The weather was with us Saturday, heading out to the avenues for day two of Outside Lands. With the sun out and the temperatures up, the crowd adjusted their layers to a modest level of bare limbs.
In the Polo Fields, OK Go drew a huge crowd on the strength of their YouTube views and their strong pop anthems. Wearing suits in the Google primary colors, the band hit their high notes with "Here It Goes Again" and "When the Morning Comes". A pleasantly chatty Damien Kulash called the Bay Area audience "unwashed" (in the spiritual sense, we think) and "overwhelmingly white" before cleansing us with a song played entirely on the handbells. The band showed they can work a live crowd as well as they work their Google results when Kulash riled up the audience by comparing our singing voices to Portland and LA.
At the Sutro Stage, Vetiver kicked back with the blankets-and-towels crowd for one of the weekend's more mellow sets before the Arctic Monkeys (all the way from the currently war torn U.K.) came on at the Lands End stage to close out their North American tour. Drawing from four albums of unimpeachable Britrock, frontman Alex Turn made use of the rear speakers, making no one missed a beat in the loosely filled-out crowd that stretched back long in to the Polo Fields. The band has plenty of rockers in their catalog, but they kind of missed an obvious crowd pleaser by neglecting to play "Fake Tales of San Francisco".
Somewhere after the Arctic Monkeys set, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee jumped onstage to present festival organizers with a certificate of appreciation and declare Saturday "Outside Lands Day" in San Francisco. Yelling in to the microphone, (the only time we've heard the mayor yell, now that we think about it) Mayor Lee told us some 60,000 people were in attendance on Saturday and 130,000 total expected over the weekend. While the footpaths and thoroughfares never felt overwhelmingly packed, that crowd was definitely noticeable at each of the three main stages throughout the day.
The Black Keys were likewise a big draw at the Lands End Stage, sending their bluesy riffs back in to the woods and out in to the avenues. The Lands End stage is a big one to fill out for just two guys with a guitar and a set of drums, but as they did back at the inaugural Outside Lands festival, the Black Keys showed they were up to the task. Diehards pushed up front, while those who partied hard for the morning sets set up for a sunny mid-afternoon nap.
Over at the far end of the festival, The Roots showed off some of the chops they've picked up while playing Late Night with Jimmy Fallon by tossing in a set of classic cover tunes in highlights from their own albums. The effect was something like having The Roots playing a massive wedding reception in Speedway meadow, but judging from the crowd reactions - it worked. Jimmy doesn't call them "the greatest band in late night" for no reason.
Killing time before Girl Talk, Paper Diamond drew another crowd of passersby at the Panhandle stage. Paper Diamond, a new act to us, sounds like what House music would be if it was made by college kids in Boulder instead of Europeans in Ibiza. It works though and it kept the masses entertained before splitting off to Girl Talk's massive dance party or Muse's laser-and-guitar headlining show.
Energy levels seemed impressively high at both ends of the festival, even after a long day in the sun. Girl Talk's set of top-40 mashups had the most movement going as the day-glow crowd lit up the night around (and on) the Twin Peaks Stage. It's easy to discredit a set of mashups, but Greg Gillis mashes up with aplomb and the hyperactive set is just what the crowd needed after a long day of sun-drenched guitar sets.
Back in the Polo Fields, anyone who still hadn't gotten their six-string fix joined Muse's legion of enthusiastic fans for a laser-guided pummeling. The diehards stuck around until the end, while those who surrendered early ditched out to hit the busses home.