Secret Show With The Head And The Heart In The Woods

Word spread quietly, but quickly around the grounds on Sunday that the Head And The Heart would do an acoustic set. So in the wooded area near Choco Land and inside "Flotsam's Wonder World" (these festival landmarks became common utterances throughout the weekend) the band, who had closed out the Sutro stage last night, managed to get in a short set. In front of a comparatively small crowd the band played through a few songs before ending by letting fans come on stage for a final sing-along. A nice, quiet moment away from most of the noise of the festival.

Ed Droste's Stage Banter

After talking to Ed Droste backstage and learning about his cold trouble, I was worried the set might reflect that. Obviously I was wrong, because not only did the band play a tremendous set, Droste was talking with the crowd throughout it. He commented on everything from why people bring pool noodles to festivals to the festival food ("you've got the boug-iest food stands I've seen at a festival ever!"), and thanked their new keyboardist for "adding a lot of texture" (which is funny when you realize that word has been used ad-nauseam in articles written about them). Maybe it was just the second wind from the fact that they were finally finishing the Shields tour, but it was fun to see a band that people take so seriously goof around.

Kurt Vile Plays Past His Set Time

Kurt Vile's guitar playing was brighter than the afternoon sun on the chilly final day of the festival. Seeing his fretwork up close is incredible, and he can pull a big reaction from the crowd with either acoustic or electric. One of the best moments of the festival came near the end of the set when he played a solo "Peeping Tomboy," one of the best tracks off Smoke Ring For My Halo, and indulged in some especially beautiful John Fahey-styled guitar work. After big applause though, the band came back out and began playing "Freak Town" over the exit music and flickering lights from a frustrated crew.

Painting A Playhouse With Habitat For Humanity

Habitat For Humanity and PG&E worked together with festival goers on this project for foster children. At festivals, causes like this often seem to focus on handing out pamphlets, but this was different. It was a simple message asking people walking by to take a minute and help paint something or hammer a nail. And it worked: After the first day you could see the finished house, while everyone began work on the next.

Willie Nelson & Family & Bob Weir & John Stamos

If you haven't had the chance to see Willie Nelson perform live you may not know just how incredible the man is with a crowd. He looks directly into audience members' eyes, points to individuals in the crowd, and waves to people. It's a completely arresting thing. It makes Nelson's songs more like a conversation, and the fact that he eases everyone into singing along makes it even more communal. It was a relaxed show, punctuated by chaos every time Nelson threw his hat or bandana into the audience. Yes, John Stamos played bongos, and no, no one was really sure why.

Lamb Poutine

You could count this as a shout-out to all of the incredible food at Outside Lands, but the Lamb Poutine deserves particular attention. The Whole Beast booth put out fries topped with lamb sausage, lamb gravy, more lamb, and sheep's milk cheese curds. It was so good that they were actually running out of supplies by the last day of the festival.

Moshe Kasher Reads His Outside Lands Erotic Fan Fiction

Bryan Cook's liveshow/podcast Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction has been an increasingly popular and hilarious way to ruin all the shows and characters you loved as a kid. The basic idea of the performance is that four comics get audience-suggested subjects (in this case Passion Of The Christ and Captain Planet) and immediately go backstage to begin writing their story, while four other comedians read pre-written pieces. Each round has a winner, and none were more appropriate than Moshe Kasher's Outside Lands-themed story he read in the first round. Following the journey of a teenage boy sneaking back stage after Paul McCartney's set, it included magic, John Lennon's resurrection into Trent Reznor, the truth behind the Paul Is Dead myth (Yoko Ono brought him back to life with her witch powers), and somehow ended with "and that's where the rapper Drake came from." The whole show deserves a big shout-out, but nothing was quite as great as this bit.

Nine Inch Nails Is For The Children

Outside Lands often feels like an especially good fest for families, but I didn't expect to see the best example of that in the midst of a Nine Inch Nails show. Trent Reznor's performance was gripping, and the new live show he's put together is a visual feast, but the best part for me and everyone nearby (security guards included) came courtesy of a three-year-old girl by the name of Charlie. She held multiple glow sticks and danced like crazy, even during "Closer." Her parents informed me that it was her second NIN show; the first one was when her mom was pregnant with her.

Chromatics Play Underdog To McCartney

"It's awesome being the underdog, it's the best thing you can be," Johnny Jewel said to me after Chromatics played the best set I heard all day, and possibly the entire festival. They set up their own equipment (they're extremely protective of their gear) in that magic hour after the sun had set and we were all standing in the sort of afterglow. Much like 2012's Kill For Love, a live Chromatics set requires some patience, but as the sky grew darker, the music began to grow and build to massive heights. I never knew sound could be so good at a music festival, and tracks like "Kill For Love" and "These Streets Will Never Look The Same" shined brighter than anything that night; never had that Neil Young cover felt more apt.

Nile Rodgers Saves The Day

The disappointing news of D'Angelo canceling was still looming over everyone on Friday, and somehow the last-minute replacement of Nile Rodgers and the rest of Chic managed to not just fill the slot, but put on one of the best shows of the festival. They turned the entire Sutro stage into a massive dance party as Rodgers went through a medley of the countless songs he helped turn into number one hits. Opening with Diana Ross' "I'm Coming Out," and moving on to "We Are Family," "Freak Out," "Good Times," and most notably Bowie's "Let's Dance," it made Rodgers' opening line "if you're here you have to sing, and you have to dance" less a rule and more of a prediction.

Never for a moment, however, did the performance feel like a novelty; in fact the set carried a real significance to it. George Duke, another funk musician worshipped by Daft Punk, died this week and just two weeks ago Rodgers was given the news that after several years, he was cancer free. After the set ended "Get Lucky" came on the PA, but Rodgers hung out for the entire 6+ minutes with his band, waving and thanking people, and singing just a bit to himself while the audience shouted along.  During a festival where people usually rush to get to the next show we all just stuck around and listened to the exit music, audience and band, simply soaking in the greatness of the moment.