There’s always a party going on in Los Angeles, but they’re not usually as hype as HARD Summer. The dance and electronic festival has annually taken over LA for nearly two decades at this point, and the legacy continued this past weekend with the 2025 edition at Hollywood Park, on the SoFi Stadium grounds.
The framing of the fest definitely skews electronic, and it executes on that front with flying colors. But, organizers routinely recruit stellar acts from outside of that realm, too. The 2025 lineup proved that, as highlighting this year’s poster were Feid, Dom Dolla, Juvenile, Kaytranada, Gesaffelstein, Busta Rhymes, Four Tet, The Blessed Madonna, Barry Can’t Swim, and Fcukers. So, basically, HARD Summer made Hollywood Park the place to be last weekend.
If you couldn’t make it, or were lucky enough to go but are already feeling nostalgic, check out some select photos from HARD Summer 2025 below.
Outside Lands weekend is set to take shape at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco from Aug 8 – 10. Some combination of top-billed sets from Doja Cat, Anderson Paak & The Free Nationals, and Tyler, The Creator belongs firmly on your weekend itinerary if you’re planning on being at the park. And while the San Francisco fest can feel top-heavy (hat tip to Doechii, Hozier, John Summit and Gracie Abrams), there’s a bevy of other acts that you positively should not be missing — artists who define scenes in LA, NY, the UK, the Bay Area, of course, and then some. Check out our picks from across the spectrum for the most compelling performances to catch across Outside Lands’ diverse eight stages.
Fcukers
Friday, 6:10 p.m., Panhandle
Fcukers are the toast of NYC these days. The electronic duo exudes an edgy cool that’s forged in the spirit of the 2010s post-DFA Brooklyn scene. “Bon Bon” is having yet another standout summer, and they just put out a new track produced by Kenny Beats. Aside from their Friday night set on the intimate Panhandle stage, their Thursday night pre-fest official night show at Rickshaw Stop is sure to go off. Ditto for a 7:30 pm Friday night set as part of Fake and Gay’s curated Dolores’ stage slate.
Mannequin Pussy
Friday, 3 p.m., Land’s End
The Philly punk band is fronted by force of nature Missy Dabice, and put out one of last year’s best records in the John Congleton-produced I Got Heaven. The band is on a tear and about to play a slew of opening slots for Turnstile. The main stage billing at Outside Lands is a grand showcase of Dabice’s mix of accessible punk and bone-rattling screamo bliss.
Jorja Smith
Sunday, 5:50 p.m., Twin Peaks
Jorja Smith never misses. The UK singer’s sultry R&B comes packed with clubby UK beats with drum, bass, and garage sensibilities. She’s dropped two sweat-dripping bangers this year in “The Way I Love You” and “With You,” both begging you to dance your ass off to them. Get there.
LaRussell
Saturday, 2:45 p.m., Land’s End
Outside Lands does a solid job of giving a stage to the Bay Area rapper of the moment each year. But they don’t always get slotted on the main stage. It’s a testament to the Vallejo lyricist’s growing fan base and marquee resume that includes performing at the NBA All-Star Game and co-signs from E-40, P-Lo, and Larry June.
Jamie XX
Sunday, 8:20 p.m., Sutro
Look, there might not be a better DJ in the business right now. Jamie just crushed back-to-back nights at Brooklyn’s gloriously seedy and monstrous Under The K Bridge venue this past weekend, expertly telling deeper stories through records about the tracks off of his spectacular latest album, In Waves; an instant classic — like his just released single, “Dream Night.” Everything he does on stage has a purpose that’s relative to the city he’s performing in, and his closing set on Sunday night promises to be a paean to San Francisco alongside his unparalleled productions.
Vampire Weekend’s Opening Set
Saturday, 12:45 p.m., Twin Peaks
Here’s your reason to get into the festival early on Saturday. Yes, Vampire Weekend is near the top of the lineup and closing out the Twin Peaks stage on Saturday night. But they’re bringing their “day/night” set concert concept to the festival and are playing an opening set on Saturday.
Big Freedia with the SF Gay Men’s Chorus
Sunday, 1:15 p.m., Land’s End
The bounce queen, Big Freedia, has been a fixture at Outside Lands over the years. The NOLA icon will not only be starring throughout Oasis’ curated Saturday at the queer celebration that is Dolores’ stage, she’s also playing an ultimate Big Freedia set with the legendary SF Gay Men’s Chorus at the onset of a Sunday funday.
Jessica Pratt
Friday, 4:40 p.m., Sutro Stage
This is a homecoming performance of sorts for the former resident of the nearby Haight-Ashbury. Jessica Pratt was synonymous with the SF music scene for nearly a decade, and hearing her play songs off of the lauded Hear In The Pitch will be a full circle endeavor for Pratt. This time slot at the misty, sunken Sutro Stage is exactly where her serenely hushed folk, fueled by sublime nylon-stringed guitar, belongs.
DJ Koze and Floating Points
Friday, 4:40 p.m. and 6:15 p.m., SOMA Stage
The SOMA dance music stage is continuously getting perfected, and Friday afternoon’s stretch from DJ Koze to Floating Points is easily the most compelling block of the weekend. Koze and Points are at the top of their game, are both insane mixers and remixers, and if you only venture off into SOMA once, it should be for the moment when one giant of electronic production’s set morphs into another’s.
Destroy Boys
Friday, 1:35 p.m., Land’s End
The surging Sacramento alt-punk band is everything we want to see in music today. Youthful energy with serious bite from singer Alexia Roditis and company is a refreshing break from the similar fodder that’s destined for alt radio. That’s because Destroy Boys will straight-up punch you in the heart with emotionally-charged songwriting. They’ve played with Deftones and Alkaline Trio, and here’s hoping that they’re the torchbearers for the future of alt-punk.
Ludacris
Saturday, 5:25 p.m., Land’s End
The legacy artists are lacking on this year’s lineup, but Luda will look to hold things down for the OGs on his own. These Saturday afternoon nostalgia-paloozas at Land’s End stage (Nelly, Billy Idol, Third Eye Blind in years past) are always the perfect way to tip into the second half of the weekend. What better way to do it than sharing some lols with friends over “Stand Up” and “Act A Fool”?
Duboce Triangle
New for this year, the Duboce Triangle stage gives festival artists an opportunity to play an additional set, often in a more stripped-down fashion, in a unique, tree-sheltered setting in McLaren Pass. We’ve got Nourished By Time’s 4:45 pm avant-R&B set on Sunday and Kate Bollinger’s gorgeous psych-folk at 3:35 pm on Saturday earmarked as the ones to see.
Casa Bacardi
Look, Casa Bacardi definitely looks like it’s part of Scarface’s real estate portfolio, but it’s a fun hang. The two-level, ornately tiled structure features primarily Latinx artists, and we highly recommend a stopover at some point over the weekend to just let the mojitos flow while letting loose to reggaeton and electrocumbia joints.
We’ll take the Pepsi challenge on this one, but no music festival in the country has a better food and drink experience than Outside Lands. The San Francisco massive has led the way in taking a hyperlocal approach with the offerings at the fest, which takes place this year from August 8-10 at Golden Gate Park. What you get at the Outside Lands is a marvelous reflection of San Francisco and the Bay’s world-class dining and nightlife scene.
Tanya Kollar has been curating the food vendor lineup at Outside Lands for nearly a decade, and she’s damn good at it, too. Of the 95 different food businesses at the festival, 85% of them are BIPOC or women-owned, which is an amazing representation of the multi-cultural food scene in San Francisco, Oakland, and the greater Bay Area.
“I really focus on the diversity of food lineups,” Kollar says. “In the overall picture, but also each separate area of the festival. So you won’t find two burgers or fried chicken sandwiches next to each other. You want people to look at a row of options and have enough diversity to make their decision really hard when it comes to what they’re going to land on.”
Before becoming the food curator in chief, Kollar worked at the festival in multiple capacities since year one in 2009, including at various food stands, so she knows the ins and outs of these unique back-of-house operations. In effect, she doesn’t just select vendors for the “Taste Of The Bay” slate and call it a day. There are over 800 individual food items being served at Outside Lands, and she and her team work closely to help tighten up menus, booth layouts, and advise on the many other logistics and equipment rentals for each of these pop-up kitchen set-ups.
With an 85-90% return rate of food vendors, Kollar says that the goal is to “Enhance the offerings, rather than make it redundant.” She beams at this year’s addition of Caché, a French restaurant located just outside of Golden Gate Park. “We’ve never had proper French cuisine before!” she says.
But this is where things get wild — and awesome. Caché is a great example of the whimsy you’ll find across the weekend’s menus, which are certainly not what you’d expect at a music festival: Octopus hot dogs with mango curry mayonnaise and Parisian sausage sandwiches?! Yes please.
There are so many gloriously unpredictable culinary gems to uncover throughout the park. Plus, highly curated beer, wine, and cocktails. Below, you’ll find our picks for the eats and sips to chase at Outside Lands, plus some insight from some of the people who make it all happen. In the end, you’ll see why this is the best food and drink lineup of any major music festival in the country.
The Pop-Ups
Pop-up food culture in the Bay is strong. It’s hard to come up in expensive cities like SF and Oakland, so oftentimes, some of the best chef talent is bubbling up in the pop-up space before eventually opening up their own brick and mortar storefront. “Pop-ups are one of the coolest culinary adventures you can go on,” Kollar says. “Finding them, following them on socials… It’s an adventure in discovery. Plus, they’re so experienced with making something out of nothing that they’re such a perfect fit operationally for Outside Lands. It’s like, ‘here, make a kitchen inside of a field.’”
Outside Lands has brought this element of discovery to the park, and this year features places like Provecho, an Oaxacan fusion pop-up that will be serving bento boxes with either smoked brisket, sashimi, or mole tofu, as well as homemade salsa, and macha garlic noodles. Peruvian-Eritrean spot Michoz has Peruvian choripán sandwiches and Eritrean spiced nachos with huancaina cheese sauce, plus chicha morada to sip on too. Then there’s Poorboy Coffee (can you ever have enough solid coffee options at a festival?) serving up brown sugar lattes, hot chocolate with toasted marshmallow, sourdough cinnamon rolls, and even an NA Irish coffee.
There’s going to be 210,000 people at Golden Gate Park over the weekend. That opportunity is not lost on Provecho’s chef/owner, Eder Ramirez: “This is big for me, because I haven’t always been able to push my exposure as a pop-up. But now, so many people will get a chance to see what I do and experience the Bay Area pop-up scene. I’m smoking 20+ briskets, and sushi is my bread and butter. I’m hoping to crush it.”
The Stalwarts
There’s a reason why 85-90% of the food vendors return each year: They’re some of the best establishments in the Bay and really excel at this chaotic festival food exercise. In fact, they get better at it every year. Reem’s California, an Arab street food institution from the Mission District, is adding an Arab style lamb “La Gringa” quesabirria flatbread wrap with Oaxacan cheese to go along with the consistently excellent Arab “Party” spicy garlic fries. There’s an advantage for returning vendors to know precisely what resonates with people at the festival level.
“We saw what a hit the Arab Party Fries were last year, and La Gringa is also one of our most popular items in-house, so it felt like a no-brainer to do both this year,” says Reem’s Culinary Director Casey Rebecca Nunes. “Plus, who’s going to be mad at more lamb?!”
Other favorites to look out for include hush puppy corndogs and New Orleans style Mufulettas from the Haight Ashbury’s Sandy’s, Nepalese Momo dumplings from Bini’s Kitchen, secret breakfast ice cream (bourbon and corn flakes, trust!) sundaes from Humphry Slocombe, insane smash burgers from Smish Smash, flaky, portable Jamaican beef patties from Peaches Patties, and a fogged-over SF special warming cup of pho broth from Bodega.
“Working the festival for us helps break up the monotony of the day-to-day at the shop. It’s chaotic, but there’s something really special within it all,” says Sandy’s Owner/Chef Peterson Harter. “And for a lot of attendees, it’s the one time in the year where they’ll be eating one of our mufulettas.”
The Caviar? The Caviar!
In 2025, caviar will be all over Outside Lands. NorCal’s decorated Tsar Nicoulai Caviar is a go-to choice for local chefs. Meanwhile, SF’s The Caviar Co has its own booth at Wine Lands serving up their own Kaluga hybrid caviar-topped hot dogs with pickled shallots. Kollar tells us that ten vendors in total will have caviar offerings; many of them as part of the Limited Edition dishes program that sees only ten select vendors selling 10-30ish portions of a special item a day.
The Mission Asian comfort outpost Piglet & Co is serving their mala honey chicken wings with Tsar Nicoulai white sturgeon caviar on top of the ranch dressing dip. Korean BBQ joint Um.Ma has lobster tail Korean corn dogs with kimchi mayo, topped with Russian sturgeon osetra caviar. Chinese fast casual outpost Mamahuhu will have “General Roe’s Caviar Fries” with mushroom seaweed garlic seasoning, Tsar Nicoulai Siberian caviar, and ginger scallion crème fraîche.
Let’s be honest, this is badass Instagram fodder. But practically speaking, Kollar says there’s more to it: “It gives people an opportunity to look at the difference between varieties of caviar and how restaurants pair them with different dishes that are all really refined, sexy, and seamless.”
La Cocina
One of the most essential and effective non-profits in San Francisco, La Cocina helps women and BIPOC-owned food entrepreneurs launch their food businesses. There are nine La Cocina alums serving food at Outside Lands this year (including the aforementioned Bini’s Kitchen, Peaches Patties, and Reem’s California) and three current program participants.
There’s a theme each year at the La Cocina incubator booth in Hellman Hollow near the Panhandle stage, and this year, it’s “Wings of the World.” Sisters will offer Afghani chicken kabob wings, Tonantzin serves up Habanero Oaxacan mole chicken wings, and Xula will feature adobado wings with chiltepe-chimichurri. In effect, a future Outside Lands stalwart vendor could very well be in the mix. Catch them all!
Beer Lands
The Bay Area is one of the best craft beer landscapes in the country, and every year, Dave McLean curates one hell of a lineup of NorCal’s finest breweries. The Beer Lands footprint will move up a bit to be more centrally located in the Polo Field, and there are some exciting new participating vendors this year, like award-winning, cross-Bay brewery Cellarmaker and Arcata’s Paskenta Mad River Brewing, a woman-led brewery now owned by the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians. McLean, who famously started Haight-Ashbury’s Magnolia Brewing before selling the company, will also be debuting his new brewery, Hidden Splendor.
“These are the first two beers I’ve kegged,” McLean says of his just completed Goin’ Home ESB and Just A Dream English Pale. “The fact that this is the first place that anybody gets to try these beers is pretty special.”
McLean also notes that the craft beer industry’s resurgence in lager and pilsners is reflected in the beer lands draft beer lineup and adds that, “You’ll also be able to get cans of beer from a couple of breweries at Beer Lands for the first time,” he says. “So you can grab a can of Moonlight’s Reality Czeck Pilsner or East Brother’s Bo Pils and drink it as you cruise the festival.”
Wine Lands and Cocktail Magic
Wine Lands returns to its home in McLaren Pass, and there’s another smaller outpost in the VIP village. Curated by Peter Eastlake (a one-time winner of Food & Wine magazine’s Sommelier of the Year), we’re told that just about all of the vendors will have sparkling wines available in their lineup, so rev up those caviar engines. We’re stoked on new additions like Idlewild (which grows Piedmontese wines in NorCal) and Duckhorn’s more accessible Decoy label. Returning wineries of note include Roederer Estate, which makes some of the best bubbles in the state out of their Mendocino winery, and Berkeley’s natty wine masters Broc Cellars.
If you need something stiffer than beer or wine, Cocktail Magic sprouts up near the main entrance in Lindley Meadow. These cocktails aren’t your downtown rooftop malarkey; they’re curated by Ethan Terry of the Halfway Club, an industry staple bar in the Excelsior district that buzzes with a who’s who of local bartenders on Sunday afternoons. Cheers!
Ed Sheeran and Rupert Grint (aka Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter series) are both famous redheads who look at least somewhat alike beyond their hair coloring. Sheeran has taken advantage of that fact by tapping Grint to star in his new “A Little More” video.
In it, Grint plays a Sheeran doppelganger who can’t stop running into Sheeran.
Sheeran and Grint have a long history with each other, as fans of both know. For one, this is their second video together, as Grint also starred in Sheeran’s visual for “Lego House” in 2011. (The “A Little More” video picks up where the “Lego House” clip’s plot left off.) Grint joked in 2017 that Sheeran wasn’t an actual person, but a character he created, saying, “After Potter, all I wanted to do was stretch myself, create some real magic, so I created a character. He’d have the voice of an angel, impossibly wispy facial hair, so I bought a guitar and a bunch of flannel, and I called him Ed, Ed Sheeran.”
That year, he also told James Corden of being confused for Sheeran by fans out in public, “It’s kind of 50/50 now. If someone stops me, it could go either way. I could be Ed, or I could be me.”
Teyana Taylor just suffered a big hit to her resurgent music career, just weeks before the release of her new album Escape Room. On Wednesday, the singer told fans via her Instagram that she needed surgery to remove a growth on her vocal cords. The result: several upcoming appearances to promote the album have been canceled or postponed, including a stop by Michelle Obama’s podcast.
“I’ve been quietly dealing with some vocal challenges for a while now,” she wrote. “And after a lot of back and forth with my doctors, I’ve been told I need vocal surgery immediately. “They found a noncancerous growth on one of my cords that’s been messing with my voice and causing real discomfort. Thankfully, we caught it & it’s treatable—but it does mean I need to pause and give myself time to fully heal.”
She continued, “That honestly breaks my heart. I don’t take lightly what it means to show up for y’all. I’ve poured so much of myself into this next chapter—especially the Escape Room, which is still dropping August 22! So no worries there. It’s the most personal body of work I’ve ever created. and the timing… it’s not lost on me. Just as I was getting ready to finally share this with you, life handed me my own unexpected ‘escape room’—one I didn’t ask for, but one I now have to find my way out of with patience, rest, and faith.”
While she won’t be performing the album live anytime soon, the rollout will continue as planned. The most recent single, “Bed Of Roses,” teased the direction the emotive new project will take, and fans look forward to her return.
Alongside that, PinkPantheress also answered a few rapid-fire questions for the publication, including her dream collaborator (Sade), the album that reminds her of her childhood (Panic! At The Disco’s A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out), her favorite use of a sample in a song (Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock”), and the song on her playlist that makes her cry (Duffy’s “Warwick Avenue”).
Meanwhile, in another new interview with Variety, she spoke about her mindset behind performing live, saying:
“I’ve had to basically go against my nature and just jump into things that I know I need to work on. For me it’s more of a confidence thing — like when [her first performance at England’s massive Glastonbury festival] was coming up, my fear was, ‘Well, I can’t do this to a high enough standard, so should I just not do it?’ But it’s gotten better as time has gone on, and I was shocked watching the video back from Glastonbury and realizing how confident I looked, and how nice I looked. I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to get over my fear, and I’m pleased that I did.”
“We met when I was 16 because we were going to possibly work together, but I didn’t start releasing music ’til 17, 18. So we saw each other around. It was nice. And then… I don’t know, I feel like he was just an acquaintance, if that makes sense. And to be honest, [we weren’t] like besties. I just thought he was nice. And then we did a few songs together. […] I just thought he was funny. I was just like, ‘This guy’s so funny.’ But I didn’t think anything of him.”
She went on to discuss how the seeds for their romantic relationship were planted when they reunited to work on the 2023 song “Single Soon,” saying:
“We spoke for two hours and I asked him to hook me up with anybody that he knew that was cute, and he was like, ‘Oh, we do these things, like, dinner nights. You should come.’ And next thing you know, we’re dating. But, he was terrified in the beginning ’cause he was like, ‘It’s work and it’s complicated and people are going to get mad,’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t give a sh*t, kiss me.’”
ASAP Rocky is taking his time releasing his long-awaited album, Don’t Be Dumb, but fans will be getting some new music from him soon all the same. With Rocky appearing in the crime thriller Highest 2 Lowest next weekend, it only makes sense that he’ll appear on two songs from its accompanying soundtrack.
According to Rolling Stone, two all-new ASAP Rocky songs are billed to appear on the film’s soundtrack: “Both Eyes Closed” and “Trunks.” The soundtrack will hit DSPs the same day the movie hits theaters: August 15.
The film is a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film High And Low (or, perhaps more accurately, Heaven And Hell) directed by Spike Lee. It transplants the drama of a kidnapping from post-war Japan to modern New York City, changing the original film’s shoe magnate into a record company CEO played by Denzel Washington. Rocky will take on the role of the charismatic but unhinged kidnapper.
If it seems like Washington, a Broadway vet, is a bit too distinguished for the role of a rap music exec, Rocky himself refuted the notion during a recent interview. As he told Variety, “Denzel plays more Memphis rap than anybody I know… I was shocked. He’s an OG. You would expect him to listen to Miles Davis all day. Nah, he said, ‘Throw on NLE Choppa,’ [then Washington rapped] ‘I don’t do drive-bys no more, I walk ’em down’ That’s verbatim. I was like, ‘This is gonna be lit. It’s on now.’”
Highest 2 Lowest is out 8/15. Check out its trailer above.
Anderson .Paak is quickly becoming just as well known for his versatility as he is for his charming throwback takes on hip-hop, funk, and soul. While he’s currently preparing to go out on tour with NxWorries to promote their latest album, Why, Lawd?, he’s also begun to show some dance music chops with his Coachella DoLab set and a collab with K-pop star G-Dragon, “Too Bad.”
He continues his swing into EDM with Disclosure in the slinky video for their new single, “No Cap.” Featuring a pulsing beat of the sort we’ve all come to expect from the producer duo, the track gives Andy the opportunity to show off some double-time rhymes. Hip-house has hit big in recent years thanks to artists like Channel Tres, Duckwrth, and Leikeli47, and Anderson .Paak proves equally adept at blending uptempo dance music with boastful raps. The video for the song sees the three performing the song in a studio space, with Guy Lawrence tapping out the toe-tapping beat on the drums, while his brother Howard plays lead synth on a keyboard. Anderson himself mans the mic as a disco ball glitters away in the background.
The track’s been in the works for some time, according to its press release. Disclosure says, “Creating something with Andy has been a long time coming! We first met at our show at Forest Hills in NYC back in 2015 and have been fans of his for even longer. The time finally felt right and the right song appeared. He’s one of the most talented musicians we have ever worked with, and we can’t wait for you all to hear this one and perform it live together soon.”
As a native son of Buffalo, Benny The Butcher’s hometown pride runs deep. So, when he partnered with Rémy Martin and Uproxx for a one-night-only show that sold out in just four minutes, the Black Soprano Family MC made sure he used the moment to toast to the city that shaped him — praising its relentless grind and grit while sipping on Rémy Martin V.S.O.P cocktails just as intricate and layered as his street-inspired lyrics.
In the latest episode of Uproxx’s ‘Sound of My City,’ host and spirits expert Frank Dobbins III tapped the legendary artist for a wide-ranging chat that covered everything from his influences to the next iteration of his sound. And the rapper held nothing back.
While sampling two Rémy Martin V.S.O.P signature drinks for the night – a smoky, bittersweet creation dubbed The Butcher’s Blood and a bold, refined Black Soprano Espresso Martini, each a reflection of his story – Benny spoke to the hustle and team mentality both his crew and his city share. Joking that “Buffalo wants smoke with everybody,” the hip-hop mogul doubled down on why people from his hometown are just built different. Shouting out DJ Shay, his Black Soprano Family team, and the mentors and memories that made him, Benny also gave us some surprising ghostwriting deep cuts and dream collab picks fans don’t want to miss.
Check out the full video above, and stay tuned here for more from our stop in Buffalo with Benny The Butcher and Rémy Martin’s ‘Sound Of My City’ summer series.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
