MAGNET’s Maureen Coulter reports from the 2010 Outside Lands Festival in Golden Gate Park.
Saturday, August 14
10:30 pm
After a 10-minute, mist-sprinkled trek through the park weaving through Intel promotional tents and grizzled hippies offering me psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana-baked goods like they were Safeway employees on a Sunday, I arrived at Speedway Meadow where Tokyo Police Club was taking the stage. Already festival veterans in their early 20s (they have performed at Coachella and Lollapalooza, among others), the indie-punk foursome put together a characteristically high-energy performance with songs off its newest album, Champ, as well as classics such as the bouncy “Your English Is Good.” Dave Monks’ liquid voice and the band’s spiky torrent of guitars and drums are reminiscent of the Strokes, who would play a few hours later.
To escape the intermittent spritz coming off the Bay and preserve my well-coiffed locks, I ducked into the Chase Freedom Lounge, where alt-country singer Langhorne Slim was giving a private performance. Supported by a standup bassist and a hardcore banjoist who had Summer Of Sam blood smudges all over his instrument, Slim provided a dynamic, knee-slapping show. His alternately sweet and choked vocals spat out lines like, “That girl gone be the death of me,” as the brisk snare drum and string instruments fiddled away.
Back at Twin Peaks, Cat Power was initiating crowd-wide introspection with her forlorn, syrupy voice. A few concert-goers informed me that the singer, born Chan Marshall, used to play gigs with her back to the crowd. This was in sharp contrast to this evening, when Marshall hopped a good 10 feet offstage and crooned within kissing distance of the adoring audience.
Hiking out of the park back to Blue Steel, I picked my way through a throng of Further and Strokes fans who didn’t want to fork over the $140 Outside Lands entrance fee. “This is real rock and roll,” one of them said. “This is outside Outside Lands!”
