Take It Or Leave It
Outside Lands 2026: The Strokes, Geese, Charli, Death Cab
It’s hard to feel any sense of passion at a music festival these days. I’m not sure it was any better in the past, but it certainly wasn’t worse.
In all likelihood, it was exactly the same. What was different wasn’t the music festival but the person there—namely, me. I cut my teeth at Coachella, on the wide, ranging grounds of the Empire Polo Club. They seemed endless in those days, as if the bounds of the festival stretched to eternity. It was an illusion, sure, but an effective one, especially with the mountains of the Coachella Valley ringing the premises, wide and impassive and eternal.
Outside Lands, on the other hand, is set in San Francisco, the city in which I now reside as a 34 year old man. The festival takes place in beautiful Golden Gate Park—one of the crown jewels of the city, and a far sight lovelier than the polo fields of Indio.
Still, the aesthetics of the grounds feel off somehow. The stages, which are bunched up right on top of one another, are separated by an elaborate series of passages leading to all manner of entrances, exits, VIP areas, and something called the “Golden Gate Club,” tickets to which cost five thousand dollars. I was rolling with something called a “Bison Black” wristband, which the woman at the box office described to me as “VIP Plus Plus,” but I was heartily dismissed by the doorman at the Golden Gate Club entrance when I asked if I could get in.
The point is, it’s clearer than ever that a music festival is not a place you go to see music. It’s somewhere you go to spend money and take pictures and wear outfits—all fun things, to be sure, and things I enjoy doing—but it’s worth calling a spade a spade right up front.
No complaining. Take it or leave it.
So here’s what I took:
FRIDAY
Geese are a better band than they were a year ago.
This wasn’t a better show than I saw last year—festival sets always leave something to be desired, even from the best of the best—but Cameron Winter and co. have undoubtedly gotten better at their jobs. How could they not? Peep that tour schedule.
