The final day of Outside Lands festival, arguably the best day of music of the three days, depending on who you talk to of course. On my schedule were 8 bands that I marked out the previous night, but as the day wore on and my feet became broken, that game plan changed, though I still managed to check out a ton of acts to close out the fest.
The morning started off beautifully with Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band. If you’re not familiar with The Menahan Street Band, then you may be surprised to find out that you actually are, especially if you listen to Jay-Z, as the man sampled one of their songs for “ROC Boys”. Initially the band came out first and performed for what seemed like 10 – 15 mins of straight instrumental, one song straight into the next. Finally the pianist jumps up out of his seat and announces Charles Bradley, the man came out looking dapper with his bare chest showing. Incredibly soulful performance and the combination of him and the band make for a great pairing.
Killing some time I checked out some bands in-between before !!!, specifically I went and checked out Tune-Yards whose melodic styling had people swaying as if they were in a trance. I can’t understand a damn word this girl says but all these people were singing along, it was like a secret cult club or some shit. She did say that she’s never had an audience of this size at a festival, and it was indeed incredibly jam packed for her set. I also caught Latyrx and Lyrics Born for 1 reason only, for the song “Lady Don’t Tek No”. I wore that track out in a big way when it came out.
After that song was played, it was off to see !!!. Nic Offer is one crazy mother fucker, I’ma put that out there. When he came out in those, what should be trademarked, blue shorts I kept thinking to myself, “oh god, please don’t let me see his balls”. Shit was a-swinging-and-a-swaying all over the place, but being the professional that I am, I stayed strong and continued to get shots to for you all, gallery coming soon. His energy is really hard to keep up with. If you didn’t know he has a tendency to jump down into the crowd, but the stage was so high that he couldn’t just jump down, so he went off to the side and climbed down some speakers and hopped the railing and into the crowd the man went. He pretty much disappeared as every swarmed him. Great, fun band to see live, all thanks to Nic’s craziness.
One of the bands I was most looking forward to at the festival was Little Dragon. To be truthful, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Little Dragon perform. Yeah, they’ve come through to Vancouver quite often, but the times they have they’ve played at a certain nightclub that I pretty much refuse to shoot at. I’ve watched countless interviews of the band and over time, like many others, have fallen in love with the talented Yukimi Nagano. The Little Dragon set is one of the few that I actually stayed from start to end. The whole time Yukimi was so adorable and being sincerely thankful of all of San Franciscos’ support from the beginning.
Another highlight to the day was Major Lazer. Both Diplo and Switch came through, though Skerrit Bwoy did not, but they brought this firecracker of a girl with them that was fuckin’ amazing. She kept things moving at just as an intense pace as Skerrit would by dancing from one end of the stage and then suddenly gyrating her way to the other. She was throwing down moves that would make grown ass men blush. I’ll admit it, she made my peen move. Word up girl. I don’t even remember what Major Lazer played to be honest, I was so damn mesmerized by this girl and her movements. I say replace Skerrit Bwoy permanently with this home girl.
Overall I liked the festival. My main complaint is the distance between each stage. It’s mind boggling when you initially hit the festival grounds, seeing it on the map is one thing, but walking it is an entirely different story. I think someone told me that from one main stage to the other was the equivalent to 10 blocks, now imagine walking that multiple times a day or in my case running with camera gear. It was exhausting. But with that said the music line-up was great, the wine festival that was going on was also great and let’s not forget about the food and the wonderful food trucks. So amazing. Outside Lands Festival is definitely something I would do again. Such a great time. More photos to come in the next day or two. Until next time…peace out…or as the girl dancing for Major Lazer would say…
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