When Do Outside Lands 2023 Tickets Go On Sale?

Outside Lands festival is set to return for its 15th iteration this August at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. For this special anniversary, the lineup is promising.

Taking the stages over the span of three days, August 11 to 13, are Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Rey, Foo Fighters, Megan Thee Stallion, Janelle Monáe, Maggie Rogers, and more. Cigarettes After Sex, Lil Yachty, JID, Willow, and Orville Peck are also on the roster.

With acts this exciting, tickets are bound to sell out quickly.

When do Outside Lands 2023 tickets go on sale?

Fans can begin to buy tickets as early as Wednesday, March 8, at 10 PST. Festivalgoers will be able to purchase three-day general admission tickets, GA+ tickets, and VIP tickets.

Three-day GA tickets ($499) will allow fans entry into Golden Gate Park for the festival, as well as access to food and beverage vendors.

GA+ ticketholders ($674) will be able to enter the festival expedited, and have access to flushable bathrooms, refillable water stations, and complimentary soft drinks. They will also be able to purchase alcoholic beverages at a full-service bar.

Those with VIP tickets ($1,029) will be able to enter the park through special entrances and have access to viewing areas at the Lands End, Sutro, and Twin Peaks stages. They will also be able to rent special VIP lockers during the festival days, and they will receive a special commemorative poster.

Outside Lands is also allowing fans to set up payment plans to pay for their tickets and passes. Tickets will be available for purchase here.

You can view the full Outside Lands 2023 lineup below.

Outside Lands 2023
Outside Lands

Some of the artists mentioned here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary or Warner Music Group.

Outside Lands’ Diverse 2023 Lineup Is Led By Foo Fighters, Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Rey, And Others

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park will once again play host to the Outside Lands festival this year, from August 11 to 13. Ahead of then, the lineup was unveiled today (March 7), and it’s led by Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, Odesza, Lana Del Rey, The 1975, Megan Thee Stallion, Zedd, Janelle Monáe, Maggie Rogers, and Fisher.

There are plenty of highlights beyond that, too, including Lil Yachty, JID, Interpol, Willow, Father John Misty, Tobe Nwigwe, Orville Peck, Aespa, Beabadoobee, Alvvays, Alex G, Soccer Mommy, Diesel (aka Shaquille O’Neal), Raveena, Inhaler, Ethel Cain, Samia, The Jungle Giants, and Wednesday.

As for how to experience the festival yourself, three-day tickets go on sale tomorrow (March 8) at 10 a.m. PT, via the Outside Lands website.

At the moment, it’s unclear what Foo Fighters will look like for their headlining performance, as they have yet to announce who will be the band’s new drummer following the death of Taylor Hawkins (although fans have ideas about who should get the spot). The band’s performance could be in support of a new album, if a radio DJ’s apparent accidental leak is to be believed.

Check out the full Outside Lands lineup above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Post Malone’s Live Show Is Exactly What We Need Right Now In This Twisted World

When I arrived at Outside Lands festival in San Francisco last weekend, I was skeptical of whether Post Malone would work as a Sunday night headliner on the main stage. This is the same stage that acts like Stevie Wonder, Metallica, and Arcade Fire have closed down before and now this guy was gonna follow suit?

I’ll admit, I haven’t been the biggest fan of Post Malone over the years. He always struck me as an artist who benefited from being white (he did), sliding from hip-hop to rock to country and back seemingly on a whim. But now, as he has become one of the biggest pop and hip-hop stars in the world, the challenge is to present himself with authenticity.

It’s hard to be at a concert these days and not wonder what the “new normal” is that we’re living in. With COVID rates still all over the map, what are we risking by being at a concert, let alone a festival with tens of thousands of people around you for a headlining set? I’ve found that you really need to surrender to the circumstances to be able to approach the connection we used to feel with artists before March of 2020. Surrender to the music, surrender to what might be in the air, and just let go. It’s a slippery proposition, but we need live music right now more than ever. And there’s not a more powerful concert moment lately than when an artist helps get you over that hump of anxious energy so you can be in the moment.

As Post Malone walked out onto the stage, with a red cup in hand, one of the first things he said to the crowd was, “I’m here to play some sh*tty music and get f*cked up!” The crowd of tens of thousands roared. I sorta rolled my eyes and wondered if this was just a shtick. But what I soon came to realize about him, is that he was absolutely wrapped up in the moment the entire time.

You see, the thing that’s the most fascinating about Post Malone on stage, is that he’s up there by himself in front of a wall of lights and the occasional pyrotechnics that erupt around him. There’s no DJ, there’s no hype man, no band, etc… So it really raises the stakes because the attention is always focused entirely on him.

He stood there in white Chuck Taylors, a T-shirt with Cameron Tucker’s face from Modern Family emblazoned on it, and cut-off jean shorts that showed off all of his lower body tattoos. He opened with “Wow,” from 2019’s Hollywood’s Bleeding, then went into “Wrapped Around Your Finger” from the newly released Twelve Carat Toothache, followed by “Better Now” from 2018’s Beerbongs & Bentleys. It struck me just how much the Post Malone discography had grown and when I looked around during “Better Now” especially, the most diverse crowd of the weekend was easily the biggest, too. And everyone was moving. The crowd was gripped.

Outside Lands 2022 Post Malone
Justin Yee

As Posty’s performance kept going, I found myself increasingly interested in everything he was going to do next. On “I Fall Apart,” he bent over and straddled the mic with his mouth, hands behind his back, while singing as loudly as he could. When that song ended, he grabbed an acoustic guitar and took a seat to sing “Stay” and “Go Flex,” a cigarette in between his fingers the whole time. It was a pure display of emotion.

I loved the way he danced and moved and worked the crowd; losing himself, his happiness was galvanizing. When he played “White Iverson,” the song that first put him on the map eight years ago, it felt like a real moment of togetherness for the crowd. And even if it has its limits sometimes, his leaned-out Gen Z falsetto was endearing and pure.

But it was the way that he was unapologetically himself that stuck with me the most. He sings about getting f*cked up (and sometimes about the ramifications of it, too) and he presents himself like he’s in the same mind-state as the crowd when he’s on stage. He’s beaming, he’s partying, but he reflects on his insecurities, too. “Thank you so much for your love and support over the years,” he told the crowd. “The world has been such a sh*tty place and it just feels so beautiful to be out here with you to have a good time. I feel like I’m the luckiest f*cking guy in the world. How everyone was so patient with me and supportive of me. You know…this long stretch we’ve had.”

He presented the notion that he needed this just as much as we did and in that moment, the stage sort of disappeared. By the time he closed with “Rockstar” and “Congratulations,” it felt like we were all there getting f*cked up together, except one of us was singing and their gratitude showed. Here was an artist who had to be misunderstood before he could be accepted. Surely we can all relate.

And I came around to Post Malone that night. When he smashed his guitar and then set it afire in a controlled blaze, then smashed it some more to extinguish it and gave the pieces to the crowd before walking off? I felt that. And there was something especially powerful seeing it all with 20,000 other people. Because we’re all still trying to figure out what the new normal is in this world and Post Malone’s wild performance made so much sense in its own chaos.

Because it’s ok to party your face off and lose your mind for a while. This generation has been privy to way too much BS and it’s not stopping anytime soon. But if we can just let go, and surrender together, we might still make it.

Outside Lands 2022 Showed An Ever-Evolving Mega Festival In Its Prime

There’s an architectural adage that explains how the sign of a healthy city is an ever-evolving skyline. In San Francisco, the colorfully reflective Salesforce Tower replacing the iconic Transamerica Pyramid as the most prominent pillar in Downtown’s lineup of buildings is a prime example of this concept. A permanent fixture signifying a period of growth.

Lasting music festivals are similar in their nature. The sign of a healthy festival is one that also flashes an ever-evolving landscape and more importantly, one that continues to reflect the city where it takes place in new and exciting ways. Outside Lands, San Francisco’s most significant pop music festival, operates like a city within a city, one that welcomed 225,000 people to an unusually sunny Golden Gate Park this past weekend for its 14th edition. But unlike a skyline, a lot of those changes — besides the new light-up windmill which replaced the double wooden mills of old — can’t be seen from a distance and are only fully appreciated when traversing the festival’s bountiful paths and walkways to “Lands” within Golden Gate Park, one of America’s quintessential music festival venues.

Outside Lands 2022
Justin Yee

It’s nothing short of a privilege to be coursing through Golden Gate Park’s meadows and fields for the weekend. It’s an easy walk to the end of the Polo Field to catch Green Day, Post Malone, or SZA’s headlining sets, but walk beneath the cypress tree-coverings of McLaren Pass, and you might just stumble into DJ’s Q-Bert and Shortkut of the famed Invisbl Skratch Piklz turntablist crew throwing down a world-class display at a pop-up stage in a cocktail-themed corner of the fest. Stroll through the festival’s outer edge along the North entrance and you can cross the street into Marx Meadow for the electronic music-focused SOMA Tent. While last year’s 1,000 capacity area was an overpopulated mess, this year’s tent had double the capacity for DJs ranging up to Tokimonsta and Claude VonStroke. Pull open the door to Outside Lands’ only indoor stage and you’re transported into a strikingly large space akin to one of San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood underground clubs, complete with LED cubes encrusting the stage. Fine-tuning an indoor electronic music component to the festival was long overdue for Outside Lands and for the club kids and ravers who want to dance in a warehouse-like setting all weekend, it’s a swell function that also funnels away traffic from the rest of the fest.

Outside Lands 2022 SOMA Tent
Justin Yee

You see, every corner of the footprint is built to showcase the beauty of the grounds. At the sweeping, sunken meadow of the Sutro Stage — where Faye Webster dazzled, Wet Leg roused, and Robert Glasper proved once again that he’s one of this summer’s must-see festival acts — unsightly porta potties that lined the outer edge were removed this year in favor of a more concealed and functional facility on the opposite side of the field. To say it improved aesthetics is an understatement and it was one of many functional improvements that Outside Lands is beginning to deploy as it becomes increasingly well-oiled.

Outside Lands 2022 Faye Webster
Justin Yee

Walk through a tunnel beneath the Polo Field bleachers and you slide into the flowering Grasslands, a legal cannabis wonderland with dispensary booths selling every variant of cannabis product imaginable. Over the last handful of years as cannabis laws have become relaxed, Outside Lands has worked to perfect this unique music festival experience. There are newly expanded “consumption areas” where folks can lounge and puff. A stoner jam band played on Sunday while carving up tiki idols as dispensary hacks hucked “buy one get one” deals like your typical pot shop experience. One dispensary even offered a “FREE GUNNA” t-shirt with the purchase of an eighth (I support this, #FreeYSL).

And for as much of a marketing-palooza as any music festival experience can be, Outside Lands’ corporate interests blended seamlessly into the background, with the exception of the new Music Den by Toyota stage. But to be fair, this was hands down the best addition to the festival’s overall music offerings. Acts who played earlier in the festival got an opportunity to appear again in a natural amphitheater-like setting. If you didn’t get in between noon and 2pm, you could still catch indie acts like The Beths, L’Rain, and Cassandra Jenkins later in the day. It proved a welcome respite to lay on the grassy slope looking at the obscure reflections of ourselves on oversized ornaments perched above on the cypress branches, while the artists played intentionally lowered volume sets.

Outside Lands 2022
Justin Yee

And while the transformation of Golden Gate Park into this colorful community is always the star of the show, the music was better than I anticipated compared to last year’s sublime lineup over Halloween Weekend. Green Day broke through across the Bay as an Oakland punk trio in the ’90s and here they were, closing down Saturday night’s slate with the #hits that got them here. “I remember one time we tried to play in Dolores Park. There were a lot of punk bands and then the cops came and shut it down,” singer Billie Joe Armstrong said to the crowd. “Well, they didn’t shut this one down!” The set was also a reminder of how under-appreciated Mike Dirnt is as a bassist. His grooves on “Longview” and “Welcome To Paradise” belong in whatever the equivalent of the punk rock Louvre is.

Outside Lands 2022 Green Day Mike Dirnt
Justin Yee

Green Day as a local headliner was part of a bigger theme for Outside Lands 2022, one that saw a bigger commitment to Bay Area artists than ever. San Francisco rapper Larry June put down the best party set of the weekend with a prime 5:30 pm slot on the Twin Peaks Stage — the festival’s second largest. The chill, weird, lit Bay Area ethos was blowing through the diverse crowd in clouds of smoke all the way to June rapping “Bitch I feel like I’m dreaminnng…” on set closer “Smoothies In 1991.”

Outside Lands 2022 Larry June
Justin Yee

EDM producer Illenium, who went to St. Ignatius High School in the nearby Sunset district, closed down Twin Peaks Stage on Sunday. But the weekend felt like a true showcase for emerging Bay Area talent too; a “risk” that Outside Lands wasn’t always willing to take. In building this true ecosystem that reflects its locale, sets from Bay Area-bred acts like rising pop singer Thuy, Atlantic Records rapper Symba, flamboyant empowerment pop group Planet Booty, indie stalwart Spellling, and the biggest surprise of the weekend, Odie, bridge the great divide of the stratification of festival crowds. In effect, it hits different when we can all score more than one for the home team.

And then there’s the big ticket stars. the artists most people end up remembering the most. And it’s hard to begin this conversation without bringing up Pusha T first. King Push is bar none of the best lyricists in the game and he proves it every time on stage. Incredible energy, no bells and whistles, just a non-stop flow and series of poised death stares delivered while standing in the cleanest pair of coke white Yeezy Boost 350s you’ve ever seen. He’s the type of dude who can shout sweeping statements to the crowd like, “It’s Almost Dry! Rap album of the muthaf*ckin year. Easy!” And then perform with such conviction that you can’t help but think how right he is when it’s over.

Outside Lands 2022 Pusha T
Justin Yee

SZA’s Friday night headlining set was evidence of Outside Lands’ growing continuity in booking. The singer, who came out standing on an elaborate lighthouse erected on stage, first graced the noon slot at Twin Peaks stage in 2015. And even without that long-awaited new album in tow, the crowd was still wrapped around her finger on all of the Ctrl jams, a Doja Cat-less rendition of “Kiss Me More,” and an explosive set-opening “All The Stars.”

The largest crowds of the weekend felt like they were (weirdly) for Weezer and Jack Harlow, but largely a function of people preparing for headliners Post Malone and Green Day, who played right after them, respectively. On Saturday, Harlow made a rare performance backed by a live band, commanding the youngest crowd of the weekend that gradually became older as folks started positioning themselves for Green Day. Weezer playing a sing-along set on the main stage’s penultimate slot of the entire festival Sunday night was a masterstroke of understanding what works and what doesn’t at a music festival in 2022. Organizers Another Planet Entertainment learned from 2016’s debacle of a Lionel Richie closing set that was very sparsely attended. Sure, it’s the legacy act, but look, you can’t please everyone and acting as such is important. So send the aging hipsters home early along with Rivers Cuomo and the Microsoft ball cap he took off (facts only, you can’t make this stuff up) so they can make it to work on time on Monday, and let the rest of the crowd vibe out to Post Malone.

Outside Lands 2022 SZA
Justin Yee

For those who stayed, they’d have seen an artist on top of the music world showing the crowd exactly why he belongs there. You might’ve not known it right off the bat though. “I’m here to play some shitty music and get f*cked up!” Malone told the crowd at the beginning of his set; red cup in hand. Make no mistake about it, this was a galvanizing performance for easily the most diverse crowd of the weekend and Posty kept us guessing the entire time.

At one point, he straddled a mic with his mouth on the ground to sing “I Fall Apart” (surely making Karen O proud) then got up to take a seat, grabbed an acoustic guitar to play “Stay” and “Go Flex” while never putting his cigarette down. “The world has been such a shitty place and it just feels so beautiful to be out here with you to have a good time,” Malone said, radiating a message of love that was a resounding theme for just about every artist on stage over the weekend. And you know what? This is music to get f*cked up to. And this day and age, when we have no clue what virus is floating in the air around us when we’re surrounded by tens of thousands of people, surrendering to the music is the only way to enjoy ourselves in this environment. And nobody did surrender better than the guy who set his guitar on fire and smashed it, after performing alone on stage for the last hour and a half of an unforgettable weekend.

Outside Lands 2022 Post Malone
Justin Yee

Check out some photos from this year’s festival below.

Outside Lands 2022 The Marias
Justin Yee
Outside lands 2022 Jack Harlow
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 SZA
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 Weezer Rivers Cuomo
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 Larry June
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 Post Malone
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Outside Lands 2022
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Outside Lands 2022 Pussy Riot
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Outside Lands 2022 Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 Hiatus Kaiyote
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Outside Lands 2022 Amber Mark
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Outside Lands 2022 Sampa The Great
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Outside Lands 2022
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Outside Lands 2022 Odie
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 Planet Booty
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Outside Lands 2022 Spelling
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 The Marias
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 Q-Bert Shortkut
Justin Yee
Outside Lands 2022 Post Malone
Justin Yee

Some of the artists mentioned here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Lil Uzi Vert’s Outside Lands Stage Crasher Got One Heck Of A Souvenir

Generally speaking, crashing the stage at a concert is a bad idea. Security guards tend to get pretty jumpy whenever a fan climbs into an artist’s space uninvited — and for good reason, considering all the shenanigans that can happen up there (even the performing act isn’t always safe). But, every so often, drunk and/or overconfident showgoers emerge unscathed with triumphant stories to tell their friends — if they can remember anything the next day — and, even more occasionally, a great souvenir or two for the road.

That was the case during Lil Uzi Vert’s set at Outside Lands this past weekend, where a young man found his way onstage just as Uzi was set to perform their verse from Playboi Carti’s “Wokeuplikethis.” Although security acted quickly to surround the intruder, Uzi paused the show, asking the guards to wait one second, asking the fan for his phone, and offering to take a selfie with him. Security then directed him safely off the stage so Uzi could get back to performing. It looked like it could have been a tense situation, but ultimately, everything turned out okay.

Now, please do not take this as a license to go jumping on just any stage, even Uzi’s. Just because the Philly rapper was nice this time doesn’t mean they want their safety taken for granted or their kindness abused. And with anyone else… well, if you play stupid games, you win painful prizes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

SZA and Post Malone Named Headliners for Outside Lands 2022

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Outside Lands is set to return to San Francisco for the 2022 Festival season. Among the headliners are Post Malone and SZA. Green Day is also named a headliner.

Filling out the stellar Outside Lands lineup include Jack Harlow, Lil Uzi Vert, Kali Uchis, Pusha T, and more. The entire festival will have over 90 artists.

“We are ecstatic to unveil this year’s lineup, which is one of the most dynamic and diverse we’ve ever had. We are ready to get back to Golden Gate Park with our original summer dates again,” said Allen Scott, Co-Founder and Co-Producer of Outside Lands and President of Concerts of Festivals at Another Planet Entertainment. “Last year’s festival was not only a cathartic experience, but a much-needed celebration for the Bay Area and beyond. We can’t wait to do it all again with our Outside Lands community this August.”

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3-Day General Admission, VIP, Payment Plan, and Golden Gate Club passes will go on sale April 20 at 10am PT exclusively via  www.SFOutsideLands.com. 3-Day GA are $399, 3-Day VIP are $799 and the Payment Plan 3-Day pass starts at $99 down for GA and $199 down for VIP, each with two additional payments. Golden Gate Club passes, the most exclusive VIP festival experience offering perks like front-of-stage and sky deck viewing and personal concierge services, are $4,699. 

The post SZA and Post Malone Named Headliners for Outside Lands 2022 appeared first on The Source.

Post Malone, SZA, And Green Day Are Headlining The 2022 Outside Lands Festival Lineup

Along with Coachella, San Francisco’s Outside Lands festival is easily the most comprehensive music fest on the West Coast. While last year’s heavily-costumed edition took place over Halloween weekend as pandemic precautions delayed it a few months, Outside Lands 2022 is back to its usual early-August weekend and the newly announced lineup has a little bit of everything. Green Day, SZA, and Post Malone are headlining the three-day affair, which goes down from August 5th to 7th at one of the greatest venues in country, Golden Gate Park.

The first batch of artists on the lineup following the primary headliners is likewise stacked with Jack Harlow, Phoebe Bridgers, and Weezer coming next. Also performing are Lil Uzi Vert, Ilennium, Kali Uchis, Disclosure, Mitski, Anitta, and Mac DeMarco. And while this is looks like a top-heavy affair on the surface, there’s a seemingly endless list of diverse acts that standout like Pusha T, Kim Petras, Dominic Fike, The Marías, Larry June, Wet Leg, Pussy Riot, Robert Glasper, Griff, Cassandra Jenkins, L’Rain, Duckwrth, and more.

The SOMA Tent also makes its return this year, making it so that the indoor dance music tent seems to be here to stay. While it’s a bit antithetical to the concept of “outside” lands, it was obvious that the festival needed to bring this type of element into the fold so this year’s acts like Claude VonStroke, Tokimonsta, Dixon, and others could play in the club-like atmosphere that their music is best suited for.

Tickets to Outside Lands 2022 are on sale now here and check out the same link for the full lineup and additional details.

Outside Lands Lineup
Outside Lands

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Outside Lands Festival Artists Reflect On Playing In Front Of Thousands Of People Again

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

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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

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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

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Adrian Spinelli

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

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Wilson Lee

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.”