Festivals: Outside Lands 2009
Outside Lands, 2009
by Nick Chaivarlis, Photography by Junaid Ziauddin
There were no reports of devastating weather, tragic deaths, or even threats on national security at 2009′s Outside Lands Festival. There was just some good old fashioned fun in the sun (with music, of course).
If you couldn’t make it to Outside Lands this year, the festival’s lineup is something that you should be so jealous about missing that it will force you to get off your ass and make a trip to San Francisco next time around. It’s not every day that you get to see such a wide variety of acts. I mean, you’ll probably never have a chance to see the likes of The Black Eyed Peas tearing up the stage on the same day as Dave Matthews, much less in a twelve hour window from where The Dead Weather would later give everyone exactly what they came for.
If there is a possibility of ever having too much fun, you can witness it when Matt & Kim make the stage (and the crowd) their own personal playground. If you look hard enough, you can see genuine contentment on their faces (OK, you really don’t have to look that hard), because they make it abundantly clear that the stage is their home and that they’ll treat any guest in their home with the highest level of hospitality (even if that means crowd surfing).
To regain and maintain everyone’s chi throughout the festival, Os Mutantes were there to make sure everyone was doing OK in between bong hits, and Jason Mraz was there to make sure everyone was doing bong hits. John Vanderslice, Lenka, and Modest Mouse made very memorable appearances as well.
In the midst of everyone being collective, M.I.A. came in to stir up a little rowdiness. In her attempt to cause commotion, she handed out blow horns to the audience. Let’s face it though, what’s a festival without an obscene amount of blow horn in unison? After The Beastie Boys had to cancel, Tenacious D were there to fill in the pieces by covering “Intergalactic” and “Sabotage.”
Outside Lands was a promising place if you enjoy good music, art, and food. All of the acts pulled through to give everyone the most accurate definition of a festival. Sure, you can look it up in a dictionary, but I think the only way to really know what it means is to immerse yourself in it. If you couldn’t make it to Outside Lands this year, there is no need to worry (– a need to feel regret and to sulk is a different story) because you still have about a year to make plans for next year’s festivities.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.