Andrew Veeder on August 9th, 2016

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Including: LCD Soundsystem, Air, Duran Duran, Chance the Rapper, Lionel Richie, Ryan Adams, Vince Staples, Grimes, Kevin Morby and more

The ninth annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival took place over the weekend in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the 1,000-acre plot located on the city’s west side, and brought with it a healthy mix of living legends such as Radiohead and Lionel Richie, cult favorites Air and Ryan Adams and a host of other eclectic acts, including the Muppets band Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem.

The park’s hilly terrain naturally separated the neighboring Lindley Meadow’s Sutro stage, and Hellman’s Hollow’s larger Twin Peaks and smaller Panhandle stages, from the main Lands End Stage on the polo field, creating a multitude of vantage points at each of them. The area’s maritime atmospherics provided a hazy, dreamlike vibe during the festival’s three days, giving the feeling of autumn mid-summer with temperatures in the 50s. It’s a stark contrast to Coachella’s triple-digit simmer and the forthcoming FYF’s likely swelter, but cool that cloudy ripples of fog rolled off the bay to catch colorful stage lights throughout the day.

||| Photos by David Brendan Hall

First, a photographic tour of the festival, followed by the highlights from the weekend:

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RADIOHEAD (Saturday, 7:55 p.m.)

In one of their few U.S. festival dates this year, and just one of three stops on the West Coast this tour, the Oxford quintet, enhanced with a sixth in the form of Portishead drummer Clive Deamer, tore through 22 songs in just about two hours. They began with the tripleheader of “Burn the Witch,” “Daydreaming” and “Ful Stop” from their recent album “A Moon Shaped Pool,” before delving into their back catalog to dazzle the crowd with nearly half of 1997’s “OK Computer” and their greatest hits since.

It was masterful to see this band draw from their wealth of material, and dole out fan favorite slow-boilers “Climbing Up The Walls” and “Exit Music (for a Film),” sandwiched between bangarang live staples “Bodysnatchers” and “Bloom.” The dark skitter of “The Gloaming” had a playfulness to it in this incarnation, and then they plowed through “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” “Kid A” mainstays “Everything In Its Right Place” into “Idioteque” and “There There” to cap the main set. The five-song encore began with “Let Down” and “Present Tense,” a free lesson in seductive beauty with “Nude,” and the 1-2 punch of “Paranoid Android” and “Karma Police” to end the night, dissolving to the point that Thom Yorke just strummed the acoustic guitar as the polo field sang in unison, “For a minute there / I lost myself, I lost myself …” Because we did.

Sound issues sadly affected some of the field’s spacing, or distance prevented all of the large crowd from hearing everything, but the die-hards knew we were making a festival Sophie’s Choice by skipping Sufjan Stevens (which I’m sure was also incredible) to get even closer for Radiohead. There was a moment during “Pyramid Song” far up along stage left where I was when a patron’s conversation elevated above a whisper, and he got shushed by half a dozen others immediately. I wonder how many other people made the point to fly in specifically to see this show, and wonder if the people who only flew in for this show discovered other joys during the fest.

DR. TEETH & THE ELECRIC MAYHEM (Sunday, 2:30 p.m.)

In their live festival debut, the Muppets’ Animal, Janice, Lips, Floyd Pepper, Zoot and ringleader Dr. Teeth reunited to play a five-song set, perched on their small stage atop a psychedelic banner of their name, beginning with their “Muppet Movie” track “Can You Picture That?” The rest of the set featured a series of covers including the Band’s “Ophelia,” Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros’ “Home” and the Mowgli’s’ “San Francisco.” Humorous videos provided interludes between songs, along with band banter, and jokes about how the “sea lions are gentrifying the pier.” To close out their performance, the Electric Mayhem played a joyous rendition of the Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends” in the style of Joe Cocker, aided by the 30-deep Oakland Tabernacle Choir. It was the most joyous and unexpected treat of the weekend.

KEVIN MORBY (Saturday, 2:55 p.m.)

One such newly discovered joy was Kevin Morby, backed by bass, drums, and guitar, while clad in a suit and bolo tie and guitar of his own, brought out some bluesy goodness amid the dense afternoon fog with a delightful set of slow-burning blues and hard-charging rock. His voice is reminiscent of Bob Dylan if he’d overcome tone deafness, and really resonated as he playing cuts from each of his three albums, including “Cut Me Down,” “Dorothy” and his debut’s title track, “Harlem River.”

AIR (Saturday, 6:10 p.m.)

The French duo of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel cruised through an hour of their classics, starting with “Venus” from 2004’s “Talkie Walkie,” and ending with “Sexy Boy” from their 1998 debut “Moon Safari.” The dreamy, downtempo set was rife with recognizable Air tunes, such as “Playground Love” and “La Femme D’Argent,” and lovely in the evening time.

VINCE STAPLES (Saturday, 3:40 p.m.)

As one of the most exciting young rappers in the game these days, and one of the few rappers on the bill this year, Staples mostly played jams from last year’s staggering “Summertime ’06” and its preceding EP, “Hell Can Wait.” The bass arrangements boomed even more out over the open park on “Lift Me Up,” “Norf Norf,” and “Blue Suede.” The crowd was stacked in the green valley and having a great time, matching Staples’ high energy while rapping his serious and stark lyrics back at him, throwing their hands up when commanded to, and responding to his calls for a “F*ck the police” chant. A Vince Staples show is not without its tinge of sarcasm, such as when he asks the audience, “Are you having fun?” followed by a gunshot echoing through the speakers, or when he says, “This is the time of the show where I say, ‘Don’t do drugs,'” and, “If you know the words, rap the words, and if you don’t know the words, learn the words.”

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM (Friday, 8:10 p.m.)

The reunited rock-disco band that is LCD Soundsystem are in the midst of their victory lap following a five year disbandment, and while they mostly shut up and played the hits, they sure played the hell out of them. From the opening drum beat of “Us v Them” through the final crescendo of closer “All My Friends,” they made no sign that they were phoning it in, despite playing no new material nor deviating much from the set they’ve been playing all year. “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” and “Tribulations” brought the energy; “I Can Change” and “Someone Great” brought the emotion; and “Dance Yrself Clean” and “All My Friends” brought a celebratory end to night one, and hopefully the beginning of their second career leg, and not just 2016’s notable cash grab tour.

LIONEL RICHIE (Sunday, 8:05 p.m.)

“I have one job tonight, and that’s to play all the hits, all night long,” Richie said at the top of his set, and for 90 minutes, he preceded to do just that, closing out the festival by mixing together solo tracks like “All Night Long (All Night),” “Hello” and “Running With The Night,” as well as Commodores songs such as “Brick House,” “Easy” and “Three Times a Lady.” He even played “Endless Love,” not to mention the charity single “We Are the World.” It was him that I was looking for, to wind down by weekend, before Lana Del Ray sent me off to sleep. Easy like Sunday morning, but in a field on Sunday night, all night long …  until about 9:30.

CHANCE THE RAPPER (Sunday, 4:55 p.m.)

The polo field erupted into a party as soon as Chance the Rapper came running on stage, and didn’t let up much as he continued jumping back and forth rapping for the next hour, culling cuts from his 2013 sophomore mixtape “Acid Rap,” this year’s “Coloring Book” and his notable guest verses, including Kanye’s “Ultralight Beam” transcendence and Action Bronson’s “Baby Blue” cold and calculated crushing. All of the new material, including “All We Got,” “Angels” and “Blessings,” played great, backed with his band and Nico Segal, aka Donnie Trumpet, on the horn.

RYAN ADAMS & THE SHINING (Sunday, 6:35 p.m.)

Closing out the Sutro stage as the afternoon waned, Ryan Adams played an assortment of old and new, joined by a new four-man backing band known as The Shining. “Trouble” and “Gimme Something Good” from his 2014 self-titled album kicked it off before running through former “& The Cardinals” tracks “Cold Roses” and “Magnolia Mountain,” pinnacle debut “Heartbreaker” jams “Shakedown on 9th Street,” “To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High),” and bringing out Jason Isbell to join on “Oh My Sweet Caroline.” He gave the spectators up and down the hillside not just something good, but something great.

GRIMES (Friday, 6:50 p.m.)

Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, is a bona fide pop star, and seeing her play the Twin Peaks stage as people spilled back on Friday showed you that. Largely playing her latest album “Art Angels,” the synth-pop spectacle featured choreography, multiple back-up dancers, and vocals both high high and death metal growl-low. Remarked the 20-something male in front of me after her guttural growl, “She scares me but I like it.” Coincidentally, the coolest tracks of the set were called “Flesh without Blood,” “Kill v Maim,” “Oblivion,” and “Venus Fly.”

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

• Seeing Minneapolis synth-rock powerhouse Poliça rock the Twin Peaks stage Friday afternoon to thousands, then seeing them rock the small StubHub Live Sessions tent at the rear of the polo field that same evening to what felt like dozens.
• Duran Duran playing “Hungry Like The Wolf” and later “Notorious,” and I couldn’t stop thinking about the “Donnie Darko” dance sequence. “Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion,” a friend who gets it told me later.
• Hometown alt-rock band Third Eye Blind playing “Graduate,” “Motorcycle Drive By,” “Semi-Charmed Life,” and a Bowie medley of “Young Americans / Heroes / Modern Love / Stardust,” and high school me smiling a lot while drinking an IPA from the Beer Lands craft beer
• Catching the last three songs of Chicagoans Whitney’s set as I walked in Friday afternoon, and being delighted by how great “No Woman” and “The Falls” sound live.
• Not only were there a plethora of trash / recycle / compost bins around, there were also attendants at each grouping to separate mistaken drops into their proper bags, and ensure all of the compostable beer cups made their way from blue bin to green bin.
• Shout-outs to the Suite Foods Waffles’ Belgium Waffle Fried Chicken sandwiches, Bacon Bacon’s Chocolate Covered Bacon and The Farmer’s Wife’s Apple & Honey Grilled Cheese Melts.
• Favorite millennial quotes: “It’s my friend’s mom’s jacket.” “If it’s a mom jacket, it’s so much cooler.” And, “I’m from SoCal. It never gets this cold, brah!” Agreed on both counts.