Outside Lands, 2018

Another year in San Francisco, another Outside Lands. After a few years in SF, I’ve been to several of these festivals, and honestly this year I was less excited than for previous ones. We had purchased the early bird tickets, and were a bit disappointed when the lineup came out. However, being less excited about the concerts meant that we’d spend less time going back and forth in the park, and that we’d be less stressed about what concerts we’d miss because something else had overlapped.

As the day got closer, I started looking forward to it more, and once we were at the festival I was glad we had bought the tickets.

I knew I’d spend the weekend taking photos of happy people, just like I have in previous years. This time I again took 1000+ photos, so the editing process was tough. If you know I took your photo, and you can’t see it here, reach out and I’ll send you a copy.

If you were at previous Outside Lands, maybe I took your photo there? Check out my sets from 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Anyway…. on to the 2018 pics:

We started the day early, at Twin Peaks. The place was still empty, and as soon as we sat down we saw Hannah’s aunt and uncle, Linda and Tom, who were on the other side of the stage. We walked over to say hi and watched the first show together. I concluded that the singer of the Mountain Goats looks like a mix between John Oliver and Tom.

Lucy Dacus was one of our new finds from this year’s lineup. She had two sets scheduled, and we saw her at the smaller one at the Cocktail Magic stage. People were all sitting next to the stage, and it was really nice.

Deciding what to do about color and saturation with OL photos is always impossible. I wanted to tone them down, especially ones like this one, but when shots come out of the camera looking like this there isn’t much to do other than thank the polarizer.

This guy had a lot to say. He insisted that his real color was blue.

Hannah wanted to skip the Father John Misty show to see Growlers, so we almost parted ways. Luckily, I talked her out of it, and she made the right choice.

Hannah.

Hannah.

Hannah.

I like Beck. He closed day one.

Naturally, I didn’t register to vote, but I did get some cool pins.

Lily, who’s become a mainstay of our OL experience.

This is Jared. He was easy to spot, and I kept seeing him while walking around throughout the day.

Not sure what was going on with those glasses.

It’s odd when people start to recognize you for having taken their photos. This was one such case.

More Lily.

A friend of the corn. There were many corn friends there on Saturday for some reason.

“Wait, should I smile, or not?” “Well, looks like you’re already smiling!”

A good thing about not caring that much about the headliners is that I got to take photos of people who were very happy to be there.

No Hannah.

A little Hannah.

Hannah.

And that was day two.

Yes, that’s Janet Jackson. She headlined Sunday (we didn’t stay). Her placement is not accidental.

Amazingly, my cousin Saguiv’s band, AJNA, opened the main stage on Sunday. You should listen to their EP.

This guy.

We had amazing weather on Friday and Saturday, but Karl came to visit us on Sunday.

I took this photo thinking that the sound booth guys (much like people in ops or infrastructure at work) don’t get enough props for what they do. A few songs later, the Rainbow Kitten Surprise singer (who looks eerily like my older brother) gave them a shout-out by name. I can’t remember any other concerts where that’s happened. Well deserved.

Sam and Rick. We had a great conversation about hoods.

Devin, who was surprised I don’t charge people for their photos.

This is one of my favorites from the set.

Portugal. The Man was probably the set that I was most pleasantly surprised by. Their newer stuff is pretty poppy, but they have lots of great alternative rock songs. Also, the fact that their lead guitarist, who uses a wheelchair, was playing guitar and at the same time using his hands to mess with pedals and effects that you’d usually hit with your feet made their set extra-impressive. I’ll be listening to more of their work.

This is Rick. We sat next to him both Saturday and Sunday, and I thought I had seen him before. As soon as he put on this jacket I knew I had.

The VIP area (which we got into thanks to Saguiv 🙏) had a super cool photo exhibit. Lots of the work there was from Josh Withers, whose portfolio is just ridiculously cool.

And that, insanely, was my fifth Outside Lands.

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