood out was how naturally those songs survived the scale of a festival stage. Dijon’s music can feel intimate and deliberately imperfect on record, yet none of that vulnerability disappeared when projected across Twin Peaks.
Djo
The momentum continued with Djo, another act that had been heavily saved by festivalgoers ahead of Saturday. Joe Keery’s musical project has continued growing well beyond the novelty that initially surrounded his acting career, and his Outside Lands crowd arrived for the songs rather than the celebrity attached to them.
Much of the set pulled from The Crux, including “Basic Being Basic” and “Charlie’s Garden.” The latter came with another unexpected connection to Friday’s headliner when a voicemail from Charli xcx played during the performance, extending her presence into the second day without her ever having to walk onto the stage.
“Change” offered another highlight before Djo eventually arrived at “End of Beginning.” What began as a fan favorite before exploding far beyond his original audience has become an obvious communal moment, and thousands of voices joining Keery gave Saturday another massive singalong as the festival moved toward its final stretch.
The xx
As evening settled over Golden Gate Park, The xx brought a noticeably different kind of energy to Lands End. After a day filled with loud guitars, massive singalongs and constant movement between stages, their set felt more measured and atmospheric. The group’s minimalist sound has always depended on space as much as instrumentation, and on the festival’s largest stage that restraint became part of the appeal. Rather than trying to overpower the field, they let the songs breathe.
The set pulled from across the group’s catalog, including early staples like “Crystalised,” “Islands,” “Angels,” “Shelter” and “VCR.” Those songs still carry the intimacy that made The xx stand out in the first place, built around sparse guitar lines, restrained percussion and the interplay between Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim’s vocals. Even surrounded by thousands of people, there was something surprisingly contained about the performance.
Later selections such as “On Hold” and “I Dare You” opened the sound up further, while the inclusion of Jamie xx material like “Loud Places,” “Treat Each Other Right” and “Gosh” connected the band’s quieter foundation to the more dance-oriented direction its members have explored outside the group. That balance made the set feel less like a straightforward nostalgia run and more like a reminder of how much The xx’s sound has expanded over time.
There was also something fitting about hearing the band as daylight faded over the park. Their music rarely relies on the kind of immediate payoff that defines many festival performances. Instead, it builds through repetition, tension and subtle shifts in mood. In the middle of a weekend where nearly every stage seemed determined to demand attention, The xx offered something far more understated, creating a brief pocket of calm before Saturday moved into its final headlining stretch.
Setlist:
Crystalized
Say something loving
Islands
Angels
Night time
Sunset
Fiction
I’ll take care of you
Shelter
Infinity
VCR
Loud places
Enjoy your life
Wanna
Treat each other right
Gmt
On hold
I dare you
Intro
The Strokes
By the time The Strokes arrived to close Saturday, the day had already moved through house music, art pop, post-punk, singer-songwriters, R&B and atmospheric indie. The New York band did not need to reinvent the festival one final time. They simply had to remind the crowd how many songs they had accumulated that could command a field of this size.
They did exactly that.
Opening with “Ize of the World,” The Strokes immediately avoided the temptation to frontload their set with their most recognizable material. Instead, the 16-song performance reached throughout their career, balancing staples with selections from different corners of their catalog. “Hard to Explain” arrived early, while “Juicebox” brought one of the first major bursts of energy before “Someday” turned the Polo Field into a singalong.
Then Saturday produced one more crossover.
Less than 24 hours after headlining Lands End herself, Charli xcx returned to Outside Lands to join The Strokes for “Take It or Leave It.” It was an appropriately chaotic collision between two artists from completely different generations of New York nightlife and indie culture, and another example of how Saturday repeatedly blurred the boundaries between one artist’s set and another.
The Strokes still had plenty left afterward. “Reptilia” brought the kind of immediate guitar riff that barely needed an introduction, while “Bad Decisions” and “Last Nite” kept the latter half of the performance rooted in songs built for enormous crowds. “The Adults Are Talking” represented the band’s more recent resurgence before “You Only Live Once” brought the set, and Saturday, to its conclusion.
If Friday established the scale of Outside Lands, Saturday demonstrated what happens once that scale is fully activated. The most memorable moments were not isolated to individual performances. Audrey Hobert resurfaced during Malcolm Todd. Julien Baker joined Lucy Dacus. Charli xcx appeared through a voicemail during Djo before physically returning alongside The Strokes. Even Tycho’s unannounced DJ set transformed a smaller corner of the festival into a destination.
Those connections gave a day filled with scheduling conflicts an unexpected sense of cohesion. Festivalgoers may have spent Saturday constantly choosing what to miss, running between stages and watching crowds split in opposite directions, but the music itself kept finding ways to overlap.
By the time The Strokes finished “You Only Live Once,” Golden Gate Park had gone from the relaxed atmosphere of an afternoon Tycho set to tens of thousands of people singing along beneath the lights of Lands End. With one more day still ahead, Saturday captured Outside Lands at its most overwhelming and its most rewarding: too much happening at once, too much ground to cover and always another reason to start walking toward the next stage.
Setlist:
Ize of the World
Hard to explain
Going shopping
Juicebox
Someday
Dine n dash
Take it or leave it (w/ charli xcx)
Life is simple in the moonlight
Reptilia
Threat of joy
Bad decisions
Last nite
One way trigger
What ever happened?
The Adults are talking
You only live once
Leave a Comment