Month: August 2025

Brooklyn-bred R&B star Yaya Bey is the latest musician to take the Sound Check challenge, choosing her favorite songs from matchups between soul singers Erykah Badu and Frank Ocean, fellow Brooklynites Mos Def and Jay-Z, and breakout rappers BigXthaPlug and Doechii.

Here’s how it works: Jeremy plays two songs for the guest artist, who has to choose one and explain their choice, giving Jeremy a chance to learn their musical taste. Jeremy then has to guess the artist’s life anthem, the song they’d take to a desert island, which the guest wrote down earlier on a piece of paper. Our production team has also given him a decoy song, and Jeremy has to guess which is correct based on what he’s learned in the previous rounds.

Of one of her choices, Yaya says, “Erykah is an influence on everybody, whether it’s a little bit or a lotta bit.” She also has to “keep it in the family,” picking between two of her father Grand Daddy I.U.’s Golden Era classics. As she explains, her choice is a sentimental one, given her closeness to the late Juice Crew rap pioneer.

Watch Yaya Bey take on the Sound Check challenge above. New episodes of Sound Check drop every Wednesday at noon ET/9 a.m. PT on Uproxx’s YouTube.

For the past few weeks, Texas rapper BigXthaPlug has been rolling out his country-inspired new album, I Hope You’re Happy. After sharing collaborations with Shaboozey and Ella Langley, Mr. thaPlug revealed that there are plenty more to come, posting the tracklist on Instagram.

In addition to the aforementioned singles, features on the album will include such country mainstays as Darius Rucker, Luke Combs, and Thomas Rhett, along with rising stars of the genre such as Bailey Zimmerman, Jelly Roll, and Tucker Wetmore. Fellow country genre-bender Ink and Ella Langley offer some gender balance, and the whole collection clocks in at a tidy nine songs (with two interludes).

Although the album features country collabs galore, BigX hesitates to call it a country album, or himself a country artist. In an interview with Billboard, he clarified, “I wouldn’t say my version of country music is country music. It’s kind of mixing the two sounds. I’m rapping on a bunch of country-style beats, but it’s not just country. I’m not on there sounding like no cowboy; I’m rapping. I’m just doing it from a country standpoint. I’m not saying it was easy — it definitely was a challenge.”

See below for the full tracklist.

BigXthaPlug I Hope You’re Happy Tracklist

01. “I Hope You’re Happy” Feat. Darius Rucker
02. “Gone” (Interlude)
03. “Box Me Up” Feat. Jelly Roll
04. “All the Way” Feat. Bailey Zimmerman
05. “Hell at Night” Feat. Ella Langley
06. “Gift & A Curse” (Interlude)
07. “Pray Hard” Feat. Luke Combs
08. “Home” Feat. Shaboozey
09. “24/7” Feat. Ink
10. “About You” Feat. Tucker Wetmore
11. “Long Nights” Feat. Thomas Rhett

I Hope You’re Happy is out on 8/22 via 600 Entertainment/UnitedMasters. You can get more info here.

In March, Chappell Roan declared that her next album probably isn’t coming any time soon, and she reiterated that point earlier this month. To really drive it home, she also just said that she doesn’t even really know what the album is going to be like.

In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Roan said:

“I think it’s a good ring on the ladder. Midwest Princess is her, but even though this next era, I don’t really know what it is, but ‘Subway’ is a very safe segue to it. But I just think that ‘The Giver,’ ‘Good Luck, Babe,’ ‘The Subway,’ they’re all kind of so different, so that’s why I’m just like, ‘I have no idea what the next era is.’ That’s the scary part of putting out new music and then people not liking it, because it’s not like the music you made before, and so it makes you scared to release stuff. Because you’re like, ‘Well, people aren’t ever going to like it as much as the first one’ and that’s the risk you take every single time.”

She also discussed her ideal songwriting routine, saying, “I’m waking up in the same bed, eating the same food in the morning time. Being in the same city, wearing the same [clothes], wearing my slippers. Just very basic. That’s just not a thing right now and it hasn’t been for a very long time. Because since I lived in Altadena and got displaced from the fires and have been living in Airbnbs for seven months, and I finally got a new place and I’ve only been there for 10 days. And then I came on this big tour. So it’s been a journey on, ‘How do I release music within the state of everything?’”

Watch the full interview above.

Tyler, The Creator has been a paragon of creativity in his career, going from rapping and producing to designing clothes and creating TV shows. But nearly 15 years after his debut, there’s one arena he’d had yet to step into: acting in films.

That changes this Christmas, as Tyler makes his film acting debut alongside Timothée Chalamet in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, which is VERY loosely based on table tennis icon Marty Reisman. A24 dropped the trailer for the film today, giving us our first glimpse of the film’s cast and plot set to Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” as well as Tyler (billed here by his real name, Tyler Okonma) in his first major role.

The film is described as a sports adventure comedy-drama, following Chalamet’s Marty Mauser as he works to become a star table tennis player. Hijinks ensue, including some that seem wildly out-of-place for this kind of story, but hey, it’s a Safdie movie. You sort of have to expect things to go a little off the rails. Tyler appears to be one of Marty’s rival players, but there’s also a bit where they share some smiles. The film also stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, and Kevin O’Leary.

Tyler’s good buddy, ASAP Rocky, is also making his own forays into film this year, facing off with Denzel Washington in Highest 2 Lowest, out this Friday. You can watch the trailer for Marty Supreme above.

A dozen years ago this summer, I wrote one of the more impactful columns of my life. Not that it was necessarily impactful on the world — though it is something I still get asked about — but it certainly altered the course of my career. “Is Phish A Great Band?” was the headline. It’s funny how controversial that seemed in 2013, given the recent run of lengthy profiles in prestige publications about the band. Back then, “Is Phish A Great Band?” qualified as hackles-raising clickbait. But for me, it signaled a change of direction in my life as a writer and listener.

The column was about more than Phish, at least subtextually. It was also about my growing interest and engagement with the jam-band world. Before I wrote it, I had been dabbling in that space privately for years, naturally starting with the Grateful Dead before moving on to the vastly more polarizing Phish. My rationale, as I wrote at the time, started with the realization that my knee-jerk dislike of Phish was predicated more on tired “dopey hippie” clichés than any real knowledge of their music. How could I “hate” a band when I couldn’t name more than one or two of their songs? With the assistance of my friend Rob Mitchum, I started sampling their voluminous collection of live shows, and to my surprise, I discovered I liked them way more than I expected. Yes, they played long improvisations that I was initially unprepared to process. (It took me a while to develop the proper “jam ears” where I could begin to understand, and then enjoy, 30-minute instrumental passages.) But Phish also operated like a long-lost classic-rock band, playfully mixing up crunchy riffs reminiscent of FM warhorses like The Beatles and Zeppelin with excursions into funk, bluegrass, fusion jazz, and psychedelia. They were hardly a “normal” rock band, but they were a lot closer to what I liked than a lot of the indie-rock and pop acts I was struck writing about in the early 2010s.

My interest in this stuff was sparked by two forces, one cultural and one personal. This might be hard to appreciate now, but in 2013, it really did seem like recorded music might be in the midst of an extended and inexorable decline. Not that I thought that it would go extinct outright, exactly. But in that window of time between the proliferation of online piracy in the aughts and the rise and dominance of streaming that took hold in the late 2010s, you could envision a different paradigm potentially arising. “Live music endures — it can’t be mass-produced, diluted, or ‘shared’ in a digital realm,” I wrote. “If artists no longer have the means to make records, the concert stage will become their primary canvas.” And in that paradigm, I reasoned, it was very much worth taking Phish seriously, given how they “presented an alternative model in which memorable live experiences mean at least as much as iconic songs, and high-grossing tours measure an artist’s reach as well as chart-topping albums do.”

That was the broader cultural force pushing me to jam bands. Meanwhile, on a personal level, I was a music critic in my mid-30s, and I was feeling a little burned out — mostly by the churn of cyclical discourse and the media apparatus propagating it. This was amid poptimism’s hostile takeover of music writing, when on any given day you might see the critic for the New Yorker publicly challenging a thinkpiecer from Salon.com to a public duel over his allegedly offensive criticism of Taylor Swift, triggering a massive and tiresome social-media pile-on. I started to look over the fence at a lustrous green lawn populated by musicians and fans ignored by most music writers. This is slightly less true now, but back then jam bands were deemed unworthy of any even passing critical consideration, a sign of disrespect that was actually an accidental blessing. That world was below the media’s radar, but to my eyes, it was above the fray. I imagined it as a mini utopia where people simply “liked music for the music.” Sounds corny, I know, but it was preferable to being hammered by a theoretical agenda expressed in increasingly hectoring and annoying fashion. Liking Phish was about as far away from that caterwauling circus as you could get.

Now, clearly, I was wrong about a lot of that, though I wasn’t completely wrong. Recorded music is still very much a thing, obviously, but it’s also true that live music is more important than ever — “being good live,” as it were, has gone from being a driver of record sales to the cornerstone of most performers’ livelihoods. Ultimately, I think it’s fair to conclude that, in 2025, “memorable live experiences mean at least as much as iconic songs” and “high-grossing tours measure an artist’s reach as well as chart-topping albums do,” if not more so.

As for me, making the decision to interact deeply with jam-band culture transformed me in a number of ways, starting with my status as a kind of “jam guy” pundit. I hosted a popular Grateful Dead podcast for a few years and I occasionally write articles that annoy people on Reddit. (You can also see my blurb on the back cover of this excellent recent oral history of ’90s jam-band culture.) But more than that, listening to the Dead and Phish changed how I listen to all music, no matter the proximity to jamminess. In my spare time, I probably listen to bootleg recordings more than proper albums, by a wide range of artists. And I’m much more likely to factor in those listens into my overall assessments of those acts as I am their “official” releases. (I don’t think I would be co-hosting a podcast on Bob Dylan’s “Never Ending Tour” if hadn’t written that Phish column.)

But about the utopia thing… my experience with jam-band fans has been more mixed. The fact is that the happy-go-lucky “dopey hippie” image I had going in was the most pernicious cliché of all. Jam fans in reality are, hands down, the most opinionated listeners I have ever encountered. And their takes are typically unsparing and resolute. The idea that they are drug-addled pushovers happy to accept any guitar solo that comes their way could not be farther from the truth. They are, at times, too critical even for me, a guy paid to criticize things.

There is also, among a small but vocal online minority, an “eff you if you can’t take a joke”-type of trash-talking that can come off as weirdly aggressive and incredibly obnoxious, especially when coupled with knee-jerk “get off my lawn” dismissiveness of seemingly… everything. As the author of multiple books about specific bands and scenes, I have encountered all kinds of fan bases. The vast majority of amateur, self-styled experts are kind, smart and welcoming. But when it comes to the extreme one percent, the jam world has produced some of the coolest people I’ve ever met and pretty much all the most insufferable trolls.

But, again, that’s online. Every now and then, it helps to touch grass. And seeing the “jamgrass” superstar Billy Strings live this weekend was a truly refreshing “touch grass” experience.

As I wrote in 2024, “I am a recent convert to the church of Billy.” For years, I respected his undeniable talent as a guitar player; He’s so good that he can call himself “Billy Strings” without it seeming ridiculous. (If he were 10 percent less great, his name would be reverse engineered into a sarcastic putdown.) But I didn’t come around to being a full-fledged fan until last year’s Live Vol. 1, his first “official” live album after countless releases on the jam-band streaming platform Nugs.net, as well as the numerous bootlegs collected on Internet Archive. On that record, I wrote, his playing is “exploratory, mesmerizing, and frequently surprising. But above all, it’s the combination of physicality, energy, precision, and curiosity that dazzles.”

I finally had the chance to see Strings in person last Saturday at the Target Center in Minneapolis, and he didn’t disappoint. I also came away impressed by his band, particularly Billy Failing on banjo and Jarrod Walker on mandolin. It’s extremely difficult to write about this kind of music without leaning on “chops,” “virtuosic,” and other adjectives that make it sound like you’re writing for Musician magazine in 1988. (Let the specificity of this reference indicate my love for reading back issues of Musician magazine from 1988.) But watching these guys shred for two-and-a-half hours is enjoyable in ways that are both musical and athletic. On extended workouts like “All Fall Down” and “Turmoil And Tinfoil,” they place their fluid instrumental lines in the overall mix with the grace and precision of the ’90s Chicago Bulls running the triangle offense.

On the other hand, Billy Strings is just an exceptional down-home picker, which explained the sizable contingent of cowboy boots mixed with all the tie-dyed shirts. Jam bands often have insular audiences composed largely of fans who like other jam bands. But Billy Strings exists as much in the country lane as the jam one, an especially fortuitous skill given the dual explosions of both genres this decade. Along with Sturgill Simpson (who, like Strings, performed as an opener at the recent “Dead 60” concerts in San Francisco), he’s been able to triangulate a huge audience from the overlap of jam and country’s concentric circles. (The third point of the pyramid, I can safely say after Saturday, is “weed enthusiasts.” Touch grass, indeed.)

While the extended jam vehicles are the showstoppers, Strings also has a developed knack for writing relatively compact country-folk pop songs like “Be Your Man” and “I’m One Of Those.” Their crisp acoustic leads and understated but insistent choruses remind me of the disciplined and sturdy songwriting of Gordon Lightfoot, whose music is practically part of the atmosphere in regions just north and south of the US/Canada border this time of year. He’s also a gifted interpreter with Catholic tastes who’s capable of covering George Gershwin, Bob Dylan, J.J. Cale, and the experimental banjo player Danny Barnes in a single set.

But what really sets him apart from other jam-banders is his voice. A Michigander somehow gifted with authentic twang, Strings’ vocal ability comes through on record but really shines in person, given how rare it is to hear a genuinely great vocalist in a context like this. The highlight in that regard occurred in the second set, when Billy ceremoniously removed his guitar, stepped up to the mic sans band, and sang a knockout a cappella rendition of the old 18th century hymn “And Am I Born To Die.” A highlight of his shows going back to the late 2010s, this standard popularized in traditional music circles by Doc Watson silenced the otherwise dancing and partying hordes, as Strings’ stirring tenor soared into the Target Center’s mostly empty rafters.

In that moment, I was reminded of what I love about the jam-band community. The degree to which the audience was locked into that song — receiving it and absorbing it and feeling it — is rare for an arena show. There was a purity to it. They really were there for the music. It felt transportive, like Billy had briefly paused his roots-music psychedelia extravaganza to travel hundreds of years into the past, plunging us all into an American tapestry of generational loss, upheaval, and (possibly) redemption. It was, frankly, the sort of thing that Jerry Garcia used to do in buildings like this back in the 20th century. It not only moved me, it also wowed me in ways that not even Strings’ fleet-fingered playing could match. I felt nourished, like I was enjoying a great meal. In that moment, I was part of the grateful living.

We’re now about a month away from the long awaited new King Princess (aka Mikaela Straus) album, Girl Violence. The steady drip of pre-release singles continues, as today (August 13), she has shared “Girls.”

Straus says simply of the song, “Girls. Bring me to my knees,” the lyrics from the song’s chorus. A press release also notes the track “embodies the darker side of Girl Violence, where King Princess entertains chaos and self-destruction for the sake of quelling her hunger for companionship and pleasure,” and that it finds her “at the mercy of a toxic relationship.”

She also previously said of the album:

“Girl violence is very sneaky. It’s not physical, it’s deeply emotional, spiritual, and spooky. Women are both amazing and sinister — including myself — and it’s my curiosity to understand all the love, loss, and changes that come out of my love for women. Why are we so inclined to cause and receive chaos? If you’ve experienced even an iota of it, then you’ll have a story to tell. And these are mine.”

Listen to “Girls” above and find King Princess’ upcoming tour dates below.

King Princess’ 2025 Tour Dates

10/03 — Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
10/10 — Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
10/25 — Nashville, TN @ Marathon Music Works
10/26 — Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
10/28 — Richmond, VA @ The National
10/29 — Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount
10/31 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club (late show)
11/01 — Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
11/02 — Boston, MA @ House of Blues
11/04 — Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
11/05 — Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
11/07 — Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed
11/08 — Minneapolis, MN @ Uptown Theater
11/10 — St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
11/11 — Kansas City, MO @ The Truman
11/13 — Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
11/14 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
11/16 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
11/17 — Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
11/19 — San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom
11/21 — Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues
11/22 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern
12/03 — Dublin, Ireland @ Vicar Street
12/05 — Glasgow, Scotland @ Queen Margaret Union
12/06 — Leeds, UK @ Beckett
12/07 — Manchester, UK @ New Century Hall
12/09 — London, UK @ Brixton Electric
12/13 — Brussels, BE @ La Madeleine
12/14 — Paris, FR @ Le Trianon
12/16 — Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Melkweg Max
12/17 — Berlin, Germany @ Astra Kulturhaus

Girl Violence is out 9/12 via section1. Find more information here.

Blackpink’s Jisoo branched out earlier this year with the release of Amortage, her debut solo EP. The project still has some legs, as the K-pop favorite just released a new video for “Your Love.”

It’s a gorgeous clip, full of stunning nature imagery thanks to the filming location at Rainforest Wild ASIA, part of the Mandai Wildlife Reserve in Singapore.

Jisoo previously said of the project, “I’m excited about this new era and the continuation of my musical journey. I feel like I’m just getting started, and I’d like to thank the BLINKs for all of their love and support. This is just the beginning, and I’m thrilled to kick off this seismic moment with Warner Records.”

Check out Blackpink’s upcoming tour dates below.

Blackpink’s 2025 And 2026 Tour Dates: Deadline World Tour

08/15/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium
08/16/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium
10/18/2025 — Kaohsiung, Taiwan @ Kaohsiung National Stadium
10/19/2025 — Kaohsiung, Taiwan @ Kaohsiung National Stadium
10/24/2025 — Bangkok, Thailand @ Rajmangala National Stadium
10/25/2025 — Bangkok, Thailand @ Rajmangala National Stadium
10/26/2025 — Bangkok, Thailand @ Rajmangala National Stadium
11/01/2025 — Jakarta, Indonesia @ Gelora Bung Karno Stadium
11/02/2025 — Jakarta, Indonesia @ Gelora Bung Karno Stadium
11/22/2025 — Bocaue, Philippines @ Philippine Arena
11/23/2025 — Bocaue, Philippines @ Philippine Arena
11/29/2025 — Singapore @ National Stadium
11/30/2025 — Singapore @ National Stadium
01/16/2026 — Tokyo, Japan @ Tokyo Dome
01/17/2026 — Tokyo, Japan @ Tokyo Dome
01/18/2026 — Tokyo, Japan @ Tokyo Dome
01/24/2026 — Hong Kong @ Kai Tak Stadium
01/25/2026 — Hong Kong @ Kai Tak Stadium

Amortage is out now via Warner Records. Find more information here.

Olivia Rodrigo’s recently concluded Guts World Tour was a big one. Running from February 2024 to July 2025, it saw her perform for over 1.6 million fans across 100 headline shows in 64 cities, including 18 festivals. Rodrigo is now memorializing the experience in her new Guts World Tour Book.

Announcing the book on social media today, Rodrigo wrote, “GUTS has been such a special chapter for me & I can’t thank u enough for being part of it. i’ve put together a special book 2 commemorate all our GUTS tour memories and it’s available for preorder now! miss y’all already.”

The product page promises the book offers “an inside look at the GUTS world tour, including never-before-seen images, exclusive poster, commemorative tour trading card and more!” Other goodies a red ribbon bookmark, and a double-sided sticker sheet. The 136-page hardcover book measures 7.69 inches wide by 9.19 inches high by 0.75 inches thick, and comes in a slipcase that slightly increases those dimensions. Orders are set to ship on September 26.

A press release notes the book “offers a behind-the-scenes look at the tour and Rodrigo’s creative process with exclusive photos by Paula Busnovetsky, Miles Leavitt, Jesse DeFlorio, Rahul Bhatt, and Jess Gleeson,” and also features “a timeline tracing Rodrigo’s chart-topping album GUTS and the subsequent tour, a comprehensive itinerary, setlist, photos of special guests and fans, details on stage and video design, and a personal note from Olivia.”

More information and product shots can be found on Rodrigo’s website.

Sorry have been ramping up. Last year, the band shared “Waxwing,” which was their first new songs in two years, since their 2022 album Anywhere But Here. That song, it turns out, will be on a new album: Today (August 12), the group announced Cosplay, which is set for November 7.

They also shared “Echoes,” another new single. Sorry’s Asha Lorenz says of the song, “Meet me at the butterfly sanctuary. Echo.” A press release also notes the track was inspired by “inspired by a poem about the story of a boy shouting echo into a tunnel waiting for his reply” before blossoming into being “about losing yourself in love and ‘echo’ becoming a third person in the middle.”

In a 2022 interview with Uproxx, Lorenz also said of her songwriting process, “If I can’t make sense of what’s really going on or people’s thoughts and stuff, then I flip it into a song and I can kind of put it away because I can see it for something else.”

Watch the “Echoes” video above. Below, find the Cosplay cover art and tracklist, as well as Sorry’s upcoming tour dates.

Sorry’s Cosplay Album Cover Artwork

Sorry’s Cosplay Tracklist

1. “Echoes”
2. “Jetplane”
3. “Love Posture”
4. “Antelope”
5. “Candle”
6. “Today Might Be The Hit”
7. “Life In This Body”
8. “Waxwing”
9. “Magic”
10. “Into The Dark”
11. “JIVE”

Sorry’s 2025 Tour Dates

08/17 — Dublin, IRE @ Dublin Academy *
08/18 — Dublin, IRE @ Dublin Academy *
08/20 — Glasgow, UK @ Barrowlands *
08/21 — Manchester, UK @ Victoria Warehouse *
08/22 — Manchester, UK @ Victoria Warehouse *
08/24 — London, UK @ All Points East
08/31 — Salisbury, UK @ End of the Road Festival
12/03 — Washington, DC @ Songbyrd
12/04 — Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
12/05 — New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
12/06 — Boston, MA @ Middle East Upstairs
12/08 — Montreal, QC PDB @ Bar Le Ritz
12/09 — Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
12/11 — Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
12/12 — Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry
12/16 — Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s
12/17 — Portland, OR @ MS Studios
12/19 — San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
12/20 — Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room

* supporting The Maccabees

Cosplay is out 11/7 via Domino. Find more information here.

I saw Jack Johnson in the crowd at Outside Lands on Saturday night. It was just before Aussie rockers Royel Otis jumped into their bombastic, viral hit, “Oysters In My Pocket,” a total highlight moment of the festival. The familiar San Francisco fog was sitting atop the cypress tree canopies the way it always does in the early evening at Twin Peaks stage, and here was Jack Johnson, flashing me a smile as he walked through the crowd.

The encounter might’ve otherwise just been the happenstance of seeing a famous musician hanging out in a place where a lot of other excellent famous musicians were doing their thing. But it took me back to year one of Outside Lands in 2008, when Johnson headlined the Lands End main stage at the Golden Gate Park polo field, closing out the first of the festival’s now-seventeen years in San Francisco. I was struck by the circularity of it all and how it spoke to a sense of continuity in the community, production, and execution at Outside Lands that the more I marinated on it, the more it was ever-present at this year’s edition.

Closing out the Twin Peaks stage on Saturday night after Royel Otis was Vampire Weekend. It was the band’s third time playing the festival, not including earlier in the day when they opened things up on the same stage. Vampire Weekend brought their day/night concerts concept to a festival for the first time after a few attempts at it on tour in 2024, and frontman Ezra Koenig was beaming. “It’s so nice to be back on this stage,” he said. “How was your last seven hours?”

As a whole, Vampire Weekend was easily the most thorough of any performer this year. How could they not be? When the NYC staples opened the evening set with “Mansard Roof” — after an abnormally gigantic crowd for a 12:45 p.m. set heard a completely different setlist — I couldn’t help but think about how there are concepts that music festival curators have yet to explore fully. It was a genius stroke to get people into the grounds early, and here was Outside Lands’ promoter, Another Planet Entertainment (APE), leading the way. They did something similar in taking a leap and loading up on country stars on the lineup in 2024, correctly betting on the upward swing of the music industry’s current country wave. The same goes for booking SZA to headline in 2022, Lizzo and Tame Impala in 2021, Kendrick Lamar in 2015, and so on.

Over and over again, Outside Lands finds itself in the right place at the right time. Sure, it did turn out to be a stroke of luck that when Tyler The Creator cancelled as a headliner last year, he was fortuitously replaced by Sabrina Carpenter, and then headlined this year, two weeks after dropping a new album. But for the most part, after a while, it stops being about luck and becomes about knowing exactly how to pull the right strings on a given year to ensure that one of the best festivals in the country just keeps getting better. And it’s more than just the music. From headliners and food to alternative stages, experiential touches, and more. Here’s what stood out from another memorable weekend in Golden Gate Park.

The Music

APE’s Head of Concerts and Festivals, Allen Scott, told us before the weekend that he was expecting 70,000 people a day at Golden Gate Park. Well, a healthy half of that number was at Doechii’s Lands End set on Friday night, and the dynamic LA rapper was dazzling. Her set was filled with metal and rap tropes, callbacks to pop music mementos, enamoring choreography, and a nerdy-but-cool boombox stage design that seemed to connect with everyone in one way or another. This was easily a weekend winner.

Mind you, this was yet another year of “The lineup isn’t that great” narratives leading the way in Bay Area social circles. Yawn. This was yet again a prescient lineup from a festival that keeps its finger on the pulse.

Destroy Boys played Lands End Stage early Friday, and the Sacramento punks had the kind of palpable angst, inclusive message, and hard-headed rock and roll that we desperately need dominating alt-rock radio. It was an effective bridge into a set from Philadelphia’s Mannequin Pussy. Of the countless artists who used their platform at the festival to voice activist stances against the current administration’s positions on immigration, Palestinian freedom (or lack thereof), and generally hateful policy agenda, none rang more emphatically than the words of singer Missy Dabice.

“I believe that we all come to places like this because you, too, have this deep simmering pit of rage and anger inside of you” Dabice said, after marching towards the crowd on a catwalk built for Doja Cat’s headlining set later in the evening. “And if you don’t find a way to channel that rage into something else, that rage is gonna eat at you like a poison.” The band’s performance used those words as a guiding light, delivering an impassioned set filled with bangers from their fantastic latest album, I Got Heaven.

Speaking of Doja Cat, she was nothing short of a superstar in her ’80s hair-metal wig and skin-tight zebra print two-piece get-up. Doja never broke stride, channeling equal parts Lil Kim, Cardi B, Gangsta Boo, and Tina Turner. Trouble is, the energy from the crowd didn’t quite match her greatness. It’s a shame, because this was hip-hop as pop music in a chiseled state, but it didn’t come close to drawing the size of a crowd that Doechii did.

Vampire Weekend would’ve pitched a no-hitter had the band not decided to end the evening set by taking audience requests for cover songs. They would’ve been better off continuing to pluck from their five-album catalog, which was firing on all cylinders. But we’ll chalk it up as a minor blemish on an overall unforgettable time.

Argentinian trap pop duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were the revelation of the festivities. The whimsy and charisma of their viral NPR Tiny Desk Concert exploded onto the Sutro Stage, and it is evident that revelers at the front of the crowd had pretty much bought a ticket specifically to see them. Meanwhile, Jorja Smith was the finest pure vocalist at the festival. The divine modern R&B singer from the UK has a cool, poised, methodical delivery that’s schooled in the trade. But her Sunday 6:40 p.m. Twin Peaks stage time slot is notoriously tricky, asking an artist to command the pulse of the festival when it’s winding down after three days. Smith’s evocative lyrics hit hardest as it got darker, especially on the sublime “On My Mind,” a blissful moment where the crowd synced up harmoniously with the star.

Fcukers probably drew the weekend’s largest crowd on the intimate Panhandle stage. The pulse of the people was intense, much like it was at the band’s festival night show on Thursday at San Francisco’s Popscene at the Rickshaw Stop — a club party about to celebrate 30 years of going strong, that’s broken acts from Billie Eilish to Sam Smith. The sweaty, hazy set was the tightest 40 minutes I’d seen in a while, and Fcukers has “next big thing” written all over them.

Thundercat also played an official night show on Friday evening at the Independent, turning the venue into a lively jazz club for nearly two hours. It showcased both the wizardry of Thundercat, keyboardist Dennis Hamm, and drummer Justin Brown, as well as a versatile venue that has served as the heartbeat of live indie music in the city for over 20 years.

Building On The Past

The curatorial continuity was strong throughout the weekend. Traditionally, a Bay Area rapper of the moment graces a secondary stage. But this year, Vallejo’s LaRussell poured his heart and soul out on Lands End. The consummate rap showman’s gratitude was on full display. “I had more people in my car than I had at a show,” he reminisced. “To be here today is a real testament of will and perseverance. You gotta show up for yourself. Can I get a ‘YEEEE’?!”

Legacy acts were few, but Ludacris was the festival’s great equalizer, playing every hit and notable featured verse imaginable (even Justin Bieber’s “Baby”) to resounding crowd approval on the main stage. NOLA bounce royalty Big Freedia, an Outside Lands mainstay if there ever was one, opened day three on Lands End backed by the SF Gay Men’s Chorus. It was a spiritual oeuvre, and felt very much like being in a vibrant gospel church; a truly inclusive Sunday service.

Jamie xx came back to the same Sutro Stage he played on in 2018. After seeing him in Brooklyn last weekend at the Under the K Bridge venue, it was illuminating to see him execute completely different mixes of his tracks for this show. He seemed to lean more into ’90s R&B dance grooves and versions truer to the album mixes of In Waves, instead of the techno and jazz from the NYC gig, cementing his DJ sets as ones you really shouldn’t miss because you never know what tricks he has up his sleeve.

Finally, there was Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals closing out the Twin Peaks Stage. .Paak acted like he owned the place (in the best way possible) and brought out Cordae for “RNP,” then stepped back and welcomed out E-40 to coarse through “Tell Me When To Go” and his verse on Big Sean’s “I Don’t F*ck With You,” an ultimate sign of respect for the Bay. Then, with purple light-pigmented fog hovering above and lasers shooting out from the stage towards the crowd, he played his 2016 collaboration track with Kaytranada, “Glowed Up.” Given that on this same stage last year Kaytra played the song during his closing set, this touch of curatorial continuity wasn’t lost on me; It felt like the festival was telling a greater story rooted in its history. At the same time, on the main stage where Hozier played, there were surely people thinking about when the Irish crooner first played the festival in 2019. Ultimately, no matter where you were and how packed a set was you were watching, there was a gigantic crowd adding to their unique memories somewhere else at Golden Gate Park, too. There was something here for everyone.

Food & Drink

While some festivals have seemed to be getting too big for their britches, Outside Lands just hums. The food and drinks slate here is equally as impressive as the music. Food curator Tanya Kollar, who has worked at the festival in some capacity since year two, leads an effort that’s an accurate reflection of the world-class food scene in San Francisco.

From Michelin-starred spots like Angler and Sorrel, to buzzy pop-ups like Oaxacan-fusion sensei Provecho and Peruvian-Eritrean wildness from Michoz, to food from alumni and current members of the inimitable nonprofit La Cocina, it’s an eclectic and downright delicious slate of 99 all-local vendors. Check out our round-up tomorrow of the best food and drink at the fest for more details on what we ate and drank.

The Bay Area has one of the most incredible craft beer landscapes in the country, and Beer Lands captures it all so well. The footprint of Beer Lands shifted over into a more central spot near the head of the Polo Field, making it more integrated with the festival. Back for a seventeenth time, Wine Lands was once again bustling as an open-air corral of Napa and Sonoma County wineries. I popped in for half an hour, dropped less than $20, and got tastes from a few different winemakers before taking my buzz over to see Jorja Smith.

Experiential Elements And Then Some

Last year, I wrote about how Outside Lands is about so much more than the music on the main stages. And in this regard especially, Outside Lands showed a commitment to continuous improvement. Stages like the EDM-focused SOMA and the queer-centered Dolores’ continue to carve out their lanes in the sweeping grounds. The former, with yet another new layout in Marx Meadow that felt like a massive outdoor Boiler Room set with LED-triangles through the field, looked like the structural backbone of the stuffy tents that once stood here instead. Dolores’ is such a crucial and awesome space that hosts DJ sets, ubiquitous drag queens, and a large swath of LGBTQ+ programming curated by local collectives that have legit influence and are held in high regard.

New for this year, the Duboce Triangle stage felt like a hideaway in plain sight in idyllic McLaren Pass, with both an open mic slot and some of the festival’s earlier-slotted artists returning to play a second, more personal set. I sat down on an antique couch (why not?) in the quirkily decorated stage in the woods. I sank into the experience of seeing XL Recordings’ signee Nourished By Time playing avant-R&B for a second time that day, connecting more deeply with his tunes. At the same time, he and other artists who played the stage were certainly forging deeper connections with the festival community and the ins and outs of Golden Gate Park, too.

There was so much more that I engaged with inside of this glorious representation of San Francisco in the park; big things and little things alike within an unpredictable, yet enjoyable weather system. There was graffiti art from iconic SF artist Apexer everywhere, including on the framing of stages. I browsed through the booths of nonprofits trying to bring awareness to their efforts at The Mission. I danced through electrocumbia cuts at Casa Bacardi and then to local DJ and promoter DJ Sep spinning dancehall in Grass Lands, a grove dedicated to legal cannabis sales and consumption. I passed by a bartering art cart with vintage wares to sell and swap from Grand Artique at the foot of the Flower Lands activation, while watching another couple get married at the now two-year-old on-site chapel.

Refillable water stations were everywhere, and Clean Vibes once again led Outside Lands’ unsurpassed sustainability efforts, with volunteers seemingly tending to every trash bin to ensure the best-in-class waste diversion rate at the festival remains about 90 percent. Heck, I even hugged a nerd (like the candy) and it was a lovely moment (sorry, not sorry). But many attendees were lamenting the absence of the West Coast Craft marketplace of local vendors. Instead, there were new activations like a Pacsun booth and a design-your-own-hoodie house from Gap. The latter makes sense, given Gap is headquartered in San Francisco, and it was a collaboration with nonprofit workforce youth development program Holy Stitch. But should these new sponsorships have to come at the expense of local craft makers who’ve been a fixture here for years?

Community

By day three, there was nowhere else I wanted to be. I usually arrive later on Sunday, exhausted from the previous two days. But I woke up like it was Christmas morning and hopped on a public e-bike just after noon. Because when the weekend was over, it’d all be gone until next year.

I love San Francisco, and despite all the criticism the city has faced as a supposed hellhole, Outside Lands is a vessel that calls attention to all that is great about this place. The demographics of Outside Lands are all over the map, with 50 percent of attendees coming from the Bay, 25 percent from other parts of California, and the other 25 percent from out of state. Fittingly, I met a family of four who came from North Carolina because their daughters wanted to see Gracie Abrams. I swooned over food choices with a couple from Phoenix in the VIP section. Folks from LA were everywhere. This festival has become a real community, where people take care of each other and are thrilled with each other’s presence, year in and year out.

Oftentimes, San Francisco gets characterized as a tech industry hub above all else. It’s a reductive description of one of the most effervescent American cities. Outside Lands did a masterful job of shining a light on that vibrance. I never felt much of a heavy-handed tech presence on-site, until maybe on my way home Sunday night, but it was sort of beautiful. The Lyft/Bay Wheels bike station just outside the exit was more well-stocked with e-bikes than I’ve seen in years past. It’s for sure the smoothest way to get out of the festival and head home or to an afterparty quickly; hills and inclines are no match for these machines. I hopped on one of the abundant bikes that were ready to go, along with countless other people forming a cavalcade of sorts. And as we rode through the glowing fog of Golden Gate Park, hundreds of bike lights flickered alongside each other while we made our way back into the heart of the city.