Snapchat has done a new deal with Live Nation to develop augmented-reality experiences for the app’s users at selected festivals, including Lollapalooza in the U.S. and Wireless in the U.K.
Open up your Snapchat camera at any of the eighteen events currently involved in this partnership and you’ll get a load of special stuff flying all over your screen that wouldn’t be there if you just used your eyes to engage with the event that is actually happening all around you.
Yeah, upon request, I will send you a recording of me tutting to enhance the experience further.
“We can leverage this huge userbase we have in a way that will make augmented reality the next phase of visual expression for artists”, says Ben Schwerin, Snap’s SVP Content & Partnerships.
“This really hasn’t been done before in a way that is part of the artist’s vision and helping it come to life”.
As well as Wireless, U.K. Snapchat users will be able to get in on all this at the Reading and Leeds festivals.
To help you picture what all this looks like, Snapchat and Live Nation have produced a video shot at Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas in which the event itself looks infinitely more exciting than anything that appears over the top of it on a phone screen.
The weekend before Labor Day, the second annual First City Festival took place at the Monterey Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The line-up included headliners like Beck, The National, Phantogram, Geographer, as well as performances from a bunch of other mostly indie rock artists including Cults, Best Coast, Liars, Tokyo Police Club, Lo-Fang, Sleepy Sun, Dale Earnhart Jr. Jr., Liars, and many others.
Beck rocks out during his classic track, "Devil's Haircut".Sarah Barthel and Phantogram at First City.Beck and his backup band converge during "Loser"The National's Matt Berninger on stage at First City.
The National's guitarist Bryce Dressner.Geographer's cellist Nathan Blaz on stage.Geographer's Michael Deni performing at First City.Cults' singer Madeline Follin on stage at First City.Dale Earnhart Jr. Jr. playing the sax.
This weekend the second annual First City Festival in Monterey will kick off at the Monterey Fairgrounds, the location of what is largely considered the first major rock music festival in the U.S. – 1967’s Monterey Pop Festival. It’s also the fest where Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin first became international pop stars.
This year’s festival line-up, like last year’s, is packed solid with popular and talented artists and bands, including Beck, The National, Phantogram, Blind Pilot, Cults, Dawes, Liars, Geographer, Tokyo Police Club, Best Coast, Miniature Tigers, Future Islands, Cocorosie, Midlake, Lo-Fang, Sleepy Sun, The Naked & Famous, The Men, Cool Ghouls, among others.
The array of artists is guaranteed to attract a diverse crowd of music lovers seeking indie rock, alternative, folk, pop, techo, and dance. The fairgrounds are comprised of four stages with two large stages at opposite ends of the venue, where the headlining artists will be performing, during which time the smaller third and fourth stages will remain silent so that there is no overlapping.
The festival grounds offer a big benefit that music fans won’t find at any other music festival that we know – an authentic, full-fledged carnival that harkens back to yesteryear, featuring classic canrinval rides like the Zipper and The Scooter, specialty amusement rides like the Haunted House and Mardi Gras, a huge ferris wheel and the Fun Slide. Festival goers have full access to the existing carnival grounds, entertainment, food vendors and of course the rides. This year, festival ticket holders have access to unlimited free rides.
The premiere of the First City Festival last summer was considered a resounding success for the debut of a little-known festival thanks in part to performances from big acts like Passion Pit, MGMT, Beach House, Modest Mouse, Neko Case, and Toro Y Moi.
The two-day music spectacular featured a continuous stream of talented and popular acts that read like a who’s who of alternative and indie rock, folk and pop artists and bands, including The Black Angles, Washed Out, Okkervil River, Dr. Dog, Deerhunter, The Dodos, Akron/Family, The Antlers, Generationals, Purity Ring, Lucero, Devendra Banhart, Capital Cities, Father John Misty, Blitzen Trapper, The Hold Steady, Ernest Greene, Tennis, Guards and many others.
Compared to the much larger and well-known music festival in San Francisco, the Outside Lands Festival that took place earlier in the month, First City is a smaller, more intimate and less chaotic affair, and it is also a much more decidely indie and alternative music festival than Outside Lands as well. The event is organized and managed by Golden Voice productions.
Tens of thousands of festival goers were treated to an impressive list of indie and alternative rock artists and bands this past weekend at the first annual First City Festival in Monterey, California. The fest, featuring headliners like Modest Mouse, Washed Out, Passion Pit, MGMT, Beach House, Purity Ring, among others, drew large crowds each day of the two-day music festival held in the idyllic location of the Monterey Fairgrounds, where large grassy open spaces are shaded by groves of beautiful cypress trees and graced by fresh ocean air from the nearby Monterey Bay. It’s a perfect location for a mini-festival. In addition to three stages, there was also a vaudeville stage that drew crowds throughout the course of the festival. Plus, there were food and drink vendors, booths, charging stations, and even games and rides available at the adjoining carnival grounds.
Indie rock legends Modest Mouse closed the festival with a one and half hour set on Sunday night that included a bunch of their newer material mixed with some of their older, and more well-known, material, including highlighted tracks from the band’s mesmerizing 2000 album, The Moon and Antarctica. The band performed excellent live renditions of “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” and “I Came As A Rat.” They also crunched out classic indie rock songs like “Dramamine” (which we included on our First City Spotify playlists) and “Float On.”
While the band played brilliantly through old and new material, things didn’t go so well when Mouse’s vocalist and guitarist Issac Brock tried to instruct the crowd to hold their breath for four seconds. When that odd request failed, Brock made even a stranger one, asking the crowd instead to boo loudly and spit on each other. Thankfully, that failed as well. That confused people, but the band’s set was so good that it didn’t matter one bit at the end of their set. Modest Mouse was the perfect band to close out a spectacular weekend featuring some of the biggest artists of indie music, from the pioneers, like Modest Mouse, to artists that have become so popular that they’re now pretty much mainstream, like Passion Pit and MGMT.
Prior to Modest Mouse, who performed at the main Redwood stage, was a performance on the Cypress stage (located at the opposite end of the grounds) by Purity Ring. We opted to juggle sets from Deerhunter, who performed a remarkably buzzy set with excellent jams (perhaps to honor the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival at the same location, a festival that was the first major and heavily promoted rock festival in the United States) that blazed through the sky like the changing light and colors of the setting sun. Deerhunter were one of our favorite sets of the day.
In order to catch all of Deerhunter’s set, a festival goer who was not staying for the set up and performance of Purity Ring, had no choice but to miss some of Neko Case’s set. Case was essentially the opening artist for Modest Mouse, put on a predictably tight performance, selecting a range of songs from the band’s discography.
Earlier on Day Two, was a full afternoon’s worth of talented artists, including Toro Y Moi, Lucero, Devendra Banhart, Dr. Dog, Capital Cities, Antlers, The Dodos, Generationals, Avery Tare’s Slasher Ficks, Akron/Family, Seventeen Evergreen, Bleached, among others. That’s the kind of line-up we’re used to seeing at the bigger, already established and popular festivals like Coachella, ACL and Bonaroo.
With all of those terrific bands performing one after another all afternoon, it’s hard to totally comprehend that the day’s headliners, which always draw the largest crowds, had yet to perform. As the sun began to dip little by little in the other direction, the number of Passion Pit and MGMT hipsters were increasing by the boat loads. It’s easy to conclude that many came to the festival just for one or two artists. And while the success of Passion Pit and MGMT grew out of the indie underground buzz, they are now clearly more mainstream than just a popular indie buzz band.
For example, in just the first few notes MGMT played of their popular song “Time to Pretend,” the enormous crowd roared with overwhelming approval as big crowds periodically do in the first few notes of wildly popular song. Again, a consistent theme we noticed about First City, the sound is amazing as far as outdoor festivals go. While MGMT delivered a good show, it wasn’t their best as one writer, Jody Amable, reported for a Bay Area blog called Bay Bridged. She wrote that MGMT: “rolled out the same old show they’ve been doing for years, featuring a whole lot of trippy visuals in retina-melting shades of neon to go with their brand of feathers-and-face-paint electro pop,” and while psychedelic visuals are a ‘time honored tradition’ for rock that originated in the Bay Area to begin with (and MGMT is a San Francisco band), the visuals were “starting to upstage them [MGMT] a little bit.” It’s true that the visuals aspect of the set was old hat, but the main annoyance was the temporary blinding effect and disorientation caused by overly contrasted and brightened visuals that flashed on and off repeatedly.
If you were trying to take photos from a few rows or more from the stage with a phone camera, chances are you got little else but big, blinding splashes of neon colors across the picture. Maybe that’s why they did it. Maybe it’s a secret government brainwashing mechanism. No, but seriously, tone it down guys. Or maybe it goes so well with MGMT’s hipster image and fan base that it’s purposely made to be way over the top.
By the time the closing act for Day One, Passion Pit, came on, the arena was packed with tens of thousands of people crammed into the fairground’s dusty Redwood stage area (which is built more for rodeos than music concerts). Passion Pit topped off the first day of what was an amazing afternoon and evening (11 hours total) of music. The band played with the quality of performance one would expect from such an accomplished band that started out DIY, went indie and are now admired by millions of young people around the world.
First City’s inaugural would have been solid even if all of the artists scheduled for Day One were spread out over two days. Yet, there was still another blockbuster day of performances from excellent bands still to come.
As we noticed all weekend, the sound at First City was spectacular, and there are likely a number of variables for that – one of course being the size of the grounds and the stage areas – relatively small compared to bigger festivals with a line-up the caliber of First City’s. Often times, a new festival can’t get dozens of popular indie bands booked for a variety of reasons. There are few debut music festivals that have a powerful lineup like First City did. We’re already curious about what they have in the works right now for 2014. First City is also a music festival that was clearly designed for indie rock fans. However, the festival’s name is attributed to the fact that Monterey was the first capital of California.
In the few reviews of the festival, there is not much emphasis placed on the sound quality. Sure, there is plenty of cred to the sound engineers – that’s a given. But the relatively small area, compared to Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park, keeps the sound contained and the number of trees and mostly wooden structures in and around the fair grounds absolutely help to provide a better, fuller sound inside that space. Now we can see part of the reason why Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Janis Joplin all became famous directly as a result of their performances at Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967. The sound, even with the little sound quality technology that existed at the time, must have been incredible.
To that point, there is the once best-selling official soundtrack from Monterey Pop as well as the film by the same name. See our preview of First City that includes an embedded video of rare concert bonus footage that was not released on the official film (no idea who posted it, but YouTube could remove it at anytime).
While there is some tweaking to do here and there, for the debut of a new festival, the organizers, Golden Voice, did a spectacular job, and they also brought a major rock festival back to the place where they were born nearly a half century ago. Plus, it’s simply a terrific spot to have a music festival for the ambience, ease of parking, fresh ocean air, moderate temps, and definitely for the acoustics. During his Father John Misty set, Tillman even commented to the crowd that there was something wrong with anyone who didn’t think it was an ideal place for a music festival.
The Monterey Fairgrounds has been home to the world famous Monterey Jazz Festival for the past 55 years. In fact, from September 20th to September 22nd, three weeks from now, the Monterey Jazz Festival will celebrate is 56th year, further solidifying its place in music history as one of the world’s oldest and continuously running music festivals.
First City will most certainly return next year based on the feedback we’ve been hearing, and a number of artists who openly praised the festival to the audience during their sets. Although the festival did not sell out of tickets by the time the gates opened on Saturday at 11 am., the crowds we saw, particularly at the Redwood stage for the top headliners, certainly seemed to be in the tens of thousands. Monterey Pop had 55,000 in attendance. From looking at the crowds in different locations throughout the two days, we’d say it was closer to 55,000 than not. The most striking similarity we could see to Monterey Pop 46 years ago was the attire. As was the case at Outside Lands just a few weeks ago, there were thousands of teenage girls and young adult women dressed in hippie-style attire, from dresses and flowery head bands to ripped jeans and colorful blouses and even polyester. For anyone who has seen many images over the years of the attire of the real hippies from the actual original time period, seeing all the hipsters as if they walked off a 1969 photograph, was trippy, mostly because it was so right on, right down to the straight, long hair and minimal facial make up.
If you’re already thinking about festivals to attend next summer in California, follow news during the coming winter and spring about First City via their mailing list. Plus, if you’ve never been to the San Francisco Bay Area (Monterey is part of the central coast region, some 110 miles south of San Francisco), and you have the ability to do so, it’s strongly recommended to spend a few extra days to see San Francisco and other amazing places in the Bay Area and central coast, including Monterey’s famous Aquarium, the 17 Mile Drive, the redwoods, and the Golden Gate Bridge, to name a few. If luck has it, the second annual First City will occur the weekend following, or proceeding, San Francisco’s hugely popular Outside Lands Festival. That’ll make it possible for visitors to California, who also love music festivals, to attend both fests. Bundling for vacations is always a good idea, and if this year is any indication, attending First City in 2014 should be high on the list for indie rock fans.
Tens of thousands of music lovers descended on foggy Golden Gate Park this past weekend for three days of live music from artists and bands like Paul McCartney, Vampire Weekend, Band of Horses, Nine Inch Nails, Yeah Yeah Yeahs , Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Those giants of music were just some of the headliners at the 6th annual Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco last weekend. OSL has quickly become one of the top major music fests in the United States.
As a festival known for its emphasis on representing a diverse range of genres from folk to rock and hip-hop to pop, Outside Lands did not disappoint. On Friday evening, the legendary Paul McCartney, now 71, performed for three hours, playing a string of Beatles’ songs he penned, from “Lady Madonna” and “Get Back” to “Blackbird” and “Ob La Di Ob La Da,” with tens of thousands of festival goers singing along. When great masses of people sing together in unison, it really sounds amazing. McCartney also played many Wings‘ songs, including classic 70’s radio hits like “Band on the Run,” “Listen to What The Man Said,” “Silly Love Songs,” and “Jet.” McCartney and the band also performed a number of songs from the former Beatles solo records as well.
McCartney performed a wonderful rendition of his classic song, "Yesterday," which many respected music critics consider one of the greatest ballads ever written. Photo by Leopold Ruiz
The stage, which is impressively gigantic considering that it was constructed in days (and has to be taken down in a couple of days as well) contained two gigantic screens, which for McCartney’s set were extended to at least 40 to 50-feet high. The picture quality was stunning, and to see a full shot of McCartney from head to toe on two massive screens was a unique perspective, and raised the bar for festival video displays.
Throughout his three-hour set, photos of McCartney through the years were splashed on the background screen. And if all of that wasn’t enough, the show included a thrilling fireworks display that illuminated brilliantly through the night fog.
Earlier in the day, festival goers crowded around stages to hear a host of artists like Band of Horses, Surfer Blood, The National (all on the main Land’s End stage) with other artists like Wild Belle, Twenty One Pilots, Zedd, Yeasayer and Pretty Lights, all of whom performed on the Twin Peaks stage, which as the venue map shows, was all of the way at the other end of the grounds, some three football fields apart.
The smaller stages like Sutro and the Panhandle featured sets from an array of artists ranging from The Heavy, Rhye and D’Angelo to Houndmouth, The Men, Daughter, Wavves and Chromatics. For fans of all types of music, Outside Lands definitely delivers in that regard.
Crowds packed a fog shrouded Golden Gate Park Saturday for Day Two of Outside Lands
Day Two: Young The Giant, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Tallest Man on Earth, NIN, Phoenix
On Saturday, Day Two of the festival, crowds flooded in early, with lines, just to get into the festival grounds, backing up for blocks. Day Two started off at noon with Bhi Bhiman and Locura, followed soon after by The Soft White Sixties and Social Studies.
Indie favorites Young The Giant took the main Land’s End stage in the mid-afternoon. The Los Angeles band, who’ve been recording their sophomore album for months, emerged to perform for a huge crowd that latched on to the band after the release of their debut album. Of course they performed a number of their popular radio-friendly songs like “Cough Syrup” and “I Got.”
Nine Inch Nails rock the Land's End stage on Day Two of Outside Lands. Photo by Leopold Ruiz.
Over-lapping with Young The Giant, for the most part, was The Growlers at the Sutro stage in nearby Lindley Meadow. The long-time indie band from Orange County in southern California started off their set with “Nosebleed Sun” and performed a number of their other fan favorites like “What It Is,” “Someday,” “Wandering Eyes” and “Sea Lion Goth Blues.”
Also over-lapping with those bands was the performance from Youth Lagoon who were performing at the second main stage, Twin Peaks, which is located far away from where Young The Giant and The Growlers were performing.
Alternative rap posse Jurassic 5, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, Baauer and Bombino finished out the afternoon schedule for Day Two, opening the way for evening performances from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Head and the Heart, Kurt Vile and The Violators, The Tallest Man on Earth, Grizzly Bear, The Mother Hips, and the Saturday night closers, Nine Inch Nails and Phoenix.
Choco Lands played out a familiar theme of art exhibits and expressions in the tree-covered areas of the Outside Lands festival grounds. Photo by Leopold Ruiz
Nine Inch Nails, which turns 25 next year, performed their dark hard rock on the Land’s End stage to a massive audience. The band ripped out some of NIN’s newer songs to start off their set, including tracks like “Copy of A” and “Disappointed,” which will appear on the band’s upcoming eight album release, Hesitation Marks.
Later in the two and a half hour set featuring 19 songs, NIN performed many of their most well-known songs, like “Closer,” “Came Back Haunted,” and “The Hand That Feeds.” For an encore, Trent Reznor, the only original NIN band member, belted out “Hurt” with his fellow band members before a crowd that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the festival grounds, a younger generation’s band, the popular French electro-pop outfit, Phoenix, performed to an equally large, and enthusiastic, audience, delivering tracks like “Entertainment,” “Lasso,” and “Lisztomania,” to open their one hour and fifteen-minute set. Prior to Phoenix, Brooklyn indie folk rock band Grizzly Bear performed on the Twin Peaks stage while The Head and the Heart played at the Sutro stage and while festival headliners, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, rocked the main stage at Land’s End.
The biggest downfall, in our opinion, of a festival like Outside Lands, where the two main stages (Lands End and Twin Peaks) are some three to four football fields apart, is missing sets from bands that are playing basically at the same time. The distance between the two main stages makes it nearly impossible to see a half set from one band and leave in time to catch most of the second half of the other band’s performance.
This dilemma occurred a number of times during the festival; in fact, sometimes three or four bands and artists were playing at the same time. The issue with overlapping performances occurred a number of times on Day Two including during the block of time from 6:30 to 8:30 pm when Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Tallest Man on Earth, The Mother Hips, The Head and the Heart and Grizzly Bear – three of our favorite artists at the fest.
During their 13-song set, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs stirred up a massive, excited crowd of tens of thousands of mostly younger (under 25) festival goers who were packed in from the front of the stage area all the way back to The Dome – the spot (see here on the official festival map) where deejays and mix masters performed all weekend, and which often obscured the sound from the main stage for people furthest from the stage.
Karen O and the YYY’s opened with “Sacrilege,” followed by “Gold Lion” and “Mosquito.” By mid-set, the band knocked out the ominous “Heads Will Roll,” and saved signature songs like “Maps” and “Zero” for the latter half of their performance. A gigantic image of the band’s YYY logo graced the backdrop of the enormous Land’s End stage.
Other artists that played on Day Two included Social Studies, Locura, Milo Greene, James McCartney (Paul McCartney’s son), Cherub, and newer favorites of cafe patrons, Atlas Genius.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers closed Outside Lands with a masterful and energetic performance. Photo by Leopold Ruiz
Day Three Delivered Red Hot Chili Peppers, Camper Van Beethoven, Kaskade, Vampire Weekend
Day Three of Outside Lands kicked off with artist like Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, The Easy Leaves, The Wild Feathers and Little Green Cars. The legendary 80’s underground band, Camper Van Beethoven, from Santa Cruz, California, graced the Sutro stage. CVB performed many of their cult classics, like “Take The Skinheads Bowling” and the crowd pleasing “Northern California Girls.”
Kurt Vile and The Violators jammed on the Sutro stage in Lindley Meadow on Sunday to a lively crowd. Photo by Leopold Ruiz
Philadelphia indie folk rockers, Kurt Vile and the Violators, sounded superb during their set; that is, when they overcame technical issues. Vile opened with the standout track “Jesus Fever” from the 2011 album, Smoke Ring For My Halo. However, the on-going sound issues made the song sound flatter than it does on the official recording.
The natural surroundings actually prevented the sound issues from being even more disruptive. That’s mainly because the Sutro stage is located in smaller area, where a grassy meadow (Lindley Meadow) carpets a long and narrow raven that is shaded and shielded by towering clusters of eucalyptus and pine trees.
It was necessary to leave the Kurt Vile set a bit early to get back to the Land’s End stage to catch one of IRC’s favorite indie rock bands of recent years – Foals. The Oxford, England band formed in 2005, and in 2008, released their well-received U.K. debut album. Nonetheless, it was Foals’ 2010 sophomore album, Total Life Forever, that launched the band’s popularity in the States, a wild wave that they have surfed swimmingly all the way to their headline status at Outside Lands.
Foals opened their set with “Prelude,” that was quickly followed by songs like “Miami” and “Olympic Airways.” As the band’s 10-song set progressed, the audience, many who were claiming their spots close to the stage for the later headlining bands like Vampire Weekend and festival closer, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The U.K. power indie rock band Foals were one of the main headliners for the closing day of Outside Lands 2013. Photo by Leopold Ruiz.
Following Foals, it was off to the eastern side of the festival grounds to the Panhandle stage to catch some of King Tuff‘s set, after which it was time to return to the west side once again to the Sutro stage to catch Dawes, who have previously performed at OSL. Dawes played songs like their opening track, “From A Window Seat,” as well as “Most People,” “Fire Away,” and “Time Spent in Los Angeles.” We missed all but one song of Daryl Hall & John Oates headlining set, but it did not phase us much; we’re not really fans of their 80’s radio pop music.
Approximately 15 minutes before the end of Dawes’ set, we headed over to the adjacent Land’s End stage to catch Vampire Weekend‘s headlining performance, and thus having to sacrifice sets from veterans Willie Nelson & Family, indie rock newbies Ms Mr and the powerhouse songwriting duo Matt & Kim. Unfortunately, these are the difficult and regrettable decisions that have to be made at any festival with nearly 100 artists, five stages and 65,000 people.
Vampire Weekend opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the Land's End stage on the last day of Outside Lands. Photo by Leopold Ruiz.
Vampire Weekend, it goes without saying, was one of the main draws of Day Three, and were essentially opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers, a compliment for any band. VW has improved immensely, in all ways, from when we first saw them at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco in 2008, before they exploded into a worldwide ‘indie rock’ pop sensation. The band took the stage to a roaring welcome from the juiced up audience, which was as interesting as it was thrilling, considering that most of those in the audience were long in place to see the closing set from the RHCP.
Perhaps there are more RHCP fans who are also Vampire Weekend fans, and vice-versa? Regardless, VW opened their 17-song, 70-minute, set with the crowd pleasing favorite, “Cousins,” followed by other VW singles like “White Sky” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.” The New York band also performed most of their other signature tracks like “A-Punk,” “Horchata,” “Oxford Comma,” and “Walcott,” much of the time with the crowd singing along.
As the last shows of Outside Lands 2013 were drawing near, it struck us just how fast the entire event zoomed right by. But this happens at all festivals – there’s just too much to see and to much to do. It was now down to the last two headliners – the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kaskade. We decided to split up to cover each separately. While it will be remembered for many great performances, these two top acts, scheduled to close out Outside Lands 2013, were among the most memorable.
Kaskade brought his groovy beats and synth pop waves to OSL 2013's final hours with a superb set. Photo by Leopold Ruiz
The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who are easily one of the most popular rock bands of the past two decades, took the stage Sunday night to the roar of 40,000-plus festival goers who jammed the west side of Golden Gate Park for the closing set, while the remaining crowd of some 25,000 people, packed it in for the Twin Peaks performance by electro-pop beats artist Kaskade.
RHCP hit the ground running, opening with jam session that got the band and the massive crowd pumped up for the first song, “Can’t Stop,” followed by an electrifying “Dani, California” and “Otherside.” The band was just getting warmed up.
With the exception of what can only be classified as odd banter from iconic RHCP bassist Flea, the band ripped through an amazingly executed set of crowd pleasing songs that included “Under the Bridge,” “Give It Away,” and “Californication,” to name just a few of the 15 songs, including two encores.
Despite Flea’s strange ramblings, the RHCP would not have the power they do without Flea’s legendary bass riffs. And while As their name implies, RHCP were red hot, a stark contrast to the foggy, drizzly, windy and cool weather that surrounded them. Oh, and just a personal note, but the lip hair doesn’t work.
There were many festival goers that were torn by having to choose between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kaskade. And as with the RHCPs, Kaskade made certain that his fans would also be treated to a fantastic closing set for Outside Lands 2013, delivering a two-hour set of dance beats mixed masterfully with Kaskade’s unique electro pop grooves.
In addition to three 10-hour days of live music, OSL 2013 also offered explorations of artistic themes like Wonder World. Photo by Leopold Ruiz
Although the sun failed to break through the thick, gray fog over the three days (which is typical for San Francisco in August), that did not dampen festival goers enthusiasm. In fact, we’ve heard many say it’s preferable to the scorching heat and humidity of most other big summer time festivals.
Each day of the OSL festival, some 65,000 people flowed into the city’s Golden Gate Park, walked long distances between the five stages, browsed the many art exhibits and murals set up in the park and trekking through the forested areas that included temporary wonder lands like Choco Lands, a chocolate-centric area that included just about everything one could imagine made with chocolate.
What a way to end another historic Outside Lands festival. In fact, OSL, together with the Treasure Island Music Festival (which also began in 2008), has brought major outdoor music festivals back to San Francisco, which itself is arguably the birthplace of outdoor music festivals (which then were often free, featured a limited number of bands, were much less organized, and certainly didn’t have corporate backing) as they were an integral part of the Haight-Ashbury ‘hippie’ scene that emerged in the mid to late 1960s.
A grove of lights illuminate a forested area of Golden Gate Park during Outside Lands. Photo by Leopold Ruiz
Major outdoor music festivals in San Francisco and the surrounding region pretty much ended in 1969 with the tragic events of the Altamount Music Festival, promoted in the weeks leading up to the fest as the “Woodstock of the West.”
Sadly, that didn’t turn out to be the case. IRC will be publishing an extensive look at music festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area and northern California in the next couple of weeks and we will also be covering the upcoming inception of the new First City Music Festival (August 24-25) in Monterey, with a line-up featuring MGMT, Modest Mouse, Passion Pit, Neko Case and many others.
Stay tuned for more coverage of Outside Lands 2013, with additional playlists, photo galleries and video to be added in the coming days.
SAN FRANCISCO – Indie rockers in the Christmas and holiday spirit will get a special treat tomorrow night (Fri. Dec 7/07) as the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium presents the “Not So Silent Night” music festival.
The all-night festive concert is exclusively designed for fans of indie and alternative rock with headliners Modest Mouse and Spoon, followed by Jimmy Eat World and stocking stuffers Angels & Airwaves and Paramore, a popular SF Bay Area indie band.
The festival is almost guaranteed to be a great time. Tickets are still available and you can also check out Craigslist, eBay or whatever ticketing service you may use to see if you can grab some stubs for this once-in-a-lifetime special Christmas festival.
But don’t worry, if miss it, stayed tuned to IRC for full post-festival coverage with MP3s, official websites, YouTube videos from the fest, fan photos, blog reviews and more.
The event was coordinated by San Francisco radio station Live 105. See you there.
Bloggers:Send IRC your vids, show reviews, blog posts and photos of the NSSN Festival and see them published here on IRC!
Readers: Check back on this page regularly for posted MP3s, updated news and videos throughout the next few days and weeks.
Starting Saturday December 8: A Very Indie Christmas playlist series all this month on IRC. Subscribe now to get the playlists as they are published throughout the month.
Many hours of work have gone in to putting together this special indie and alternative Christmas music series, so it’s definitely something you don’t want to miss.
With the success of their new release An End Has A Start, accompanied by popular music videos and a pair of hit singles, the Editors are back in the U.K. after an extensive tour of the U.S., and at a time when the band’s stylish brand of neo-punk mixed with goth-rock is catching on in the alternative rock arena.
Last month the Birmingham, England quartet kicked-off a two month long tour of Europe with a sold out show at the Brixton Academy in London.
Measuring by the number of searches for Editors’ related links on this site and other music blogs, IRC has put together a compilation of music videos, blog and mainstream media articles and reviews, MP3s, concert photos, amateur concert videos, plus the Editors’ official website, MySpace and YouTube pages:
– Review of Editors’ Fillmore show, San Francisco – September 20, 2007 – Watch Editors’ music and concert videos at IndieRockConcerts.com and IndieRockSongs.com
– Listen to and download free studio and live Editors’ MP3s
– Exactly why is Editors’ drummer Ed Lay complaining about washing his own clothes?
IRC has put together a hot compilation of videos from festival goers and mainstream media highlighting the indie rock and pop artists that helped make Lollapalooza 2007 a great success.
Even threats of thunderstorms were not going to allow the feast of music to be interrupted, although there were a few, brief showers, which you can imagine was a nice relief from the searing heat and icky humidity that has made it an unusually warm summer in the midwestern United States.
Don’t miss reviews and postings for festivals still yet to take place, such as Austin City Limits Festival, Monolith, Download Festivals, Vegoose and many more.
Check out YouTube videos from Lollapalooza (videos have been approved for quality) and other Lolla links.
LCD Soundsystem at Lollapalooza 2007 (from AT&T Blue Room) –
