As many of you know, I headed out to The Treasure Island Music Festival on Sunday afternoon with my trusty point and shoot camera in my holster. As you also may know, my pictures are always horrendous but I like to share them anyway.
Port O’Brien and Dr. Dog tied for my favorite performance of the day. Van Pierszalowski played with his usual intensity and while most people talk Port O’Brien’s anthem, “I Woke Up Today,” I found a new favorite. “The Rooftop Song” may be a song that you overlook on their album, but seeing them perform it live is quite an experience.
This is Tokyo Police Club.
This was my first time seeing The Morning Benders and I was really impressed. They played a tight set that included a new track that I can’t recall the name of. I think Chris Chu and the gang will continue to put out great pop music.
It’s hard to take a worse picture than this, until you see my picture of Dr. Dog. That one is really shitty. I now know what Woody was slurring to me at South By Southwest when he said “the Fleet Foxes sound like angels singing.” Their vocals are stunning.
Okkervil River took the stage and had some technical difficulties starting off. Will Sheff got a little testy and asked for “a real guitar chord” and took a cheap shot at the festival. A few of the people around me that weren’t familiar with Okkervil River were real turned off. Seemed out of character for Sheff, but my man crush remains in tact. There’s a lesson to learn from this, however. If you are a band playing at a festival, don’t assume that everyone in the crowd is there to see you. It’s your opportunity to win new fans, so smile and don’t take yourself too seriously.
Yeah, see what I mean? Those shadow puppets are really Dr. Dog, playing at sunset. You can see San Francisco in the background across the bay and this band was the perfect choice to close the day and start the night. “The Ark” was a crowd favorite.
I don’t know what the hell this is, but it walked by me twice and really freaked me out. It’s mouth is right at wang level, so it made every guy around a wee bit nervous.
I had to leave after Dr. Dog’s set, so I missed The Kills and The Raconteurs, but I walked away from the festival one happy camper. Other than a great lineup, here are five more reasons why you shouldn’t miss this festival next year…
- Before boarding the shuttles from San Francisco to Treasure Island, some hippie chicks were selling pot brownies like it was a lemonade stand. I did not partake, but I’m pretty sure San Francisco is one of the only cities that has no issues with this.
- No beer lines. Do I need to continue with the list?
- No bathroom lines. The human to port-o-potty ratio was 5 to 1. I was expecting to use Drinking Buddy’s “Peeing at a Rock Show” handbook, volume 1 and volume 2, but it was unnecessary.
- Super comfy shuttles. It was expecting school buses, but they put us up in tour buses.
- The setting is about as good as it gets, isolated on a small island across the bay from San Francisco.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
In an era of behemoth music festivals, Treasure Island is such a breath of fresh air. One of the best festivals around right now, hands down. Everything about it is ideal - the location, crowd size, line up, scheduling, amenities . It’s perfect.
Fleet Foxes, Dr. Dog, The Kills and Raconteurs were my highlights. I have the same array of crappy photos as well.
It’s almost too perfect, though. I can’t imagine that they made a profit on the deal…
I may consider attending this next year. It sounds divine. I heard our buddy Shuperfan Shtanimal Shampton went with you - out of all those pics, he didn’t make the cut?
I almost got a pic w/ that alien looking thing…but was scared to get too close. it was a quality afternoon and I was impressed w/ the line-up and the set-up. would have been more fun if we got involved w/ some of those brownies…maybe next year
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