It’s been three years since I had the opportunity to check out Treasure Island Music Festival, but I actually might be more excited for it than I was about Outside Lands. Outside Lands is great and all, but it’s become a mega event that gets too crowded for me to consider it an absolute favorite.

I’ve heard friends justify not going to Treasure Island this year due to a lineup they’re not familiar with, but to me that’s just more reason I’ve got to be there. Who am I pumped on seeing? Tycho, Matthew Dear, Toro Y Moi, Grimes and Los Campesinos! are plenty enough to keep me happy, but I’m also definitely checking out Wild Belle and Brit Daniel’s new band Divine Fits (think Spoon + Wolf Parade).

Photo from Electrojams

See the thing about TIMF is you don’t have to make any sacrifices since there are no overlapping sets. You get to see every artist (if you fancy) or take a break to ride a gigantic ferris wheel and have a dance party at the silent disco. Getting there is a small obstacle, but the festival has a free shuttle from AT&T Park that has been on point in the past. If the weather is in any way nearly as awesome as it has been lately, you’ll be treated to a absolutely dope view of Downtown San Francisco. You can tell I’m psyched, but how I could I not be with such fond memories of TIMF in my past. Hope to see you there, dancing and smiling away. That’s what this weekend’s for.

The essentials:
Lineup/Schedule
Getting there
Festival app
2012 Treasure Island Mixtape
What Treasure Island artists dig about SF

Last weekend, I had the privilege of attending Outside Lands for Holiday Matinee. And since everyone’s been asking me “How was it? Did I dig it?” In a word, helltotheyes. If the festival offered nothing else, you really can’t go wrong with a lineup that includes Beck, Sigur Rós, Jack White (check out this surprise set) and Stevie Wonder, but there was plenty more that made Golden Gate Park the place to be for 72 hours.

Much to any local’s amusement who is familiar with SF weather, some ladies peppered the crowds in Daisy Duke shorts and tanks like it was Coachella. Heck, one girl wore a open leather jacket with nipple tape. True, the days started warm, but as the clouds and Karl The Fog rolled in, it made me wonder how many hoodies and blankets the festival sold to out of towners. PayPal sponsored the brilliant idea of festival lockers for the weekend (only $5-10 for all 3 days!), but those quickly sold out to the most prepared festival-goers.

As for the tunes, it’s excruciating painful sometimes to discover we still haven’t figured out teleportation and I pretty much had to miss some acts I really wanted to check out. Father John Misty was a consensus favorite among just about anyone who saw him, although I happened to miss that set. Personal highlights for me included Reggie Watts explaining what a festival’s for, YACHT’s energy (plus our interview), The Kills’ badass bandana-clad percussionists and the media tent dance party for two hours of Stevie Wonder.

Festival food was delish and I ate like I was about to hibernate for the next 4 months. Fried chicken sandwiches, fresh poke, veggie wraps, pizza, burritos, tots and mulled cider – how could I not when everything was local fare from area restaurants? While last year’s tree house fort and swing was sorely missed, I dug the smaller stage nestled in the woods for folksy/bluegrass tunes. And if your timing was just right like mine, you may have even caught a mime funeral. This area of the festival only got better at night when the lights and kicked up dust made everything look magical.

With year five of Outside Lands in the books, it’s established itself as one of the premiere US music festivals. Check out our full Outside Lands photo gallery and previous coverage too!

If you’ve had the chance to see Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans, but didn’t, stop that nonsense right now. My first time was FYF last year and ever since I heard about the promise of the Western Utopian American Triangle and saw Claire scaling a giant speaker with an LA Metro train passing behind at twilight, I knew I needed to have a chat with them. I was psyched to get my chance at Outside Lands this year and the duo was just as friendly and intriguing as I imagined. We talked very little music (they get enough of that), but we did prattle on about aliens, the perfect day, science and how they’re inadvertently tapped into luxury boating culture. Have a listen to my YACHT interview below and you’ll like them even more than you already do. Pinky swear.

Photo by Jenn Farmer

YACHT Interview

Ready for a weekend of tunes in Golden Gate Park? We’ll be there and thought we’d drop an Outside Lands 2012 mixtape of some of the artists we’re looking forward to seeing. Throw this on, build your schedule with the official mobile app and you’ll be even more pumped than you already are.

p.s. If you don’t see the tape you’re probably on your mobile device. Spotify Premium users can listen here.

Here in San Francisco, our seasons are fashionably late and summer music festivals are no exception. We’re just psyched to have been invited back again for three days of music, comedy and awesomeness at Outside Lands next weekend. While the festival certainly packs a punch with Beck, Sigur Ros, Neil Young, Stevie Wonder and Jack White, I also look forward to checking out the smaller acts which for whatever reason, I haven’t made it out to see at smaller venues.

This year, some of the acts I won’t be missing are Tennis, Passion Pit, Sharon Von Etten, Andrew Bird and Michael Kiwanuka although there are many artists worthy of your time if you take a look the full lineup. I hope to get my laughs delivered direct from David Cross and Neil Patrick Harris, make impossible food choices and I will most definitely be using the bike valet since buses and cabs are about as scarce as California burritos in this town when you’d just like to go home and pass out. We’ll be dropping our Outside Lands mixtape on Monday (it’s out now), so check back with us then for some jams.

August has been mighty fine as far as mixtapes go. We had our Outside Lands mix a couple weeks back and now’s it time for the regular monthly release. We’ve got comedy by Ricky Gervais and music by M83, Neon Indian, Sondre Lerche and more. Share and like it if ya dig. Better yet, support these artists!

Last weekend, half of Holiday Matinee met in the middle of a spacious San Francisco park for Outside Lands. Despite our inability to be in four places at once, we caught some really rad shows and met volumes of super friendly people. Smaller, less-packed performances by Vetiver and Phantogram were a treat for our elbows and ears, while bigger bands like Arcade Fire and The Shins lived up to the hype and successfully gave us the chills.

If you were on the hunt for more than just music, the festival offered a bunch of different options for exploring. We spent a lot of time in McLaren Pass, admiring the interactive installations from Monica Canilao, swinging with the chimes and sampling bites from the Food Truck Forest vendors (tots + fried mac & cheese = <3). The booze selection, however, left a lot to be desired. Forget Big Boi, we were missing craft brews, as Heineken completely dominated the beer booths. This had Kiran and Ice Cream Man reminiscing over the good ol’ Goose Island days of Pitchfork. Thankfully, the $2-4 pours splashes of local vino inside Wine Lands were there to quench our thirst.

Some favorite memories include: The Decemberists’ encore performance of Mariner’s Revenge Song, which had the audience clapping and screaming like they were being swallowed by a whale, our interviews with Chaz, STRFKR and The Stone Foxes, winning a koozie in the shape of a shoe, a magician playing the cello in Choco Lands and Dave Chappelle’s first beach ball concert.

In its fourth year, Outside Lands took it up a notch, hosting a wonderful weekend packed with memorable shows, enthusiastic fans, delicious food and environmental friendliness. We’re already counting down the days until next year’s festival and looking forward to the magical things that take place within the woods of Golden Gate Park.

See more photos here and check out our previous Outside Lands coverage too!