Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Thus begins my daunting task of compressing the highlights of 35 hours worth of music, comedy, and food into a mere three posts. It’s not easy, as this was definitely one of my favorite Outside Lands experiences ever, with the most even distribution of wonderful things to do that I’ve ever enjoyed from this shindig. Here’s how it all started:
I took to the internet this morning to start discussing the Outside Lands headliners and lineup with the Bay Area music nerds, and to get some instant reactions from the Spinning Platters staffers. The 2014 Outside Lands lineup doesn’t look like every other festival lineup happening this summer, and that’s no surprise. We’ve always been able to count on the festival to provide different headliners from every other festival. How else can you stand out when everyone else is booking the same ten bands? Continue reading “Instant Reactions to the 2014 Outside Lands Lineup”
Social Studies have had an amazing year… They are currently gigging in support of last year’s excellent Developer, and have played high profile gigs at Noise Pop, Phono del Sol, Converse Represent, and most recently opening the Twin Peaks stage at Outside Lands. We recently had the opportunity to chat with Natalia Rogovin, Michael Jirovsky, Tom Smith, Ben McClintock, and Jesse Hudson about the past year’s experiences and the plan for the future. Special thanks to Raffi Youssoufian for helping me out with this interview. Social Studies are playing Bottom Of The Hill on Saturday, September 21st
Continue reading “Local Spin: Interview With Social Studies”
Outside Lands 2013 may have been my favorite OSL yet. It was my favorite line up so far, and the weather was amazing. It never got too cold, nor did it get too hot. Also, I got to see two legendary, groundbreaking musicians that essentially rewrote how we listen to music. Not a bad way to enjoy a day in the park…
Continue reading “Outside Lands 2013 Journal, Day 1: Friday, August 9th”
As San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival made a seemingly bold move by including Trent Reznor’s freshly reunited band of heavy hitters in Nine Inch Nails to its weekend roster, some wondered if this was the right decision considering a historically safe trend of artists who provide the soundtrack for having a good time in the park. It ended up working out brilliantly – Nine Inch Nails’ Saturday night closing performance will go down as one of the greatest since the festival started in 2008. Not bad for having to follow Sir Paul McCartney’s nearly three-hour rock ‘n’ roll extravaganza the previous evening. We were lucky enough to catch up with touring guitarist and longest standing live member, Robin Finck, for a few questions just before the musical onslaught. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interview: Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails”
It’s been a pretty amazing year so far for Phoenix. Their latest record, Bankrupt!, is receiving amazing reviews, and they are playing to the biggest crowds of their career! We had the opportunity to chat with their guitarist Laurent Brancowitz ahead of their upcoming set at Outside Lands. They are playing the Twin Peaks stage at 8:40 PM on Saturday night. Just a warning, we pretty much only talked about how much we like R Kelly.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interview: Laurent Brancowitz of Phoenix”
Whenever the line up for a big festival is released, everyone is always talking about the headliners. However, there are a lot more than just the headliners performing. You have nearly 100 bands performing over the course of three days, and there is a good chance that there is an amazing band in the bottom half of the bill that you will love, but you’re going to miss. Don’t do that. You paid your $250. You should get your money’s worth. Come out early. (Also, the food lines are so much shorter before 3 PM)
Continue reading “Top 10 Outside Lands 2013 Acts From the Bottom Half of the Poster”
My baby was stolen. Like the Lindbergh baby in the night* my beautiful 15 year old silver Honda CRV was removed from her place on the streets by some unnamed hooligan. We had many memories, me and that car. I learned to drive with her, I took up her up and down the coast of California, and I’m pretty sure I lost my virginity in that car (sorry Mom and Dad! Teenagers ya know?) (Also lets just gloss over the “pretty sure” portion of that sentence). So when I discovered on Sunday she was gone, it was with great sadness that I started my last day of Outside Lands. And then! If that wasn’t enough I was forced to take the N all the way from the Mission to Golden Gate Park! Yuck! (No seriously, yuck, I was so close to people that I almost lost my Muni virginity. Ya know what I’m saying!? Ok.) Silver beauty, it goes without saying, I miss you desperately.
I wandered around the park grumpy, glaring at every faux Ray-Ban, neon wearing fiend. “You don’t know my pain, neon wearing fiend!” I was secretly yelling. I was nobody’s friend.
Continue reading “Outside Lands Diary, Sunday, August 12th, 2012: Jack in the Woods”
San Francisco’s annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is always tasked with the enormous duty of being the “other” huge festival of California, and the designation is both a blessing and a curse. On the low end, it has to try and come up with acts that Coachella somehow didn’t have the foresight to book ages earlier, or at leasts acts that will stand up as decent competition, and with tickets to the Indio festival now going onsale a year in advance, they’ve got to get their contenders up and available as soon as possible — usually right before Coachella kicks off. On the high end, the climate is, on the whole, much more pleasant, the acts tend to stick to more large crowd-pleasers and new discoveries, and the fine folks putting on Outside Lands spend many months listening to the irritations and complaints about Coachella to use as a salvo against their festival’s possible shortcomings. The result is that by Sunday afternoon, most of the 65,000+ fans that came out to Golden Gate Park got their fairer shares of mindblowing performances and raucous partying behind them, and were ready for the big finish that would wind down the end of the chilly August weekend.
Continue reading “Show Review: San Francisco’s 2012 Outside Lands Festival, Day 3”
Additional contributions to this article by Dakin Hardwick. All photos by Jonathan Pirro except where noted.
Saturday dawns with nary a clue that the fog and mist are clearing, and the massive greenery of Golden Gate Park continues to beckon to those who would walk onto its already-heavily-trodden surface, tickets in hand and heads held high. The second day of the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is upon us, and like many of the other Saturdays of the annual San Francisco festival, it’s filled with some of the biggest, wildest acts, especially those that came to close the night. While the first signs of exhaustion are beginning to set in, those alert enough to pry themselves from slumber and scurry into the park at the hour of 11:00am were greeted by yet more feverishly addictive bursts of musical creativity. After the desiderata of strong coffee and a host of breakfast options that lay lazily along the fields, the several-thousand-strong mass began its trek from side to side, taking in another chapter of the chilly yet invigorating musical thunderstorm within.
Continue reading “Show Review: San Francisco’s 2012 Outside Lands Festival, Day 2”