RADIOHEAD, PETTY, JACK JOHNSON, PRIMUS OUTSIDE LANDS FEST

The success of the first Outside Lands Music Festival demonstrated San Francisco has been waiting to build on the city’s rich musical history.

Outside Lands Music Festival kicked off their inaugural event in the beautiful confines of Golden Gate Park and demonstrated San Francisco, which has always been at the center of music on the West Coast, has been waiting to build on its rich musical history. The city by the bay, which was a haven for the Beat Generation in the 50’s and the Hippie Generation in the 60’s clearly has been waiting to hold a major multi day multi stage music festival on the same hallowed grounds where the Human Be-in took place in 1967, where The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane would perform for free and where they held Bill Graham’s memorial concert in 1991. With 60,000 music fans attending the festival each day, which was held August 22nd-24th, one had to choose between a variety of musical choices throughout the vast park ranging from Radiohead, Tom Petty, Jack Johnson, Steve Winwood, Ben Harper, Primus, Beck, Widespread Panic and Wilco, to name just a few.

We caught up with Les Claypool of Primus, who is originally from San Francisco, to get his thoughts on performing at the very first Outside Lands Music Festival.

“In all my travels, and I’ve done a lot of traveling, my favorite city in the world is San Francisco and there are other places that are fabulous but there’s something truly amazing with this city. So, I think a lot of that has to do with the open minded elements that made it what it is. A lot of that is its history and that is a part of its history and hopefully this will become another positive element in it’s progression.”

We also caught up with festival veteran Mike Gordon, who is formerly from Phish and who performed songs from his latest album ‘The Green Sparrow’ to get his thoughts on what is special about performing in San Francisco in the middle of Golden Gate Park.

“The whole vibe is so magical because of, I always like to spend extra time in the city and I usually rent scooters and and go up and down the hills, almost every time. It’s just sort of a ritual for me but it just seems enchanted, much more than other cities and to be right here in the park and everything that’s gonna just infuse it with a certain amount of defacto specialness I think.”

Just a few of the other bands rounding out the inaugural lineup was Manu Chao, Cold War Kids, Black Keys, Cake, Rodrigo Y Gabriella, Broken Social Scene, Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, Matt Nathanson, Rouge Wave, Toots and The Maytalls, Jackie Greene, ALO and Andrew Bird. As the final notes rang through tree line of Golden Gate Park and the success of the inaugural Outside Lands Music Festival was clear, it seems this just might become an annual event San Francisco can be proud of.