Sara Kloepfer A&E Editor
Meghan Helms Asst. A&E Editor

Hands and heads bob back and forth in unison as thousands of excited fans swayed to the music at the second annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in Golden Gate Park the last weekend of August.

A celebration of the people, arts and technology of the Bay Area drew 100 bands and more than 100,000 people, according to Outside Lands organizer Rick Farman. The seven stages of the festival kept Speedway Meadow constantly awash in sound.

On the second day of the festival, Saturday, Aug. 29, sun-toasted concertgoers began the day with Raphel Saadiq’s jazzy music, leading up to performances by Jason Mraz, Black Eyed Peas and The Dave Mathews Band.

Jason Mraz’s performance of “I’m Yours,” which made history a day later with a 71-week run on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, delighted the crowed, enticing them to wave their arms and scream “Encore!” as Mraz and his band came out linking arms and bowing to the audience.

Huge video monitors mounted on either side of the main stage magnified the performances, making every fan feel like they had a front row seat.

The Black Eyed Peas performed later in the afternoon, attracting the largest crowd of the day so far with an onscreen robot declaring their performance to be “the beginning of sound.”

Despite the lazy-day atmosphere of the crowd that was scattered along the green on picnic blankets or standing around stage, the Black Eyed Pea’s energy pulsed through the entire audience. Even police officers brought in for security swayed to the music and took pictures from their posts.

The number of people paying the $90 fee to view the performances was down this year, and security was tightened with double fences to discourage the number of crashers —who despite the precautions made it in anyway.

The Dave Mathews Band and The Mars Volta closed the day on opposite sides of the park. While Cedric Bixler-Zavala, lead singer of The Mars Volta, destroyed the band sign on stage and danced around to screaming guitar solos, The Dave Mathews Band entertained its huge crowd with a fantastic light show and its light rock music.

The fog rolled in on the last day of Outside Lands, dampening the air but not the atmosphere of the final shows.

M.I.A. came on to the fast paced dancing of a blue-suited man on center stage. Her performance radiated with energy as dancers ran around onstage, playing Guitar Hero guitars along to the music and throwing glow-in-the-dark horns out to the audience.

M.I.A. paid tribute to the Beastie Boys with a mash-up of “Sabotage” and “Intergalactic” mixed with her lyrics of “Bird Flu.” Originally scheduled to headline Sunday evening, the Beastie Boys dropped out due to member Adam Yauch’s cancer diagnosis after doctors found a tumor in his throat.

Modest Mouse played midday, acting more like modest mice than a hit band onstage. The six-man band started its show without introducing themselves or even acknowledging the crowd, staying in a tight clump for the entire show only briefly loosening up a bit during the middle of the performance and engaging with the crowd.

Unlike the other bands, Modest Mouse seemed to play for itself and not the crowd, making it a boring show.
The Beastie Boys’ replacement headliner, Tenacious D, was much anticipated by the crowd who cheered and chanted “D – D – D!” even before the band came on.

Tenacious D’s performance in front of an apocalyptic back-drop including skits between songs seemed scripted and out of place in a weekend that had been filled with solely musical performances on the main stage.

Besides music, Outside Lands featured food by San Francisco restaurants Dosa and Maverick. Maverick, located in the Mission, teamed up with Taste Catering — the very same company that staffs Convent’s cafeteria — to feed the crowds. More than 100 local restaurants contributed to the diverse selection of low-cost, high-quality fare.

Eco Lands, a program devised last year to minimize waste and the carbon imprint, this year featured an area where people could refill water bottles, buy from a local Farmers Market and even charge a cell phone with solar power.

The park was filled with compost and recycling containers and all the foodware and even the cups were 100 percent compostable. Solar panels surrounded one of the smaller stages and a wind turbine with a solar panel stood on the side of the green, providing energy to some of the vendors.

Outside Lands also teamed up with popular Internet sites such as YouTube and Facebook to promote the performances, streaming live video onto the sites and allowing users to share their festival schedule with other sit users.

“Since it was in a place that I was familiar with and with musicians that I loved, it was a more memorable experience,” said sophomore Annie De Lancie.