Notes on 2012 Outside Lands–Day Three

I’m just in the gate when Tom Morello in his Nightwatchman incarnation is leading the crowd into a This Land is Your Land.  Something like this could easily turn out hokey but in this setting, in these days, in his hands, it just feels right.  He ends with pulling about 150 people on stage to close with World Wide Revolution Rebel Songs.  His parting words to us all: “Take it easy–but take it.”… Over in the Barbary tent, Eric Andre is playing clips from his demented eponymous Adult Swim show. It is somewhat reassuring to see him be a bit normal IRL, and still be every bit as funny as the version on TV…  Franz Ferdinand (from Glasgow, Scotland as they remind us, lest we’ve forgotten who they are) get a nice welcome from the main stage crowd.  Their tunes are built for maximum festival reaction with tense riffs that give way to big bouncy choruses. They work morph a tasty synthy tangent of Donna Summer’s “I feel loved” into “Can’t stop feeling”.  A couple of new songs I hear get seem to have them back in familiar simpler territory of the first album. Looking forward to it…  Jack White hits the ground running, straight into I’m Shakin’ (Little Willie John cover) then into his own Black Math, the first of a bunch of White Stripes tunes he’ll throw out (along with a couple of Raconteurs, Dead Weather and Rome cuts).  He’s playing with his boys for this set.  They bring the funk.  And the rock  And the soul.  And a bit of country.  All of it.  Sometime at once.   Jack is moving into this National Treasure/Elder Statesman role at almost too young an age.  It’s a lot to carry; he still needs to rock out; and the burden of Being Jack White might be too heavy at this point…  So I’m back in the Barbary tent, sitting between two groups of people who have no idea what Delocated is or who Jon Glaser is for that matter. I try to explain: “See, he’s in the witness protection program and he’s on a reality show.  So he has to wear a mask and disguise his voice.  So the Russians that want to kill him don’t know his identity…”  They’re not quite getting it. Anyhow. “Jon” does a hilarious bit where he walks us through chapters of a sex tips book that he’s written.  It’s illustrated with him, in full ski mask and full anatomic splendor.  I’m sure that doesn’t sound funny if you weren’t there and try to imagine it.  (This is the case with a lot of Adult Swim.)… Stevie Wonder then. A perfect cool-down end to the weekend.  An early emotional highpoint is his cover of M.J.’s the Way You Make Me Feel.   The he just rolls out classics out of his bag, one after another–Higher Ground, Sir Duke, Signed, Sealed, Cherie Amour, Superstition, Isn’t She Lovely.  Songs in the Key of Life indeed.  This particularly classy set really drives home the (many) differences between a Coachella and an Outside Lands…  Yet, as perfect as Stevie was, I had to steal away for at least a couple of minutes of facetime with the Skrillex, just as an amateur cultural anthropologist to try to understand what he (and his fans) are all about. I’m still working on my Skrillex hypothesis; I’ll have get back to you on that…