Outside Lands has come to a close, and Joshua Bote and Eddie Kim walked dozens of miles over the weekend to document the festival from Twin Peaks to Lands End. Here are our favorite spontaneous moments, tips, problems, and gossip from three days of revelry.
Teen spirit
Here we go again. The San Francisco Chronicle has reignited the “Should teens be allowed at Outside Lands?” debate. In an article and a widely seen accompanying Instagram Reel, the 150-plus-year-old paper interviewed The Teens about whether they belong at the festival and their responses were, as expected, not poised, articulate, or convincing. (One girl’s line that they paid the same amount of money as everyone else was a particularly easy target to take down.)
Listen, teenagers are annoying and rude — especially the moneyed Marin County set, which the Chronicle video suggests is the problem but never quite makes explicit. But haven’t they always been annoying and rude? To decry this as something unique because of the phones and the lack of Covid socialization is cheap rage-bait. The best (and only) response is the one I heard from a flannel-clad gentleman Saturday passing by the windmill as I walked to catch a bit of Ethel Cain: With a groan and a shrug, he muttered: “The children of the titans of industry.” Then he walked away. —J.B.
Burned media
Speaking of badly behaved attendees: I laughed out loud on Saturday afternoon when all media guests received a scolding email from the Outside Lands’ PR firm. Apparently too many media members were behaving like high schoolers who had discovered an unguarded keg, grabbing drinks from the media tent for all their non-media friends waiting outside.
“If you are seen passing drinks out of the tent or leaving the tent with multiple drinks, then your wristband will be deactivated, and you will be removed from the festival,” wrote Grace Jones, vice president at The Oriel Co. “I know most of you are being respectful and understand how this works but for those who don’t — consider this your first and final warning.”
I’d like to emphasize that I’ve never, ever passed one or two extra glasses of mediocre white wine to any of my friends in the last three years of covering the festival. If anything, I blame this on Joshua Bote. —E.K.
Girl talk
The weekend featured three of my favorite women-led bands: Die Spitz, Wet Leg, and Lucy Dacus, each with an indie rock flavor of their own. Wet Leg tore up the big Lands End stage on Friday, confidently traipsing through headbanging hits like “mangetout” and “Chaise Longue.” Dacus, on the same stage on Sunday, earned a chorus of shrieks when she called over Boygenius bandmate (and partner) Julien Baker for a duet on “Bullseye” and later brought the house down with her hit track “Night Shift,” inciting the crowd into one of the best singalongs of OSL.
The winner for my money, however, was Die Spitz, the Austin-based quartet blending metal, grunge, hardcore, and pop-punk into a hurricane of riffs and roars. Unlike many bands, these Gen Z rockers swapped instruments during their Friday afternoon set at the Sutro stage; Ava Schrobilgen and Ellie Livingston were magical on the mics, yelping and screaming and belting melodies. Livingston in particular has real gravity as a frontwoman, and the barricade crowd was ecstatic when she hopped down from the stage to sing from the pit.
Immediately after, she clambered back up to address the crowd: “I want you to go in a circle,” she commanded in a girlish Betty Boop voice. “Thank yew!” Then the quartet launched into the chugging, monstrous “Throw Yourself to the Sword,” transforming a mild mosh pit into a circle of flailing maniacs. —E.K.
The life and death of the pop star
The clear and early highlights for me at Outside Lands were Tinashe and Charli xcx, whose Friday sets felt like a conversation with each other about their roads to celebrity. Both are industry lifers too ambitious and unclassifiable to find instant success. Both took parallel approaches to their newfound stardom: Tinashe, despite landing two of her most popular songs in about as many years, still feels woefully underrated. She wanted her flowers, and approached her Friday afternoon Outside Lands set with that hunger. ‘Nashe aimed to please, frontloading her set with “No Broke Boys” and “Nasty,” performing with robust choreography without breaking a sweat, and relegating her niche cuts in a very fun, very danceable DJ set. Charli, having reached bona fide A-list status two summers ago with Brat, made explicit her warring impulses to please and repulse. She bookended her Brat (and TikTok-viral) songs with tracks from her less accessible Music, Fashion, Film. That tension made for a worthwhile set, especially by the end when the crowd started to trickle out upon the realization that the Brat section of the evening was over. Ending with an extended monologue from David Cronenberg about the impermanence of art was chilling and savvy. The words “Oblivion is freedom” flashed on the screen. Her fame won’t last forever, but then nothing does. —J.B.
Drag me to the festival
The Dolores’ stage, which Oasis has controlled on Outside Lands’ Saturdays for the past couple of years, remains an underrated highlight of the festival, a burst of pure, obnoxious sunlight amid the piss-poor weather. Where else can you see a Drag Race alum doing a life-size puppet take on Björk? Or have another Ru girl pull out a baggie of white powder and joke about doing it backstage after her set? Or have an elaborate K-pop performance go straight into a pop-punk drag prince show? It’s a blast. And look, as much as I adore Trixie Mattel, who played a set at the Panhandle Stage Presented By Therabreath mouthwash (no really), there were simply too many annoying straight people antics to fully enjoy the set. To straight people: Please don’t grind on each other while Mattel’s even gayer remix of “Ring My Bell” is playing! —J.B.
Priority Nos. 1 and 2
Every year at OSL, I’m surprised by how much human impulse dictates group behavior. See: people lining up 10 deep for a porta-potty when there are empty toilets just down the path. My PSA: The bathrooms along the elevated track circling the Polo Field are a disaster, and you need to go to Sutro or the Panhandle for a more peaceful experience. All weekend long, be it at 2:30 or 8:30 p.m., the lines at the toilets along the north edge of Lindley Meadow were minimal and moved quickly. Ditto at the top of the hill at the southern Sutro entrance. My third pick is the group of toilets right by the petite Panhandle stage. You’re welcome. —E.K.
Hot accessory
It is perhaps a recession indicator that the hottest accessory this year at Outside Lands was not sprouts or Charli xcx shirts or even the blankets for the baddies who got too cold in their cute outfits: It was bright-red stickers that simply said “HOT,” presumably for food service use but worn on faces, necks, arms, and asses all over the festival. (I even saw a couple that said “ANIMAL IN HEAT.”) You can get 500 of these stickers for less than $8 on Amazon (with Prime shipping, no less). Cheap, cheerful, and easy to dispense, I’m sure a third of the litter volunteers picked up were just these stickers. —J.B.
Occupy the VIP
These days, it’s compulsory to have a crowd standing behind and around a DJ on a big stage, hyping the audience up. You usually need special access to be among the chosen, but at the Soma stage, the rule of equity reigned. You didn’t need a special ticket, just enough patience to line up by the stage and wait for an open spot. This is a small revolution given that, normally, such a stage tends to be full of influencers and rich guys more interested in preening than dancing. Instead, I saw a gaggle of riotous teens (!) keeping the mood high on every drop of the bass. —E.K.
Cold snap
Outside Lands is, was, and will always be cold as balls. The National Weather Service forecast mild warmth at the park for the weekend and was sorely mistaken. Anyone who only read the headlines and dressed accordingly were punished for it. Locals brought appropriate gear (or just made like Cardi B and rode out the chill), but first-timers and out-of-towners, including a handful of performers, were stunned at the fog and wind. There weren’t even the usual glimmers of sunshine Sunday afternoon, the kind that feels like a reward from on high after braving the cold for two whole days. Tough break! —J.B.
Stunt food
I have a generally bad attitude about festival food: A lot of dishes are better as Instagram posts than dinner due to poor execution and meager portions. Don’t even get me started on the pricey “viral” stunt dishes, often involving dollops of low-tier caviar.
So when I first spotted an uni-and-pork belly bowl at Piglet & Co selling for a staggering $60 a pop, I immediately snapped a pic to mock it. After about five minutes, however, the sign had disappeared: They sold out. Turns out, they only offer 10 bowls a day, according to co-owner Chris Yang. I knew my editor (a cheapskate and a vegetarian) would never accept my receipt for it, but I regret not trying.
I also really, really wanted a cup of bone broth from Bodega, the very good Viet restaurant in the Tenderloin, then realized paying $8 for it would offend my ancestors. Next year, I’m sneaking in a deli quart of chicken stock. —E.K.
