Just getting back to Wisconsin and already missing the San Francisco bay. Big thanks to the Outside Lands Music Festival for running such an amazing festival over the course of three days. Our third and final day at the festival was spent much like the previous days with time carved out to experience The Beatles Rock Band and test my skills at the batting cages (pictures of both below). My virtual Paul McCartney and George Harrison could use some polishing, but my swing is still as sweet as it was back in high school.
Obviously, the music is what we’re here to talk about and yesterday’s schedule offered plenty of great stuff in that department. I caught a good six songs of the Atmosphere set on the way into the festival. I was pleased to see Brother Ali joining on almost all the songs as Atmosphere appeared sans band. The crowd was enormous for such an early set. From there I hustled over to see our favorites, The Avett Brothers. Their song selection was easy like Sunday morning, with songs culled from the softer side of their catalog that perfectly matched the foggy and slightly chilly morning. Don’t forget to pick up their upcoming record, I and Love and You on September 29th.
I had to take the chance to catch The Dead Weather for the first time. I’m willing to bet they won’t be playing Wisconsin anytime soon, so a festival will be my best chance to take them in live. I’m happy to report they’re much more engaging live than on their debut record. Alison Mosshart absolutely owned the stage, performing most songs atop the monitors and tossing every bit of herself into the songs. Jack White remained, for the most part, as a secondary figure, but his presence couldn’t be denied. The sheer size of the crowd was spectacular, one of the largest I saw all weekend.
It wasn’t too hard choosing the Heartless Bastards over Modest Mouse. If you’ve spent any time with The Mountain this year, I hope you’ll agree that it’s one of the year’s finest albums. Seeing them live only reinforces that notion.
Our group meandered around the festival grounds while M.I.A. performed. We could hear just fine from far away, but also wanted to do the aforementioned non-musical activities while we had the chance. We cruised over to Band of Horses at the conclusion of M.I.A. and were greeted with our last set of the day. This band is better that it’s ever been, which says a lot considering the line up changes and departures. People absolutely lose it during their shows and their songs are becoming live anthems. That’s a fun thing to witness and a great thing to be a crowd experiencing it with everyone else. Just as they did at Lollapalooza, they played past their scheduled set time, but you can’t really blame them because, after all, there was nobody on after them.
That was it for us. I regret not seeing Ween. I think that would have been fantastic. As with all festivals you see a lot and you miss a lot. Overall, my group had a great time. If you’re considering travel plans for next summer, keep this festival on your radar. You can’t beat the layout, line up and the city is a perfect thing to experience before and after the music begins/stops. See you next year? I think so…
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