Outside Lands 2013: Day Two Highlights & Recap

Spread out across five stages in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the music at Outside Lands 2013 is as varied as the weather. Early sunshine and warm weather gave way to afternoon clouds and drizzle as Day Two settled in on Saturday, shifting the forested musical atmosphere considerably. Check out our coverage of Day Two, including some excellent performances from Nine Inch Nails, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, Jurassic 5 and more.

Spaz on Tap

Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O is still throwing down the crazy after all these years. Confidently prowling the stage like a hyena in clown gear, Karen attacks her performance like the legend she’s creating for herself – one easily among the ranks of the Hyndes, Smiths, Jetts and Joplins of rock history. The band tore through several new cuts from their latest album Mosquito, while baiting the nostalgic with “Maps” and “Heads Will Roll”. Check out the full Yeah Yeah Yeahs Outside Lands setlist right here.

Grub Grind

Whatever calories you’re burning on the trek between main stages on opposite ends of Golden Gate Park, you’re more than making up for with each pass through Choco Lands and the like, where fat and grease flow like Willy Wonka’s chocolate river. The goodness is irresistible, though ever more outrageously priced each year.

Too Much of a Good Thing

The wooded path between staging areas was once a loosely-traveled alternative route to the main walkways at Outside Lands. Now it is a glut of traffic, the formerly quiet little resting areas now a cauldron of attendees moving about. While the big-box corporate branding of the Coachellas and Lollapaloozas hasn’t quite hit Outside Lands, it’s clear that the festival’s rapid growth is rendering a few of the more nuanced delights impossible.

Nails Declawed? Not a chance.

Nine Inch Nails’ set was solid, an intense blast of industrial-strength dark-grind danceability, but the majority of the crowd had instead opted for Phoenix’s poppier fare across the way at the Twin Peaks stage. Their loss, as NIN set into their second performance on American soil in four years with ferocious intent. Opening with three new songs and a minimalist stage design, the initial methodology of the performance led to a great deal of confusion for fans who had anticipated a return to the bombastic guitar-driven greatness of NIN’s early sound – but all concerns were dissipated by the time “1,000,000” blasted our faces off. Check out Nine Inch Nails Outside Lands setlist.

Understated Classic

Austin native Gary Clark, Jr. brought the blues to Golden Gate Park, leading his band through smooth-soul goodness in a criminally early Saturday day slot. With any luck he’ll continue to dig into the collective attention span and lock down a more prominent bill position in coming years.

Old Timer Excellence

To the casual eye, Jurassic 5 look like old men trying too hard. But the flow and interplay between members is undeniably and inimitably fresh, and J5 showed no rust as they turned out stellar performances of “Power In Numbers,” “Feedback” and many more. With hype ruling over substance so strongly in pop culture these days, it’s a warmly welcome reminder to see genuine depth of Hip-Hop spirit on the main stage.

“Did you fart?” “No dude, that was Grizzly Bear.”

(*actual conversation overheard at Outside Lands)

Both Youth Lagoon and Grizzly Bear put suckas in a coma. There’s just no way around it. There’s something about the sleepiness of the festival’s Twin Peaks end that gives it a sleepier atmosphere, but as Twenty One Pilots proved on Friday, it doesn’t have to be all z’s and murmurs. On Sunday, we’re bringing the defibrillators. Or at least swapping out the indica with sativa. Get it together, San Francisco!