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Photos by Philip Cosores
Outside Lands day two saw the sun finally shine on Golden Gate Park and the festival coming out and into its own. With indie-rock dominating the day, it was the perfect opportunity for the large crowds to show their energy with plenty of jumping around and crowd surfing going on. It’s hard to imagine a more vibrant festival day than this one.
The Vaccines
The Vaccines started the day off perfectly with a surprisingly barnstorming set early on the Twin Peaks Stage. The organisers evidently had the confidence in the young Brits being able to hold their own on a large stage, and Jason Young and co. did not let them down. In recorded form The Vaccines have been subject to much criticism about their music being a re-hash and somewhat immature, but in a festival atmosphere these factors seem to dematerialise as The Vaccines drove headlong through a set that packed in as many songs from their debut album as possible without stopping. The band members ambled around the stage, getting up on the drum-riser or coming to the edge of the stage to face off with the crowd. The crowd for their part played up to the occasion and added handclaps and a little light moshing to the anthems like “Post-Breakup Sex” and “If You Wanna.”
OK Go
For a band that has (let’s be honest) built their career largely on fascinatingly charming music videos, it’s unsurprising that in the live setting they also put a lot of stock into trying to make their show visually interesting. Before taking to the stage, a robot-like voice was projected over the large crowd, urging them to scream to make OK Go take to the stage. It’s the oldest trick in the book, but it certainly worked here, getting the crowd to roar and in the mood to sing before the band had even arrived. The foursome showed up in the primary coloured suits that they’ve been wearing in their recent string of videos and launched into “Do What You Want.” The followed this with their first hit of the day “A Million Ways,” which unfortunately fell flat due to Damian Kash’s weak falsetto. The middle of the set was when OK Go tried to try a couple of things a little differently. Firstly, they decided to play a song entirely on handbells, and for this they all huddled around a table in the middle of the stage and played with a bell in each hand, working their way through the song with concentrated precision. Unfortunately the amplification of the stage was not adecquate and this brave effort was lost to the breeze. Their next stunt was pulled off with greater aplomb and success: Kash took his microphone, with stand, down from the stage into the audience along with his acoustic guitar and played “Last Leaf,” which got the crowd singing. The band finished their main-stage set triumphantly, with a trio of hits: “Here It Goes,” “Get Over It” (for which original guitarist Andy Duncan joined them) and “This Too Shall Pass.”
Vetiver
Vetiver played the sweet spot of the festival. They got to occupy the Sutro Stage, which is in the middle of a peaceful clearing in the woods, while the sun was high in the sky. The crowd was mostly lounging around passively, not expecting much but open to being impressed. Vetiver capitalised on all of this by opening with one of their (and the year’s) best songs, “Wonder Why.” The band spent the rest of the set relaxing into their flow, playing their poppier numbers from new album The Errant Charm and taking a couple of opportunities to reach back to their older folkier music, which felt at home in the wooded area.
Arctic Monkeys
Coming from Britain where, if Arctic Monkeys are on the bill they’re default headliners, it was kind of strange (and disappointing) to see them playing third down on the bill and only getting an hour slot. This didn’t last long though, since the Sheffield foursome used their time wisely, packing in sixteen songs and an awful lot of fun. The band arrived in an absolute explosion, beginning with new rocker “Library Pictures” and faithful old thumper “Brainstorm” stoked the flames. The band were totally into their performance, playing off each other and admiring the large crowd they’d drawn, who were resplendent in the golden mid-afternoon sun. Singer Alex Turner, who donned a dashing new haircut and leather jacket, could be seen air drumming casually on occasions, or even acting out movements to his prosaic lyrics. Although promoting most recent album Suck It And See – which was well represented – they played mostly from their second album Favourite Worst Nightmare. They kept their performance at peak energy by eschewing some hits in order to play relatively unknown, but uncompromisingly loud songs like “If You Were There Beware” and “This House is a Circus.” They even found time to play their most underrated song (in my opinion) “Do Me A Favour,” which was the clear highlight of the set. Of course their more well-known numbers all made appearances, with “Teddy Picker” and “Fluorescent Adolescent” seeing mass singalongs ; and “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor,” and the concluding “When The Sun Goes Down” causing much pogoing and crowd surfing to break out in the crowd. The performance was that of four young men who have performed at festivals all over the world and now know how to make a crowd eat of the palm of their hand by delivering straightforward rock with cool ease.
The Black Keys
The Roots
The Roots’ live show is a force to be reckoned with. Never have I seen a band run through so many different styles of music with so much ease, barely stopping between changes in songs and keeping the crowd utterly compelled. The band opened with a couple of straightforward hip hop songs, which gave Black Thought the opportunity to warm up his vocals, which he did by spitting an unstoppable flood of lyrics over the top of some top-grade rhythms. The third song saw the first change, with their more soulful side coming out. The Roots infused more African influences with their music on the Erykah Badu-inspired early set highlight, which spawned the most free-form dancing among the crowd of the whole weekend. The level of enjoyment in performing was clear to see particularly on ?uestlove’s face as he lilted his head merrily side to side with the music. Just as I thought I was getting a handle on The Roots’ scope in their live show they completely pulled the rug from under me when guitarist Kirk Douglas tore into the unmistakable opening lick of Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” This heralded the arrival of a classic rock medley which featured, as well as the GnR classic, George Thorogood’s “Bad To The Bone” and Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” After that extravagant aside, The Roots returned to doing what they do best: making people dance. The final string of songs didn’t let up the beat for a second and The Roots didn’t seem to want to quit either, getting into it more than ever and Black Thought hitting dizzying quality in his flow once again. The band managed to overshoot their allotted time by ten minutes, but nobody gave it a second thought, and when the performance did finally reach its conclusion, Black Thought’s repeated inquiry “Can you dig it!?” was met with the kind of reception that meant an emphatic “yes!”
Girl Talk
Photo by Max Ritter
Muse
Over a span of seven years I’ve seen Muse headline four festivals in three different countries, as well as on another couple of occasions, and their live show pretty much never changes. This is not a problem whatsoever. Arriving onstage to the now-expected air raid horns still pricked up excitement in the stomach of any viewer; and the instant launch into “Uprising” that saw thousands of hands punching the air in emphatic synchronicity was as scarily impressive as ever. Muse’s following trio of punchy numbers (“Super Massive Black Hole,” “Hysteria,” “Map of the Problematique”) were as effective as ever serving as a run up to the mid-set theatrics of “Butterflies and Hurricanes,” in which singer Matt Bellamy showed off his virtuoso piano abilities as flawlessly as ever. By this point Muse fanatics and newcomers to the Muse live experience are reaching eurphoria.
The dampener that was “Guiding Light” was completely offset by the surprise inclusion of “Citizen Erased,” which hasn’t featured regularly in Muse’s live performance since the mid-2000s. The song’s screeching guitars and explosive bass-breakouts were a stark and welcome contrast to the glossy material from The Resistance that it fell between, and provided the undoubted highlight of the set.
Muse finished their set with their now-standard set of five hits, which saw the biggest moshing of the festival. The bright green lazers that were emitted from the stage during “Stockholm Syndrome” reached the back of the polo fields and illuminated the surrounding vegetation, increasing the grandiosity of the whole performance. The encore was opened by the immortal guitar whine of “Plug in Baby,” punctuated by the harmonica playing of bassist Christopher Wolstenholme, and concluded by the galloping rock-out of “Knights of Cydonia.”
It’s all in a night’s work for Muse, but for the thousands of adoring fans, and the other thousands of newly-converted ones, it was a performance that will ingrained on their memories for a while to come.
