.Outside Lands to Be Fitter, Happier, and More Productive

Three-day music fest in Golden Gate Park beefs up its offerings.

It’s a wonder that the Bay Area went so long without a big outdoor
music festival. After all, we’re saturated with music lovers and
concert junkies, we’ve got some of the best parks on the planet, and
our late-summer sunshine just begs for a little daytime drinking and
rocking out. More high-energy than Power to the Peaceful or Harmony
Fest, more mainstream than indie-oriented events like Noise Pop and
Treasure Island, and certainly bigger than all of them, last year’s
inaugural Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival promised to be the Bay
Area’s answer to Lollapalooza or Coachella. And it definitely
delivered: the festival snagged big-name headliners like Radiohead and
Tom Petty, drew upwards of 100,000 people over three days, and quickly
established itself as an annual institution.

The festival’s second iteration looks to be just as epic. Like last
year, it’s being put on by Superfly Productions — the folks
behind Bonnaroo — along with Starr Hill Presents and
Berkeley-based Another Planet Entertainment, and will feature more than
sixty acts on eight stages over the course of three jam-packed days.
Crowd-pleasers like Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam should satisfy the
KFOG set, but the promoters have rounded out the lineup with a number
of up-and-coming indie gems (Deerhunter, the National, Band of Horses),
pop and hip-hop acts (M.I.A., the Black Eyed Peas, Q-Tip), and local
musicians (The Dodos, Albino!, Raphael Saadiq). “Musical tastes swing
pretty wide here, so we wanted this festival to reflect those tastes,”
said Allen Scott of Another Planet. Smaller tents and sponsored lounges
will also host comedy and variety acts and other activities, and a
dizzying array of vendors will be on hand to sell Bay Areafied festival
food and drink (think Tomales Bay oysters and local wines).

Last year suffered its share of technical hiccups, but putting on a
show of this size is bound to bring difficulties, and this year the
promoters appear to have learned from their mistakes. Free bike valets,
shuttles, and beefed-up bus lines should prevent some of last year’s
transportation problems, and an earlier Friday start time will help
alleviate the crowd-control issues. Rick Farman of Superfly said he
expected this year’s show to run more smoothly. “I think any time you
do an event the second time, you just get better at it, especially on
the logistics end.”

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