The crowd was dense but mostly well behaved on Day One of Outside Lands, and even the dance stage/area seemed relatively tame. Maybe it's true what they say about the kids not drinking or doing drugs anymore.

It was a fairly foggy, momentarily sunny day Friday out in Golden Gate Park as Outside Lands kicked off for the 17th time. A theme of revolt and self-empowerment emerged from the first three main stage acts of the festival. Ethiopian-Sudanese artist Alemeda kicked things off with emerging hits like "1-800-FUCK-YOU," and Destroy Boys took things in a more punk-pop direction with songs like "Shadow (I'm Breaking Down" and "Should've Been Me."

Mannequin Pussy followed Destroy Boys, bringing more punk energy and plenty of angry monologuing from lead singer Missy Dabice about billionaires oppressing the working class, Palestine, and transphobia. And, she declared from the stage, "If you're one of those people who thinks that politics doesn't belong in your entertainment, you can get fucked."

Thundercat (aka Stephen Lee Bruner) played to a still-filling-up Polo Field with a set that kicked off at 4;10 pm, doing his sometimes chaotic blend of acid jazz and R&B with songs like "Dragonball Durag" and the hauntingly catchy "Them Changes."

Welsh pop singer MARINA, who previously went by the stage name Marina & the Diamonds, played a confident and slick 5:20 pm set on the Twin Peaks Stage, delighting a large crowd with hits like "Princess of Power," "How to Be a Heartbreaker," and "Primadonna" — though it's unclear if her drummer was even mic'd, as she was singing with pre-recorded tracks.

A smaller act on the Panhandle Stage who won the Friday afternoon hours was the highly amusing electropunk group Fcukers, who were as gloriously snotty as Amyl and the Sniffers were last year. The three-piece band specializes in minimal but bold electronic music, with an actual drummer player providing the beat. And it somehow worked that the screen behind them broadcast stock video footage from what seemed like a Soviet meat factory.

The SOMA dance area — it was once a tent, but as of the last couple years it's now just an open-air space in Marx Meadow, this year featuring some cool triangular light arches — featured hot DJs including ATRIP, Bonobo, and Floating Points. And while the area was notably busy and lively, at least around prime time on Friday before the big headliners went on the other stages, it wasn't nearly the intense shitshow that it's been in years past, and getting in wasn't nearly as painful.

Easily the stunner and the most polished production of the day came from Doechii, who was not even the headlining act of the night — that went to Doja Cat, who nonetheless put on a good if maybe sort of rote show, during which she announced a surprise show at Oasis last night where she debuted a couple of new songs (that she did not debut at the festival).

Doechii took the stage with her dancers, an enormous boom box setpiece that contained a hidden DJ booth, and a set of school-room desk-and-chair combinations, framing her 15-song set as "lessons."

Lesson 1, "Bars," included "STANKA POOH" and "BULLFROG" as openers. Lesson 2, "Flow," featured her hit "Nissan Altima" and a brief cover of Beyonce's "America Has a Problem." Her viral hit "Anxiety," featuring a sample of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" came in a pared-down version in Lesson 4, "Scratches/Detention."

The entire set was seamlessly and energetically choreographed, with Doechii and her dancers all in modified school uniforms — and this seems to be a preview of the tour she'll be bringing back to San Francisco this fall.

Simultaneous with Doja Cat's set was Beck on the Sutro Stage playing with the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. Beck introduced his set, which he has been performing in smaller venues around the country with local orchestras, saying that he was happy to be getting to perform songs from his more laguorous and melancholy albums Sea Change and Morning Phase, and he didn't disappoint. The set — which was unfortunately subjected to some sonic interference by Doja Cat on the adjacent stage, and maybe this could have been programmed differently — included "The Golden Age," "Lost Cause," "Paper Tiger," and the brooding "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Below, a few more photos from the day.