music festivals

Too often these days, judgment of a music festival’s merits is reduced to the “who’s on the lineup?” question. It feels trivial, now, in our second decade of a peak music festival landscape showing few signs of slowing down, that we don’t consider everything else to be equally as important as the lineup. It’s in that “everything else” department that San Francisco’s Outside Lands has edged past other festivals over time, and demands more attention than a lineup that many thought wasn’t among the strongest in its 16 years when first announced.

The prevalent narratives about Outside Lands 2024 will understandably center on Chappell Roan drawing yet another gargantuan crowd, Grace Jones putting on an unimaginable performance masterclass, Kacey Musgraves joining fill-in headliner Sabrina Carpenter on stage, and Sturgill Simpson’s first live performance in three years. But it also absolutely also needs to be that Outside Lands 2024 was the most well-produced version of the Golden Gate Park megafest yet.

Let’s be honest, if you’re dropping around $500 for 3-day GA passes (double that for VIP) you could reasonably expect a music festival to provide a bit more than just the bare essentials. Unfortunately, the bar is set so low for festivals that if a large-scale production can make it through the weekend without anyone complaining about bathrooms, food lines, crappy cell service, or a headliner dropping out, it’s probably a good enough effort.

Outside Lands took everything a step further for the benefit of attendees this year. There were once again more bathrooms, and I seldom found myself waiting longer than a minute or two to use one; even the handwashing stations were always filled with water, soap, and paper towels at all hours of the weekend. And texting was smooth throughout, making meeting up with friends an actual possibility in every scenario.

This was the first year where I felt like the long food lines didn’t stand in the way of being able to sample all of Outside Lands’ extremely well-curated collection of 101 Bay Area food vendors from a bevy of cultural backgrounds. Hot and juicy quesabirria tacos, the most elite selection of hot dogs and corn dogs I’ve seen outside of a Korean night market, lobster tots and tacos, dumplings from countries I didn’t know much about until this weekend, and a new program designed to allow for people to try smaller versions of items so that they can engage with more of the food stands. This was awesome.

What was new to the 2024 version of Outside Lands legitimately added to the experience and didn’t feel like a frivolous sponsorship cash grab. The Latinx-music focused Casa Bacardi looked delightfully like Scarface’s Cuban getaway house, and it was thumping and vibrant all weekend long. DJ’s perched on a balcony played reggaeton and electrocumbia to a two-level crowd. You could stop and dance, or casually chill and walk through the ornately styled lower bar level. It felt like a really successful case study for organizers who could very well expand the Latinx music offerings next year.

Adjacent to Casa Bacardi was the Cocktail Magic area where six different bars were slinging craft espresso martinis and old fashioneds for anyone to purchase, regardless of ticket tier. Beer Lands was once again an excellent representation of the Bay Area craft beer scene, while a scaled-down Wine Lands area still featured Sonoma pinots and natural wines from 30+ wineries in a more intimate and approachable space than in year’s past — elevated amenities you should have at your disposal at a $200/day festival ticket, but don’t get everywhere.

Now in its second year, Dolores’ is a queer-focused indoor/outdoor dance club at the far end of the Polo Field opposite the main stage. Spirits were crazy high all weekend with drag shows, queer DJs, and even ‘90s disco diva Crystal Waters delivering a downright tour de force to what couldn’t have been more than 1,500 people on Sunday night. Outside Lands partners with local queer entertainment curators and it really comes across like an accurate representation of queer culture in the region. “I used to sneak into this festival and now I’m on stage here!” drag queen Nicki Jizz said to a roaring crowd, driving the point home of the inclusivity and diversity that took years for Outside Lands to achieve.

Dedicated to electronic music in all forms, the SOMA area was redesigned this year to be entirely outdoors and, more importantly, to expand capacity three-fold. Gone were structural and ingress issues, and gone was the dark, seedy rave den of the past. I managed to stop here once each day and it was buzzing with the under-21 crowd who found themselves in an accessible alternative space.

A walk from one stage to the other came with welcome stops along the way. In the eucalyptus groves of McLaren Pass, a wedding venue dubbed City Hall hosted three ceremonies a day. Some friends and I sat in on a wedding on Friday afternoon, with thousands of bubbles floating past a bride and groom who fostered their love for each other at Outside Lands ten years ago. We toasted the pair and left with full hearts, ready to embrace the rest of the festival around us.

It’s these walks through the winding paths of Golden Gate Park that filled me with joy the most. When the sun’s rays found their way into open fields, through trees and onto hillside crowds, it was the single biggest elevator of the festival that finds itself at the mercy of San Francisco’s testy weather systems; truly the most authentic part of the city. Midway through Saturday afternoon, the sun was in full force and the festival was humming. Every single stage I made my way past, from Romy’s arresting and vulnerable vocals at Sutro stage to the loud and proud bounce at Dolores’. It didn’t even matter who was playing on the main stage, because there was SO MUCH to see and do everywhere.

There was Flower Lands, where you can craft an arrangement or simply stop and smell different flowers in the “aroma lounge,” or The Mission, where nonprofits focused on voting and sustainability tabled all weekend. Heck, even activations like the Chase Sapphire Lounge rest stop and interactive bars from Gray Whale Gin and Sierra Nevada — all long-time presences at the festival — felt like they seamlessly belonged to the experience because they’ve grown with it.

Make no mistake about it, there were also a number of defining performances. The aforementioned Chappell Roan and Grace Jones drew the most elated main-stage crowds of the weekend. If there was a set you had to be at, it was those two, with Jones’ unabashed creativity towering (literally and figuratively) higher than everything all weekend. Shaboozey held nothing back on Friday afternoon with a raucous industry-heavy VIP area looking damn near as full as the much bigger GA crowd. Real Estate shined with charisma in an early time slot and Schoolboy Q understood the assignment, delivering emphatically for one of the biggest crowds of the weekend. Meanwhile, Billy Woods’ avant-garde flow, local rockers French Cassettes, and next-big-thing Medium Build marked the intimate Panhandle Stage.

There were also some flops, like Daniel Caesar’s lukewarm and detached Friday nighter. Later, Brandon Flowers introduced The Killers calling themselves “a great rock band!” which felt achingly desperate. They closed with a tired rendition of “Mr. Brightside,” which was eclipsed by a passionate sing-a-long in the exit tunnel from attendees as the band clinged to their classic in the background. Jungle sounded generic in an early evening show, settling for videos of vocalists who weren’t on stage with them — including Channel Tres, who was at the festival. Unless you’re Gorillaz, that shtick is never gonna land and Outside Lands is just really at its best when it isn’t so algorithmically charged. For as well-received as Sabrina Carpenter’s performance was, I couldn’t help but think how much stronger originally-scheduled headliner Tyler, The Creator (before he dropped out) would’ve been following Grace Jones; a 1-2 punch of Black excellence for a festival that seemed focused on maintaining that throughline.

If Post Malone’s country set wasn’t your cup of tea, Sacramento native Victoria Monét was putting on a highly theatrical R&B display across the fest; shrewd counter-programming. Sturgill Simpson’s pure outlaw country with a newfound emotional edge was dynamite, but definitely a soft-landing for a smaller main stage crowd to close out the fest. Adrenaline was still pumping through my veins on the fest’s final night, as I drifted away from Simpson for one final long walk across the festival grounds to see the last hour of Kaytranada’s set at the second biggest stage, Twin Peaks. Kaytra achieved what some SOMA DJs couldn’t, and told a story with intention through a wizardly-mixed set of his original songs. Hearing Gal Costa’s vocal sample on “Lite Spots,” at the same stage where I’d heard him play it at the fest seven years earlier to a crowd a fraction of this size, was beautiful — both a subtle homage to the Brazilian singer who died in 2022 and a hat tip to his history here. His was a beaming, brilliant display all around.

At the wedding I attended on Friday, the officiant explained that the couple chose to get married at Outside Lands because of the “shared values and imaginations here” and how “the intangible magic of it all is so attractive to them.” Finding that zone can take time and the best way to do it at Outside Lands? Wander. Plan less and allow room for discovery in this infinite slate of choices of what to see, do, hear, eat, and drink. Because more than any other shiny name on the lineup, it’s what surrounds the main stages that makes this festival experience a genuinely spectacular one.