Outside Lands Festival 2011

It’s Festival Week once again at The Rock And Roll Guru. This week I will be discussing five select festivals including the highs, the lows, the bands on the bill, the places to go, and why you should attend.

Outside Lands Festival
http://www.sfoutsidelands.com
August 12 – 14, 2011
San Francisco, California

Overview
Billed as music, food, wine, and art, the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco, California, is one of the best summer festivals going. An eclectic mix of bands loads the music bill while fans can wander, sampling great wines, exceptional food, and having a lot of summer fun in Northern California.

Ticketing
Tickets for the Outside Lands Festival can be purchased at through their website (www.sfoutsidelands.com) but act fast. Most of the general admission packages are already sold out. According to the website, there is limited availability for the remaining general admission 3-day pass. This goes for $199, but includes access to the wineries as well as the bands. If you are looking to attend the festival with a little more style and amenities, the VIP package can be purchased for $450 for a 3-day pass. The VIP package includes an exclusive club complete with massage services, access to VIP food services, and access to alcohol services. It honestly doesn’t sound like it’s worth the extra $250.

Lineup
Outside Lands has always brought their share of excellent performing acts and this year is no exception. With Phish giving their standard 2-set performance, Muse, The Black Keys, MGMT, John Fogerty, Old 97s, and Warren Haynes Band (just to name a few), there are plenty bands to love on the ballot. While official performance dates/times have not yet been released, it’s safe to say that Phish, Arcade Fire, and Muse are your headliners for each night respectively.

History
The Outside Lands Festival started in 2008 with over 60 musical acts from around the world performing. Now into its fourth year, The Outside Lands festival has gained in popularity every year. This year looks to be the best selling ever for the event, as evident by most of the general admission packages already being sold out.

Every year, Outside Lands secures incredible performers to entertain the crowd. Having been graced with such brilliant bands as Dave Matthews Band, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Radiohead, Wilco, Pearl Jam, and My Morning Jacket in years past, this year’s festival continues in that tradition of great musicians.

Outside Lands also strives to be the most eco-friendly festival in existence. There are plenty of recycling containers and recycled material all around the festival. One of the stages (the panhandle solar stage) is powered completely by solar energy. The festival allows and encourages refillable water containers (as opposed to bottled waters) and offers several refillable water stations.

Places To Stay
If you are planning on staying near the festival, you had better book your rooms now. While the 2011 hotel partners have not yet been listed on the website, the hotels in the immediate area are bound to sell out lightning fast. There are several hotel/motels near the park. A quick search of Google shows the Red Victorian, The Oceanview, and the Laurel Inn. The Hotel Tomo is very close by and has received some great reviews from past festival attendees.

If you are willing to venture a little further away, there are several hotels where rooms can be had for a much smaller cost than those that are close to the festival. A 30 minute cab ride may save you hundreds in room costs. And if you’ve never been to San Francisco before, it offers the chance to explore other parts of this beautiful city away from the festival area.

Overall
The Outside Lands Festival looks like a lot of fun. With great food, wine tasting, exceptional bands, several areas of environmental friendly entertainment and education on greening the Earth, this is a fantastic festival to visit in the summertime. The weather in San Francisco in August is just gorgeous and you would not be disappointed by attending this show at that time of year. With some of the hottest names in music headlining the event, Outside Lands could be a great festival to enjoy.

Ryo’s Final Word
The lack of second tier bands for the cost of this festival would make me hesitant to attend (especially with the travel costs). Outside Lands goes from super-huge name acts (Phish, Muse) to acts I’ve never heard of. There’s no middle ground of up and coming acts, or bands that have flown under the radar for far too long. That’s a big deterrent for attending this festival.

Speculating Where The Dave Matthews Band Will Be This Summer

As most fans of DMB know, the band has decided to take the year off from touring. To us diehards, that means they are hopefully in the studio creating a new album. However, as a recent post on their website showed http://www.davematthewsband.com/#/news/summer-2011, the band has plans to play four concerts this year in honor of their 20th anniversary. The message specifically states “we have decided to play four multi-day, multi-artist music events that will take place this summer.” So what does that mean?

No further information is currently available, but that doesn’t mean your cousin Ryo can’t sit here and speculate. If you want to see DMB in 2011, you’ll have four chances to do so. And it will only be at festivals. So which ones do you think the band will appear at?

Bonnaroo
My first guess is obvious…Bonnaroo (http://www.bonnaroo.com/). The Tennessee festival is having their 10th anniversary this year and would obviously like to celebrate in style. DMB played Bonnaroo last summer, and the band had an amazing time there. Every time Dave Matthews appears at Bonnaroo, it’s a huge draw for fans. DMB loves the atmosphere, the fans, and the whole ambiance of Bonnaroo. Their chances of returning again this summer are great, which makes it my first pick.

Sasquatch!
It gets a little harder to determine from there. A lot of the summer festivals have already announced their lineup, and while that doesn’t mean that the Dave Matthews Band couldn’t show up as a surprise act, it’s highly unlikely. This would mean the festivals the band will appear at this summer are most iley festivals that have not announced their lineups yet (ala Bonnaroo). We all know DMB’s love for The Gorge (having performed there every September for years), so logically it would make sense for the band to pick Sasquatch (http://www.sasquatchfestival.com/) as one of the festivals they would perform at. The full lineup has not been announced, and the only band confirmed on the bill so far is The Foo Fighters.

Outside Lands
San Francisco is another city where DMB loves to perform. One of their strongest Live Trax albums (Volume 2) came from a concert held at Golden Gate Park (where Outside Lands is held). Outside Lands (http://www.sfoutsidelands.com/) would be a perfect festival for the Dave Matthews Band to appear in 2011. It’s on the west coast (figuring DMB will want to hit both coasts this summer), it’s a huge festival, and it’s in a city where the band loves to perform. It stands to reason that DMB could be appearing in San Francisco this summer.

Austin City Limits
Austin City Limits (http://www.aclfestival.com/) is another festival celebrating their 10th anniversary. DMB last played there in 2009, so it is a festival the band knows well and enjoys appearing at. Taking place in mid-September, it would be a great festival for the Dave Matthews Band to spend part of their summer at. Always a large draw with several fantastic headliners, Austin City Limits is a well known, well respected festival. The location of the festival makes it easy to access for fans on both the west and east coasts. That could make it a very attractive location for both the band and their fans.

While we obviously won’t know where DMB will be this summer until the official announcements are made, the news that they are performing any shows at all has me salivating like a starving puppy at feeding time. It looks like there will be a summer trip in my future. My guess is that it will be to one of the four festivals listed above. Once the official announcement is made, you can expect an update. Until then, all we have is speculation. Where do you think the band will show up this summer?

Comments are open. Feel free to post some.

The Summer Concert Wrap Up Part Two: The Festivals

On Monday, we discussed the tours that took place during the summer of 2009, which ones were great, which ones were not so great, and which ones just plain sucked. Today I’d like to examine the concert festivals that happened (or didn’t) during this past summer.

Rock On The Range
May 16 – 17
Technically a spring concert, Rock On The Range was a 2-day hard rock festival that featured top acts Motley Crue, Alice In Chains, Avenged Sevenfold, Slipknot, and Korn. This was the event that kick started the summer concert festivals. Other great bands that performed included Buckcherry, Shinedown, The Used, and Black Stone Cherry, just to name a few. Held at the Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, Rock On The Range was a great event to launch the summer concert festivals. With great bands on the bill and two days of hard rock mayhem, Rock On The Range was an excellent festival.

M3
May 30
The M3 Festival was a one day only rock event held at The Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. A gathering of the best in hair metal, the festivals headliners included Ratt, Extreme, and Twisted Sister. Other notable bands that performed were Kix, Dokken, Slaughter, Jani Lane, Y&T, and the BulletBoys. 2 stages were set up for the daylong event, with the only downside being that fans had to pick and choose which performers they wanted to see as most of the performance times overlapped. The reviews that I read showed this was one strong, fun, metal packed day of music. If it happens again next year, it might be on the top of my list for festivals to visit.

Bonnaroo
June 11 – 14
This year’s Bonnaroo festival packed in some great bands and great performances for a reasonable price ($250 for a full pass). Bruce Springsteen, Nine Inch Nails, The Beastie Boys, Wilco, and David Byrne all gave headline worthy performances. In addition to those bands, Phish performed for 2 nights as the main headliner (Bruce Springsteen was the other main headliner). The crowd was enamored with Phish and their performances were outstanding. Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band gave one of their most memorable shows on their current Working On A Dream tour and fans had a hard time determining which act was the best of the weekend.

Rocklahoma
July 9 -12
Billing this year’s Rocklahoma with the tag “It’s All About The Party,” was a marketing ploy that wound up working against the festival. Some fans cried that it was all about the party because the band and performances were awful. The reviews from this years’ Rocklahoma were not favorable to say the least. Held in Oklahoma in the sweltering summer heat, the first obstacle that fans had to overcome was the weather. Temperatures with the heat index hit over 110 degrees at one point, making it the hottest concert of the summer (in terms of the weather). With Stryper and Anthrax as two of the main headliners, fan complaints were strong that these were not headline worthy performers. The overall feel was that Rocklahoma lost some luster in its third year and there is hope that next year’s festival (should it be held again) will have better planning and better headline acts.

Lollapalooza
August 7 – 9
With Headliners Jane’s Addiction reunited and back in full swing, this year’s Lollapalooza was a spectacular event. Kings of Leon, Depeche Mode, Tool, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and The Killers rounded out the top bands for the festival. Other notable acts included Lou Reed, Ben Folds, and The Gaslight Anthem. Multiple bands and event tents rounded out Lollapalooza, providing an enjoyable and entertaining event for all who attended.

Rock Gone Wild
Scheduled for August 20 – 23
In what was beyond doubt the biggest disappointment of the summer, Rock Gone Wild never took place. Depending on who you believe, either the promoters were crooked, greedy, and screwed a lot of people (bands and fans) out of a lot of money, or, the promoters got screwed over by the casino grounds (where the concert was supposed to take place after being moved from its original site) and were left to take the hits.

Disappointments aside, I have to think the promoters were shady on this one. They moved the location from what was supposed to be awesome festival grounds to a much smaller area that they supposedly never had a legal contract with. They did this at the last minute (less than a month before the festival date). This only goes to show that ticket sales were not doing as well as they initially claimed. Even with their giveaways and special packages, fans were not buying.

Perhaps the promoters were too greedy. Perhaps an amazing festival (by the looks of the lineup anyway) met up with an awful economy and created an explosion. Perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be. Whatever the reason, the bottom line is that a lot of fans got screwed. Rock Gone Wild has set up information on how to get a full refund on their website (www.rockgonewild.com). If you bought tickets and haven’t received refund information, visit their site.

Outside Lands Festival
August 28 – 30
The summer festivals closed out with the Outside Lands Festival in California. Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Incubus, The Black Eyed Peas, and Modest Mouse (just to name a few of the top groups) performed to the delight of fans from all across the United States. Held at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the Outside Lands Festival was an excellent end to the summer festivals and perhaps the most diversified event in terms of the different types of music. From rock, to hip hop, to alternative, to folk, this festival offered something for everybody. The 2nd annual Outside Lands Festival looks like a strong leader for best festival of 2009 and with the direction this event is moving in, it is certain to be a hit again next year and is another festival that will be moving to the top of my consideration list.

What was your favorite festival? Did you have the opportunity to attend more than one? Drop a comment and let me know. The Guru would love to hear all about it.

Comments are open. Feel free to post some.