San Francisco – Sunshine. Muppets. Girls with flowers in their hair. The third day of Outside Lands 2016 at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park saw all three of these things, as the sun was finally strong enough to burn off the stubborn Pacific fog banks that had plagued the area since the first morning. As everyone scrambled to make enough time to spend the rest of their Bison Bucks at Wine Lands while still being able to catch the one and only live performance of Muppet band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, the air was thick with warm breezes and a palpable sense of excited urgency. Before the crowd split apart to catch headlining performances by R&B legend Lionel Richie and pouty indie chanteuse Lana Del Ray, Best New Bands was on-site to explore the promising new talents the festival’s final day had to offer, taking home plenty of memories, some new favorites, and a pretty impressive sunburn.
Oh Wonder
London indie pop duo Oh Wonder played its first show to a crowd of 250 people in San Francisco just six months ago, and on Sunday afternoon the duo was the second to perform on the festival’s main stage, Land’s End. The two vocalists/keyboardists (Anthony West and Josephine Vander Gucht) were extremely grateful to the rather sizable crowd that had showed up early to catch them. Oh Wonder’s nine-song set was quite impressive, given the band had only gotten about four hours of sleep after driving up from Los Angeles through the night to get to the early afternoon show at Outside Lands, and more impressive still was the dedicated attention their audience gave them, singing along to songs from Oh Wonder’s self-titled debut LP, kicking off with album starter “Livewire” and bounding through others like “Dazzle,” “Shark,” “Lose It,” and “Without You.” Vander Gucht spoke of the project’s early days, relating a sort of Cinderella story of going from posting songs on SoundCloud every month to playing high-profile festivals before coasting into the band’s first-ever song “Body Gold,” and closed out the set with “Drive” and “Technicolour Beat,” featuring melodies as warm as the sun that was finally beginning to shine down on Golden Gate Park.
HÆLOS
Having unfortunately missed London electronic trio HÆLOS at last weekend’s Lollapalooza, I was not going to make that mistake again—and I’m glad I didn’t. The three key members, along with their touring band (including two drummers) brought a blistering 40-minute set to the Panhandle Stage, and did not disappoint. The band’s dark, booming electronica echoed off the surrounding tree-lined slopes as the two main vocalists (Lotti Bernardout and Arthur Delaney) traded off singing duties while Dom Goldsmith, the trio’s resident production expert, pored over a vast array of electronics, occasionally chiming in with backup vocals that rounded out the lyrics of songs like “Dust,” “Pray,” and “Full Circle” with cool, efficient harmonics. HÆLOS’ performance of the album Full Circle’s final track “Pale” was an especially epic number, as the powerful production and instrumentation soared to a remarkable orchestral climax, Bernardout’s thunderous wails at the song’s conclusion echoed all around the park, and continued to play over and over in my mind for the rest of the day.
Kehlani
It’s been quite a year for Oakland R&B singer Kehlani, with her upcoming full-length debut LP on the way (slated for release late this year), and an impressive contribution to the soundtrack for Suicide Squad, the DC comic film that has been notoriously panned by critics yet generally adored by audiences. She also made headlines earlier this spring when she was hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt, yet after recovering, she expressed that “God saved [her] for a reason.” If what transpired on the Twin Peaks Stage on Sunday is evidence of anything, the reason she was “saved” was to do this performance. Her set was switched to an earlier slot (originally occupied by GRiZ, though the reason for doing so was unclear), and if it hadn’t been for the wonderfully efficient Outside Lands mobile app, many concertgoers would most likely have been unaware of the swap.
Thankfully that didn’t happen, as throngs of her fans showed up for her hometown set at Outside Lands, screaming with unbridled affection and excitement as she took the stage, dressed in a jumpsuit resembling those worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death and later by Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol. 1. Kehlani was ready to kill this set, and she had no problem doing so. Much to the delight of her many fans, she played mostly songs off her two mix-tapes Cloud 19 and You Should Be Here, “Jealous,” “How That Taste,” “You Should Be Here,” and “Be Alright” getting the most electric responses from the audience, especially the latter, as she ventured down into the crowd as hundreds of iPhones were thrust into the air to capture the star’s approach. Kehlani also semi-officially announced the title to her upcoming album to be SSS (which also appeared in a now-deleted Instagram post earlier that day), and offered a few selections expected to appear on the LP, including “Distraction” and “CRZY” (both released last month). Palestinian-Canadian rapper Belly and crooner Marc E. Bassy both popped by to perform songs on which Kehlani has a featured role as vocalist (“You” and “Lock It Up,” respectively) before the singer closed things down with an exuberant rendition of “FWU” and one-off single “Did I.” Her performance as a whole on Sunday not only reinforced her abilities as a performer, but also cemented her place in history—and in the minds of her fans—as a star, a warrior, and a survivor.
DIIV
New York lo-fi indie outfit DIIV (pronounced like ‘dive’) combines elements of shoegaze, dream pop, and surf rock to create a hazy, comfortable sound, perfect for a mid-afternoon set at the smaller Panhandle Stage, coincidentally (or maybe not so) beginning right at 4:20 in the afternoon. Frontman Zachary Cole Smith (formerly of Beach Fossils) took advantage of the crowd’s relaxed demeanor to crack a few jokes during the set, mostly at the expense of popular 90s band Third Eye Blind, who had just concluded its set at the main stage right around the time DIIV took the stage. Much like the band Nothing at last weekend’s Lollapalooza, he called out to passersby “Thanks, we’re Third Eye Blind. No wait, Third Eye DIIV,” and playfully played a few lines of Marilyn Manson’s maniacal classic “Beautiful People,” wryly claiming it was a Third Eye Blind cover. The set contained about a dozen songs from the band’s two albums, including classics like “How Long Have You Known?” and “Doused” from the band’s debut Oshin, as well as several tracks from their recently released sophomore effort Is The Is Are, “Dopamine,” “Under The Sun,” and “Loose Ends,” which was requested via a sign made by an eager fan near the front of the crowd (“This guy made a sign! That takes work!”). The audience was entranced by the band’s talent and appreciative of the humor, but that didn’t stop Smith from continuing to troll the many people walking along the path behind the sound booth (leading to/from the Twin Peaks stage), barking between songs “Hey, we’re called DIIV, just so you know, so you can tell your friends, ‘Yeah I saw DIIV, they were pretty good,’ when in reality you were just eating a hot dog.” Touché, Zachary.
RÜFÜS DU SOL
Australian trio RÜFÜS DU SOL (simply know as RÜFÜS outside of North America) was one of the last acts to perform on the Panhandle Stage, drawing one of the largest crowds the smaller stage had seen thus far, calling out to those transitioning between the two big name EDM acts playing on either end of the 40-minute set (GRiZ and Major Lazer). The band was just as amazed as most people expecting a much smaller audience, the members’ mouths slightly agape with awe as they paused to absorb the thunderous applause between songs. The band opened with the vibrant first track from its 2013 debut Atlas, “Sundream,” just as the sun was beginning to dip behind the eucalyptus trees and the evergreens that fill the park, turning the sky into a pale blue-golden hue, as if the heavens were painting a picture to match the dreamy nature of RÜFÜS’s warm, comforting electronica. The audience danced happily to songs like “Desert Night” and “Like An Animal,” pausing to sway during the slower, wistful “Innerbloom.” During the finale of “You Were Right,” our shadows were starting to grow longer, just as we wished the show we were witnessing—that was imminently ending—would grow longer too.
As always, Outside Lands proved itself to be one of the world’s most enjoyable festival experiences. Though prices have climbed for everything from tickets to the cost of a single beer ($10!), the fans keep coming back to navigate the music held in this enchanted forest wonderland each August. Though we could have done with a bit more sunshine, the weekend unfolded as another great adventure, allowing us to discover great food, tasty beverages, good friends, and of course, some of the best new music the world has to offer. Next August can’t come soon enough!
Relive Outside Lands 2016 with our Friday and Saturday, too! Follow Best New Bands on Facebook and Twitter.
Words and photos by Corey Bell for Best New Bands.
Corey Bell
Latest posts by Corey Bell (see all)
- Jagwar Ma’s ‘Every Now & Then’ is Quite the Ride - July 31, 2017
- 2 New Bands at Voodoo Music Festival Day 3 - November 4, 2016
- 5 New Bands at Voodoo Music Festival Day 2 - October 30, 2016
