The Portola Music Festival, now in its third year on San Francisco's Pier 80, felt far more crowded and much better organized than in its initial outing — and the VIP offerings have only grown to occupy a huge footprint of the event.

There was a true mix of San Francisco weather for this year's Portola Fest, with a mostly cloudy, chilly, and blustery Saturday giving way to a lovely and sunny Sunday on Pier 80. The festival, largely focused on electronic music DJs and producers with some indie pop singers thrown in, is a more rave-y counterpoint to Outside Lands, and has matured in its third year into something that clearly has a strong audience draw — with a 21-and-up crowd that skews a little older than some larger, mainstream festivals.

Also, the Warehouse stage, in the airplane-hangar-sized warehouse that was once Larry Ellison's America's Cup Oracle boat headquarters, now plays a role as a kind of intense-late-night-rave venue from noon onward — more of a side attraction for the heavily drugged than a main event, like it was when Charlie XCX played there in 2022 and caused a potentially dangerous stampede. (Still, internationally known DJ Honey Dijon made a notable appearance in there on Sunday.)

Clearly festival producers Goldenvoice have seen significant demand for VIP passes, with this year's VIP area occupying about one fourth of the festival grounds and nearly half of the audience space in front of the central mainstage. The Mission District's Thai restaurant Farmhouse Kitchen had a whole sit-down dining operation inside VIP, in addition to multiple VIP food concessions and bars. By contrast, the food options for GA ticket holders were fewer and mostly far off by the Bay side of the pier.

As in previous years, there were noise complaints from over in Alameda — but the Entertainment Commission reported to the Chronicle that there were about half as many complaints this year as last year, and Goldenvoice took steps to re-orient the stages for reducing sound across the Bay.

Standout sets on Saturday included Empress Of, Frank Moody, Jessie Ware, Deltron 3030, and Rufus du Sol. And early-aughts British pop princess Natasha Bedingfield made a surprise appearance doing a 15-minute set that included her hits "Unwritten" and "These Words" — and while these were big crowd pleasers, Bedingfield hit a few sour notes.

Peaches, who continues to pop up on the dance festival circuit 24 years after the release of her seminal hit "Fuck the Pain Away," performed other profane numbers like "Vaginoplasty" and "Rub," all with the help of two backup dancers with long-haird vaginal wigs on their crotches and vaginas for heads.

Sunday's headliners Justice and Fisher did plenty to keep the crowd rolling, and UK house music producers Disclosure (brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence) put on a sweeping 75-minute set that included hits like "Latch," "Help Me Lose My Mind," and "When a Fire Starts to Burn," and closed out with the hard-driving "Tondo."

And Rebecca Black, primarily known for her 13-year-old pop hit "Friday," came out as queer in 2020 and has been up to much darker, campier stuff since then. She put on a terrific, eminently watchable show Sunday at the Ship Tent for all those festival goers who weren't drawn to DJ Pee Wee (Anderson.Paak), or Barry Can't Swim, both on simultaneously at the bigger stages.

The crowd for Barry Can't Swim:

Here's a drone shot of the crowd for Chase & Status on Sunday:

But the Sunday set everyone was bound to talk about the most, for better or worse, was M.I.A., who did 50 minutes of both singing and incoherently ranting, angrily, about American politics and how she's been "canceled" by her American audiences multiple times.

Wearing a bright, orange-red wig, M.I.A. commented between renditions of "Bad Girls" and "Come Around" saying things like "Don’t get me wrong, I love Mexicans. Honestly, I do. And I love Americans, too. I do. I got canceled so many fucking times because of you guys, for you guys. Before you canceled Snowden. Maya got canceled. That was for the Americans, so I don’t want to hear it."

And: "“Before Nicki Minaj had this wig, M.I.A. had this wig. Before Rihanna had this wig, M.I.A. had this wig. Before there was Kamala Harris, there was M.I.A."

And also: "Kamala Harris! Donald Trump! Yes, and there’s no one else."

M.I.A., who is a British citizen of Sri Lankan descent, has been outspoken about American politics, and even issued an endorsement of Trump last month. The singer had, inexplicably, been a big fan of RFK Jr., perhaps because she is a fan of conspiracy theories, and she followed suit in endorsing Trump after RFK did, tweeting, "RFK will inherit America when God is ready to replant and rebuild it righteously."

M.I.A., who was slotted in between Justice and Disclosure, lost a fair number of audience members a short way into her set, probably because people needed to get food and got tired of her bullshit.

Top image courtesy of Portola Music Festival

This November is a big month for all the teams in the Pacific division, as they spend the entire month playing their division opponents. The Sharks have shaken off their lackluster play to go 6-3-1 in their last ten games, three of which were against the Phoenix Coyotes. That includes Thursday night's 6-0 shutout, a game that they absolutely dominated. All told, in the three games against the Coyotes, they had two shutouts and only allowed one goal.

Douglas Murray, hero to college students everywhere and a Cornell grad himself, is now second in the league in plus/minus at +15. Woof.

Jeremy Roenick, of all people, is leading the league in game winning goals. 5 of his 6 goals on the year have been difference makers, including his 500th career goal. His signing, for minimal money, is looking like a genius move right now, as is the signing of Sandis Ozolinsh, who has put in quality minutes on defense, and has helped spark the Sharks power play with some good point play.

Captain Patrick Marleau is finally producing some points, and it's frankly about time. He, Milan Michalek, and Jonathan Cheechoo have been MIA for much of the year, and it's thanks to improved play by Joe Pavelski and Stever Bernier, some nice sniping by the Gooch (rookie Devin Setoguchi) and Torrey Mitchel that Sharks haven't been left behind by the rest of the division.

Image courtesy of Jon Swenson at Sharkspage.

We're a little late to the party on this one (sorry, sorry, sorry, we've been totally swamped at our day job lately, which is why we've been kind of MIA -- curse you, Ed Jew, for getting yourself indicted during our busiest week!) -- but can you believe Marilyn Manson actually managed to marry Dita Von Teese and then left her for some child?

Drew Altizer snapped these Dita von Strip-Teese photos at the Macy's Passport event last week -- thanks as always, Drew, and you can enjoy more of these mildly NSFW shots after the jump.

-- Bachelorette, 34: Oh the manic behavior of being on your 30s and still single. Check out Kara Herold's personal film about mothers, daughters, marriage, and being single. Starts at 8:30 p.m at Other Cinema at Artists' Television Access (ATA), 992 Valencia.

-- Diplo: Edgewater-born electronic genius (and the one who introduced MIA to the US) pumps out his work all over the dance floor along with Switch, Eric Sebastian, and Vin Sol at 10 p.m. at Mezzanine, 444 Jessie Street (at Mint), $20.

-- "Once More, With Feeling" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): Aside from "Hush" -- which we think is the best episode, ever; in fact, one of the best moments in TV, ever -- this musical episode of Buffy ranks up there as a fan's favorite. (The reprise of "Under Your Spell" = sob!) Catch it tonight at the Bridge Theater, 3010 Geary.

Image: Kara Herold

Snoo-zer. Aside from the final five seconds of the race, the most exciting part of Thursday's Stage 4 in the 2007 Amgen Tour of California was the scenery. Relatively undistinguished topography and the desire of most riders to save themselves for tomorrow's critical individual time trial turned yesterday's stage into little more than a placeholder in the week-long tour.

It was a day of defensive rest, with everybody working extra hard to do the least amount necessary to maintain the status quo and playing it as safe as possible while doing so.

There was some nominal bad weather to keep the racers on their toes, a lukewarm breakaway led by Hilton Clarke of the Navigators Insurance team, a minimal response from Discovery Channel and the peloton, and a rather pedestrian, if not historic, sprint finish capped by Paolo "the Cricket" Bettini's (Quick Step-Innergetic) technically brilliant track throw to nip Gerald Coilek (T-Mobile) at the tape. Other than that, we loved it, thanks for asking.

Pretty much a ho-hum day at the office for the peloton in Stage 4. Hey, is that Slipstream rider in the second row checking out SFist on his Blackberry?. Photo by Mark Shimahara.

No doubt that the star of the day was California. Following Highway 1 south for 213 kilometers from Seaside to San Luis Obispo (SLO), Stage 4 passed by quintessential California icons Bixby Creek Bridge, Hearst Castle, and Morro Rock. After the brief squall north of Big Sur about 25 to 30 kilometers into the stage, racers were treated to intermittent sunshine and blue skies for the rest of the day. Kolley-phone-ya!

Other than Clarke's seven-man breakaway and the final 500 meters of the sprint finish, the entire 127-man peloton rode en masse for nearly every kilometer of the race. It was exactly the kind of stage that non-fans think of when they think of cycling: a bunch of guys riding in a huge group that doesn't ever seem to do anything except pedal at the same speed for five hours. Gripping, gripping stuff for the uninitiated.

One bright spot on the day was the jousting between King of the Mountain (KOM) aspirant Christophe Laurent (Credit Agricole) and Slipstream's Lucas Euser for the day's KOM points. Like teammate William Frischkorn before him, Euser's job today was to take as many points away from Laurent as possible to help teammate Thomas Peterson's KOM chances. In their two-man battle, Laurent nabbed two of the KOM sprints, while SLO-boy Euser picked up one. Peterson was MIA again today, while Laurent picked up enough points to don the "sunshine" jersey as the overall KOM points leader.

at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Sorry, this isn't the same production of Mother Courage starring Meryl Streep, which recently closed in New York. Nor is it Tony Kushner's translation of the great Brecht play, though Kushner is regularly produced by the Rep. Nope, this is David Hare's translation, directed by Lisa Peterson and starring Broadway's Ivonne Coll. This political play was penned during the Nazi regime (the Nazis revoked Brecht's citizenship soon after) and follows an itinerant peddler who indiscriminately sells supplies during a religious war that kills both soldiers and citizens. Yep, it's another one of those classic plays that people call "prescient."
Playing September 8 through October 22

Orson's Shadow at Marin Theatre Company
Former Marin Theatre Company artistic director Lee Sankowich helms the Bay Area premiere of Austin Pendleton's tale of two Hollywood industry giants. In this piece of metatheater, Orson Welles directs Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright in Ionesco's absurd Rhinoceros. Olivier's wife Vivien Leigh adds her volatile ego to the mix. Marin Theatre Company sits right on Mill Valley's main drag, so don't be afraid to cross the bridge, because MTC has been producing solid productions with some of the best actors in the Bay Area for 40 years now.
Playing September 7 through October 8

A Whole Lotta Stuff at CounterPulse
Have you been to CounterPulse yet? Here's your chance to catch the latest new work by the area's most creative minds. After seeing the brilliantly wacky Eat Cake Productions last season, we couldn't pass up this opportunity to tell you about their latest piece, Fish & Chips, an aerial dance/physical comedy/circus piece about politics, love and food. Fish & Chips plays September 7 to 9, along with EmSpace Dance's exploration of the learning process in Continuing Education. Up later this month (September 12 to 14) is some "multimedia movement theater" (we guess this is a new genre): Krista DeNio's Sally:MIA, a techno-tragedy about a human who becomes "post-human," and Jessica Fudim's Sheepish, which apparently features Ms. Peep on a reconnaissance mission for lost loved ones. These shows are also part of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, which we'll cover more next week. Check out CounterPulse's site for more new work in September and beyond.

Photo of Katie Barrett in Mother Courage by Manuel Rotenberg.

For more stage options, check out the listings at the Guardian, the Express, the SF Weekly, and the calendar on Theatre Bay Area's website.