What we heard at Outside Lands: Automatic for the people

I’d caught LA post-punk rock trio Automatic playing to overaged, grizzled skateboarder dudes in the Mission District at The Chapel in 2022. They happened to be opening for the Osees, and got hijacked by the droning, thick layers of murmur. Then I saw them at Great American Music Hall, warming up for Julian Casablancas’ project The Voidz a couple years ago, and the crowd got turned on and burned, pleasurably, by Automatic’s crypt-keeper vibes, with dagger-like synths, drumstick hits, and monotone vocals.

These badass women, who formed a band in 2017 named after a song by the Go-Go’s—the first all-female band to write their own songs and play their instruments on a number one album in the US—have been crushing it from jump. Paying dues. Opening sets for many dudes… For a tired, fricking minute. Finally. The chance to see them play for their own crowd, a field of people who are there for THEM. 

And there they were, Saturday, August 8, at the Panhandle stage at Outside Lands, now in its 18th year, amid bison-art pieces and legal and lethal (MANG) weed for sale alongside craft beers, non-alcoholic beers, and frou-frou wines. Many attendees were dressed, as is the tradition, in some form of a park ranger outfit in the foggy and profitable Golden Gate Park. Where the city of San Francisco claims to have brought in some $230 million last year between this annual three-day event and Dead & Company’s three-night stand. 

Where, on this weekend, Outside Lands originally offered attendants a wedding package for $15,749, but after low demand, those plans got scuttled. On any other weekend if you are creative enough, you can do exactly that in the park, quite cheaply. Minus the festival being your Swiss Army knife party band.

But as fate would have it, my beloved Automatic, in its original form, was doomed.

Lola Dompé—daughter of Bauhaus’s Kevin Haskins, Automatic’s beat machine, always thumpin’ those drums with double-time ferocity, whose right shoulder was always a feat of wonder, the way she held it at an angle where the action looked improbable but the result always proved invaluable—quit the band last fall.

Bummer. More about that in a bit.

Listen, by now it has been explained, even on this platform here, how Charli XCX is, at the moment, the most important figure in rock. This ex-raver proclaimed the dance floor was dead and released a hell of a pivot. Music, Fashion, Film, with three icons on the cover representing the title: musician John Cale, designer Marc Jacobs, and director Martin Scorsese. 

So of course her Outside Lands performance would dominate every local and national music platform’s coverage. She’s the headliner; she influenced 50,000 or so hot goth-clad people to flood Lands End on Friday night to catch her epic 85-minute performance.

However, I missed it. Not trying to yuck anybody’s yum. As much as I love Outside Lands, attempting to get home from Golden Gate Park at 11pm after the first night of the three-day music festival where wine, booze, and weed are readily available? Surfing the seas of 200,000 drunken and naked chirren (some very polite, mind you) didn’t make my digital mood board. Naah. Not happening. Those days, for me, are over. Of course, leaving became a price-gouging disaster.

But that’s not even the point. Outside Lands is pretty consistent at featuring artists; we’re talking beyond the headliners, who are on the come-up. As much as locals complain about the fest’s weekends heavily impacting San Francisco through massive crowds, localized transit strain, and just moving about the city… Well, if you want to know who the next so-and-so artist is, Outside Lands probably has them booked.

GRACE IVES

I was upset that I missed Brooklyn-based vocalist, songwriter, and producer Grace Ives perform at Cafe du Nord a couple of years back. Thoroughly impressed with her plucky, self-produced early music: Janky Star (best album name ever), made in her apartment using a portable hardware sequencer and synthesizer workstation called the Roland MC-505 groove box. It’s a piece of electronic gear she originally bought in college inspired by M.I.A.

The story about Ives carrying her setup around in a blue IKEA bag to local DIY gigs before getting a bit more successful just takes the cake. Like her humble beginnings, she hit Land’s End Friday, early in the afternoon, in a sea of pinkish hair and a tattered WHAM t-shirt, and continued that IDGAF attitude throughout her set, making young women scream when she mentioned, “I guess I am an image of body positivity; be proud of yourself, no matter what.”

As she blew kisses to the crowd like greeting an old friend, the string-loaded drum machine party of “Avalanche” started booming from the stage, and her fans came barreling from across the lawn, pausing from having their photos taken at the Outside Lands windmill.

“Saw you guys running here at the beginning of the track,” Ives said, thanking the front-row athletes. “That’s cool.” She filled the 45-minute set with bedroom pop that contained sick beats, telling lyrics, and a real take-no-prisoners production aesthetic. Glad I finally caught her; worth the wait.

DURAND BERNARR

Was not on my “to catch” list. One minute I’m just grabbing photos of interesting festival-goers wearing great, cool, and “oh, you’re just chilling” outfits. The next second, Durand Bernarr’s rhythm section, think Sly & Robbie high on Larry Graham and Bootsy Collins YouTube videos. Yep, it’s like that when you have a bass player named Buddha, kidnapping everybody’s neck into uncontrollable snapping.

From there, very gay and very soulful Cleveland singer Bernarr, who took a detour from touring with Khelani to make OSL, put on a sneaky stealer of a set. Telling tales, reading folk, and just riding that pathway of bump put down by his band. It’s artists such as this, ones you had no idea about, that make OSL a great festival to attend on the early side. Plus, he’s the one who does that song from the movie “Friendship.”

WET LEG

Somehow I got time-hacked. One minute I’m talking with the sound guy about how he should take his son to a metal fest; the next thing I know, the lyric “Baby, do you want to come home with me? I’ve got Buffalo 66 on DVD” is booming from the speakers, and it’s like the sacking of Troy from The Odyssey, except it’s young women galloping across the field, jumping in the air, sing-shouting the lyrics, waving to their friends, and just exhibiting utter joy.

Wet Leg frontwoman Rhian Teasdale, who also plays rhythm guitar, has this rock-punk swagger, sliding back and forth in sweatpants with gaping holes in them. Within 60 seconds, Land’s End becomes the party, filled to completion. Wet Leg could have headlined easily.

Unfortunately this logjam prohibited my seeing The Clipse and Geese.

As I trucked outta there seeking an N Judah on Friday, the mysterious water bottle guy appears (you can’t knock the hustle for a buck). Just after I officially exited the festival at Lincoln Way and 34th Ave., there were local neighbors selling crystals and tie-dyes and creating community as concertgoers studied some non-mass-produced merch.

But you get the picture; sometimes the big story comes in unknown and underadvertised locales.

Supposedly that’s why Conan O’Brien attends OSL. Granted in the VIP area, with his children. But he claims of all the music festivals in the country, he enjoys the vibe of this one the most. 

Hey, he knows some stuff.

AUTOMATIC

Listen, I caught Caroline Polachek at this festival early on, in the past, before she blew up. Neal Francis, piano player extraordinaire from Chicago. The Linda Lindas. And, last year, Philadelphia-based band Mannequin Pussy, who veer fluidly among indie, emo, punk, thrash, and who used to sell a butterfly-black thong with a mid-rise fit for $20 on their website. They held it down like they were keeping receipts.

With all the AI fake band biz happening on a certain major digital streaming site, this is a great way to see who is real. Plus. Do you remember as a younger person, when you used to live in your small town before hitting the Bay Area, and you and your crew drove one to maybe five hours away to the Lollapalooza-type fest in your region to see what was up? Well, now that the festival comes to you. Let the kids or older people have their fun.

Automatic went on at the scheduled 4pm slot on Saturday to a full lawn of fans that felt like a couple of thousand people. I worked my way from Land’s End to their performance during Audrey Hobert’s set while chatting with some folks who were in line for the bathroom, and one young man brazenly told me he actually likes to take a “festival dump” in the porta potties. It grounds him and lets him know where he’s at. I offered him up a Trader Joe’s cucumber and citrus hand and body wipe in exchange for this bold confession. 

Some women were snacking on buffalo wings in front of the panhandle stage, holding their lawn spot, wiping off the beads of sweat from their brows, and jumping up once that low-end donk of Izzy Glaudini’s Moog Subsequent 25 announced “it’s on.”

Wielding through a slew of dagger joints from last years Is It Now?, they sounded almost as punchy and thick and bass-centric as I remembered from previous shows, turning out the eager following. 

Fine-assed yoga moms, in their yoga pants, ground up on their yoga daddies. Oldsters started making out to the darkwave apocalyptic arrangements. Once again, it was a visually rich text. Yet the fill-in drummer, “Troy,” a name leaked to the internet, at times sounded a little loose and unsure. The background vocals Dompé used to sing have been split between Glaudini and Halle Saxon to varying effect, and, sorry, just the overall unified front of three women who refused to put a guitar in their manifested no-wave deviant pop is gone. 

Granted, they still bring it on stage, but that solidarity vibe? Faint. I hope it comes back.

This year’s Outside Lands sold out by July 16. Unlike last year when Coachella had 60 percent of its attendees paying by layaway, the yearning for live music is different this year.

Sure, headliners pull travelers and vacationers from across the country to SFO, but it’s the performers on the undercard—like local band Mild Universe, who opened for Balu Brigada at Bimbo’s 365 Club Thursday night, or the last-minute addition of SF’s own local DJ Tycho to play at the SOMA Stage on Saturday—that make it special. As I wandered back to the shuttle bus early on Saturday, my legs, after a hearty Friday at the festival as well, started talking to me in a very not-nice way.

I met several older folks, such as myself, who were good at calling it a night around 6pm.

One woman with her partner, who gave up camping out at the Lightning In A Bottle music festival because that phase for her is over, said the trip to SF from Santa Clara is perfect, and really it doesn’t matter who is playing; she gets to spend quality time with her dude.

Nothing too complicated about that.

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