Outside Lands 2021 Archives - New Hip Hop News

If you were to say at this time last year, that in less than a year, we’d be able to hold large-scale music festivals that wouldn’t be a COVID-19 super-spreader event, you might’ve sounded like a crazy person. But by and large, as we’ve learned how change our behavior to help stop the spread of COVID-19, festivals like Lollapalooza and Outside Lands were executed remarkably. Requiring proof of vaccination and implementing a system to verify said proof was a major key, and tens of thousands of people have been able to revel in the grandeur of live music outdoors once again.

On Halloween weekend at Outside Lands festival, over 70,000 people a day came out to San Francisco’s sweeping Golden Gate Park, for what was nothing short of one of the best concert weekends of the year. Fans emanated gratitude for the experience just as much as artists did.

The live music industry was hit hard and for artists, it bore a big weight not just on their livelihoods, but on their creativity as well. Things got pretty dark there for a year and a half. And now with live music and music festivals back in action, there’s a welcome freshness from musicians on stage; thriving once again and needed for so many reasons. We caught up with five performers at Outside Lands 2021 — Albert Hammond Jr., Bartees Strange, Mxmtoon, ZHU, and Rexx Life Raj — to talk about what it means to be playing live shows for massive crowds again. Tap in.

Albert Hammond Jr. – The Headliner

albert hammond jr - spinelli — Adrian Spinelli

The Strokes took a solid victory lap around the festival circuit this year, playing III Points Fest in Miami, Atlanta’s Shaky Knees, and even making a headlining stop at The Forum in Los Angeles before the band’s Friday night closing set at Outside Lands. Albert Hammond Jr. has been behind some of the most iconic riffs of the past 20 years and he most recently put out his fourth solo album, Francis Trouble in 2018. But in San Francisco, he was here to put it down with The Strokes, all while relishing in the launch of his sneaky delightful wine seltzer, Jetway.

“Just gathering with people is very important to being a human being. But even besides me, where my career is playing live music and recording, I can see it in people that they want to be around other people. People want to f*ck, man! [laughs] I’m kidding obviously, but I mean that in how people want to interact… It’s a very human thing. And If we’re just home, things start to fall apart.”

Bartees Strange – A Big Realization

bartees strange - spinelli — Adrian Spinelli

Washington D.C.-based indie rocker Bartees Strange’s career is on the up. His 2020 album Live Forever proved to be a critically-acclaimed breakout hit and its surging artists like him who relish in the number of people at a music festival who are witnessing him and his music for the first time. He delivered one of the most inspired and positively-charged performances of the weekend on the Sutro Stage, and being back out on stage and playing to big festival crowds helped him re-focus on why he makes music to begin with.

“For the last 15 years, I’ve just been playing music and playing shows. And then all of a sudden it just went away. But I kept writing… but then I kinda forgot why? I was like ‘No one is ever gonna hear this?!’ And then I had to remember that I was always writing for myself anyways. And I found a lot of peace in that. And now that I’ve come back out and I’m playing to bigger crowds, it’s exciting to watch everybody react to the music, and I feel really good about being happy with myself. It’s a beautiful thing to come to realize, at a point where I don’t think I would’ve ever had that realization if things wouldn’t have stopped. So it’s been really amazing to be in front of people and to be perceived, and I feel very solid, which is nice.”

Mxmtoon – From The Bedroom To The Big Stage… Finally

Mxmtoon not only built her music from her bedroom, but she also built a massive fanbase. The Oakland native has close to a billion Spotify streams across all of her quaint folk-pop songs and is a TikTok sensation with more than 2 million followers. She launched a pop culture-friendly history podcast called 365 days with Mxmtoon, where she’s had guests on like Carly Rae Jepsen, Jon Batiste, and Julien Baker. And this past September, she put out the True Colors EP in conjunction with the Life Is Strange adventure game series. Suffice it to say, the 21-year-old had a lot of material to share on stage and she said that being back at a festival in her backyard means “everything” to her.

“I started making music by myself in my room and I think to have an opportunity to bring the pieces of work that I’ve been making for the last three years really, to a live stage and just play it to an audience that’s so close to my heart in the Bay Area? It’s so cool and something I’ve been waiting to do for years at this point. And I can’t really believe that it’s actually happening, it feels really surreal. I can only hope to keep having experiences like this and hopefully for people to see that there is a light at the tunnel through all of this and that live shows are back and hopefully here to stay.”

Rexx Life Raj – The Hometown Rapper Back Where He Belongs

Rexx Life Raj Outside Lands — Philip Cosores

Few people made an entrance at Outside Lands quite like the gregarious and gigantic Rexx Life Raj. On Halloween afternoon, he came out mounting a literal T-Rex, clad in a Jurassic Park-style safari vest that his whole team on stage was also wearing. It was not only a testament to his larger-than-life persona, but also to the team mentality that Bay Area hip-hop is founded on. In true Bay Area fashion, the man knows how to relax, and after his set, sipped an Aperol Spritz (at the branded “Aperol Piazza,” of course) and reflected on not just being back on stage, but doing so to a hometown crowd.

“It literally feels insane, but insane in a good way. I knew I missed it, but I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I was on stage and was like, ‘This is where I’m supposed to be.’ And just being around this many people? I haven’t been around this many people in a year and a half, two years even. it just feels good to be at home here and see friends and family, and just to be able to perform is really tight.”

ZHU – The Electronic Music Heavyweight

Living in the shadows has always been a part of ZHU’s persona. The electronic producer and multi-instrumentalist initially came up as a mystical figure in EDM with an unknown identity. He’s since stepped out from behind the curtain to become one of the most crucial voices for Asian-Americans in electronic music, and released the excellent Dreamland 2021 this year. A San Francisco native, he headlined the Twin Peaks Stage on Saturday night following his fellow SF-er 24KGoldn’s performance. The pair would perform their hit “I Admit It” together at the festival and for someone who plays electronic festivals all over the world, a return to the normalcy of being back on the road and on stage was beginning to set in.

“I think that it was a transitional period for all of us. For me, it really didn’t hit until even last week when I was in Miami playing to 10,000+ kids and for the first time, I had the realization that we’re really back. It’s not a minimal capacity. People were ready and it’s great for the culture.”

We were promised a return to normal. Or, actually, we probably weren’t. But it sure felt like with the defeat of Donald Trump and the vaccine rollout and a stream of festival and tour announcements, that by the fall of 2021, we would be back to some version of normal. But that’s definitely not how it has felt. Instead, we keep redefining a new normal, adjusting our expectations to the reality that many people won’t be getting vaccinated, that indoor masks are here to stay, that safety from Covid is not a guarantee, regardless of the actions we take.

That’s all to say that the return of Outside Lands to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco wasn’t a one-for-one replica of the festival of old. After undergoing multiple postponements due to the pandemic, the fest finally returned to action more than two years after its 2019 installment, shifting from its typical mid-summer dates to Halloween weekend. Funny enough, the weather on the west side of San Francisco really isn’t that different any time of year, so aside from the costumes that grew denser as the weekend went on, the date switch had little effect on the actual feeling of the festival.

So what was different? There were vaccine/testing checks, all done efficiently using the Clear app, utilizing wristbands that made entry a breeze, even better than before the pandemic. There were mask requirements indoors, and despite general mask recommendations for the rest of the grounds, a good portion of the crowd opted to enjoy the crisp, cool air. There were also more lineup changes than usual, most notably Young Thug canceling a set Saturday evening on the main stage, which isn’t exactly uncommon in a normal year, and should only be more common as everything from supply chain issues to general health affect touring.

Tame Impala Outside Lands 2021 — Philip Cosores

But mostly, Outside Lands 2021 felt like the return to normal we’ve been craving, the type of place you can go and temporarily forget about the horrid previous 18 months. Sunday closer Tame Impala exemplified that with their multisensory experience around their pre-pandemic offering, The Slow Rush. Seeing the fans in the front row absolutely lose their shit with the faux commercial for the drug Rushium — some clearly questioning whether the psychedelic video was druggy in production or just druggy because they were, in fact, on drugs — was equally hilarious and endearing. The band’s decision to announce that Tame Impala had been replaced by The Wiggles, and then showing up dressed like the kids’ entertainers for their Halloween set, only added to the joyous insanity of it all. But frills aside, Tame Impala was the act of the weekend that best bridged the fest’s dueling demographics, where OSL veterans and the next generation of Zoomers could enjoy one of contemporary rock’s best bands together.

Lizzo’s infectious personality also managed to unite the OSL audience; she’s the kind of pop star that can attract a crowd out of sheer curiosity as much as because of actual attachment to the music. And it’s a good thing, because witnessing a Lizzo concert is to become a fan, with the catchy tunes joining forces with a captivating stage presence that just screams stardom. Her rise from daytime small stages at festivals to the marquee act has been a pretty wonderful storyline over the last half-decade, and if she can continue to turn out hits, she’ll be doing the same for a long time.

Lizzo Outside Lands 2021 — Philip Cosores

In fact, of the headliners, only The Strokes that disappointed. It’s tough to say what’s going on there, but it’s easy to say that the responsibility falls solely on leader Julian Casablancas. His interest in his main band has seemed slight for literally decades, with him much more artistically and, seemingly, emotionally invested in his side work with The Voidz. On this night (and, through conversations, other nights of the current run), Casablancas seemed to hold his audience in contempt, baffled by why anyone would care about his music and giving them little reason to while on stage. It says something about the undeniability of their catalog that even with a lead singer phoning it in, they still entertained and showed flashes of greatness. Still, it was clearly the least attended headlining set of the weekend.

The Strokes Outside Lands 2021 — Philip Cosores

Outside of the headliners, the highlights were many. Vampire Weekend might as well have been a closer, as few bands that are still at their creative peak can fill a festival set with more recognizable tunes. Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten got together to play their great recent single “Like I Used To,” while also offering career-spanning sets that presented versions of themselves less tied to particular album cycles. More in the hip-hop lane, Rico Nasty and Nelly both showed off polar-opposite appeals, one with inviting abrasiveness, the other with a stream of tunes deeply ingrained in the public consciousness. And then there’s Khruangbin, the ideal festival band for 2021 that can tap into decades of hits from other artists as well as their own hyper-vibey psych-funk, becoming the ultimate communal band.

Outside Lands also remembers that festivals should be about music discovery. That’s why getting there early is essential, to make sure you take in people like Bartees Strange, whose anthemic indie rock is on a trajectory for bigger rooms as soon as next year. Or people like Dijon, whose silky voice is buoyed by a stage persona that’s hard to take your eyes off, his face contorting and eyebrows furrowing to exemplify the passion of his music. And then there’s my beloved Petey, who opened the Twin Peaks stage on Sunday to a small but mighty crowd, showing off his unique blend of clever songwriting and absurdist humor. He’s the absolute best.

Bartees Strange Outside Lands — Philip Cosores

Of course, there were all the rest of the activations and eats that make Outside Lands one of the best live events in the world. Maybe most notable is Grasslands, which thanks to California’s legalized weed laws, actually has areas now designated for consumption. Pair that with the self-explanatory Beerlands and Winelands, and well, you have yourself a nice time in the park. The cuisine was expertly curated with some of the best of the Bay, with a special shoutout needing to go to both the wonderful sticky buns from The Chairman and the delicious BBQ from Vegan Mob. But the overall sense of Outside Lands 2021 wasn’t a band or a song or a bite, it was being among tens of thousands of people and losing sight of the greater world narrative for a moment. Live music is a place to lose yourself and find it again. It felt more essential than ever this year.

Check out some photos from this year below.