Scene Report: Outside Lands 2023
A late entry to a quick overview of my experience at Outside Lands 2023
I’ve been prepping for Outside Lands the past month and haven’t been consuming and processing much new music lately. Expect the next few Monthly Music Fixes to have a mix of music that likely has a lot to do with me seeing the music live. As this list does. Its exclusively music that I’ve been looking forward to and ultimately got to hear at the festival.
I attended all three days and consumed a massive amount of music (and a decent amount of food and beer). I saw at least five bands per day and at least two whole sets per day. I got to see a buck list band (The Foo Fighters), my favorite song of 2023 (and likely the song of the year by arguably my favorite new artist (we’ll see what happens when I see Zach Bryan on Monday August 21), a candidate for my favorite album of the year (Joy Oladokun), a bunch of upcoming bands, an early afternoon set that just crushed me, and a few repeat favorites (Interpol, parts of Kendrick and Soccer Mommy). It was a good weekend and this is a great document of the amazing music I saw. And, bonus, I got to see a buddy and hang with him and his friends for abit (before I left to shed lots of tears) on Sunday.
I have to say, one of the overall highlights of the festival was the amount of guitar driven rock n roll music I saw and that was generally available. I saw a lot of young musicians slinging guitars over their shoulder and rocking out. It was excellent to see and I can assure you that rock is not dead.
My top three non musical highlights from the festival:
Getting to hang with my old friend Atif. This was a total surprise for me on Sunday morning when Atif asked if we could hang at the festival that day. We actually saw limited music together and mostly hung out drinking beer and traipsing across the festival. It was awesome to see him though.
Grasslands. I remember having to sneak cannabis into festivals not too long ago; oftentimes prerolls stuffed uncomfortably in my shoes. Now, they have an entire section of Outside Lands devoted to the sale, consumption, and culture of cannabis. It was awesome. And, bonus: it was 21+ and generally skewed older (I suspect the kids are into harder drugs), so it was a nice respite.
The walk from one side of the festival to the other. Yes, it was ~.5 miles. But, there was so much to take in while walking in between. The people. The art. The displays. The super tiny side stages. The entire scene. It was great.
My top three musical highlights from the festival:
Your Needs, My Needs during Noah Kahan’s set. I mean, his whole set was just outstanding. I was really able to be up in it with the crowd and had a great crowd around me. It was just a fantastic sing along. But, this song and this moment in particular was just so powerful to me. Just ugh.
Timing Foo Fighters → LDR → Foo Fighters pretty much perfectly. I saw the few opening songs for The Foo Fighters and they were awesome. I knew from my setlist research that there would be some down time during the set where I would not know or be into the music. So, I used that opportunity to travel all the way across the festival to watch Lana Del Rey. I was concerned she was not going to deliver on her studio work. I was totally wrong. And man, I was deep for her. I was really up in the midst for her set and it still did not feel close. It took me forever to get out. But, it was worth it. What I saw of her set was excellent. She was excellent and Hope is a Dangerous Thing was perfect for me. I then walked all the way back across the festival to see the end of the Foo Fighters set, which totally delivered on an emotional experience. I couldn’t believe how well I timed things and how well positioned I was for LDR and the end of the Foo Fighters set. I guess it really paid off to the the setlist work (and have a summary handy in my Spotify) to ensure I saw what I wanted to see. It really could not have worked out better.
Ethel Cain’s set was just intense and awesome. And honestly, was probably too good for an early afternoon set. It was probably the most intense set I saw the whole weekend. And it was a mid afternoon set. Just amazing set. Singing along with all these young people was fantastic and embarrassing all at once. I loved when everyone sang out, “God loves you, but not enough to save you.” Amazingly the full set is still available on YouTube. I strongly suggest you check out out before it gets taken down.