Remi Wolf has never been toOutside Lands. But it’s not for lack of trying.
The pop singer, who released her highly anticipated debut full-length,“Juno,”on Friday, Oct. 15, attempted to sneak into the festival at Golden Gate Park “multiple times” as a teen growing up in Palo Alto.
“我最后一次尝试是在2014年,我和我的friends tried to hop the fence. But then I broke out in hives,” Wolf recalls during a phone interview with The Chronicle from her home in Los Angeles, after a whirlwind month that included sets at Las Vegas’ Life Is Beautiful Festival and at Texas’ Austin City Limits Music Festival. “I think I brushed up against a plant? Or maybe I’d eaten something weird. But I definitely had to leave.”
Wolf plans to break that unlucky streak Oct. 29, when she breaches the Outside Lands gates to make her hometown festival debut — more than a year after she was supposed to because ofpandemic delays. When she finally does perform, on the Sutro stage that afternoon, it will be in front of a crowd that includes her extended family and a big crew representing Palo Alto High School.
“A lot of my friends are coming, and I think also people from high school who I didn’t know that well … so that’ll be interesting to navigate,” she says, with a laugh. “An Outside Lands high school reunion.”
Wolf is just one of about a dozen homegrown artists scheduled to make their Outside Lands debut from Oct. 29 to 31.Rexx Life Raj,Madeline Kenney, ZHU, 24kGoldn,mxmtmoon,Brijean,Boy Scouts, Salami Rose Joe Louis andMarc E. Bassy, among others, are excited to bring their sound — hip-hop, indie rock, EDM, folk and more — to the festival that draws about 75,000 people each day.
Headliners Lizzo, the Strokes and Tame Impala are all surely glad to be back on the festival circuit too, but for local artists — including, yes, those names at the bottom of the poster, in the tiniest print — Outside Lands has come to represent so much more.
Outside Lands 2021: Everything you need to know about the San Francisco festival’s return
“For an up-and-coming local act, when that poster comes out and their name is on it — just from an awareness standpoint, that’s invaluable,” says Allen Scott, head of concerts and festivals for the Berkeley promoter Another Planet Entertainment, which co-produces Outside Lands. “If even one new person discovers them at the festival and loves their music, they’re going to carry that with them and testify to their friends.”
Scott takes pride in Outside Lands alumni like Kehlani, who returns this year in a high-profile slot Sunday on the Sutro stage, after a smaller-stage performance in 2016.
“There are so many great artists who have played the festival who have continued to get bigger and bigger, and we’re proud to be a part of that,” says Scott, who estimates that 15% of the bill each year is made up of artists from the region. “Outside Lands is about celebrating the Bay Area. So it’s important to us not only to champion the scene, but to really give these artists a national spotlight, an opportunity to shine.”
In the 13 years since Outside Lands came on to the scene, the festival has expanded from a humble concert to a smorgasbord of high-end food and wine, A-list comedians, VIP experiences, Instagram backdrops, a thing whereBig Freedia throws beignetsat people and, as of 2019, a designated area where attendees can purchase and consumeartisanal cannabis.
But the music is still the main course, and an Outside Lands booking carries weight.It’s no coincidence that even an abridged list of local Outside Lands alums reads like a highlight reel of the Bay’s best:Osees, the Coup,Geographer, the She’s, Bhi Bhiman,Fantastic Negrito,Shannon and the Clams, the Dodos,K. Flay,Lyrics Bornand Kamaiyah have all shined at the festival, many of them on their ascent toward national or international recognition.
Last year was supposed to be Oakland singer-songwriterMadeline Kenney‘s turn. In July 2020, she released her critically acclaimed album “Sucker’s Lunch” and she was excited to play those songs at the festival. Instead, her February 2020 shows turned out to be her last in front of live audiences for nearly 18 months — and the last time she saw her band members, who live in Austin, Texas.
As a singer and multi-instrumentalist, Kenney did have the option of performing solo virtually over the past year and a half from her home in the East Bay, but she learned early in the pandemic that she wasn’t built for live streams.
“Playing to a screen, and not having the energy of a room full of people, and then also you’re doing the lights, the sound, the video,” she says. “I found it to be a pretty soul-crushing experience.”
Last summer, she did perform forInside Lands, Another Planet’s virtual festival, with a beautiful solo piece for piano and drum machine filmed in the chapel at the Saint Joseph’s Arts Society in San Francisco. But it was hardly a satisfying substitute.
A year later, Kenney now has plans to fly her band out for Outside Lands, where she is scheduled to open the Sutro stage on Friday.
“I’m just excited to play with my friends. After all this waiting, I feel so lucky I get to do that,” she says. “I mean, my bass player and my drummer got married, and I watched it on Zoom.”
For Berkeley-born singer and rapperRexx Life Raj, performing at the festival on Saturday on the Twin Peaks stage will mark something of a bittersweet milestone.
“I had the opportunity to go (as a fan) every time for the past five years or so,” Raj says. “But at some point I decided: I’m not going to Outside Lands until IdoOutside Lands.”
In February 2020, he got word he had been booked at Outside Lands, a highlight during what was supposed to be his busiest touring year yet.
Then the pandemic happened. And just kept happening.
He used that time in isolation to write: He released an EP, “California Poppy 2,” in November and has spent much of 2021 pumping out a steady stream of clever, complex singles and music videos from his forthcoming full-length album — earning fans across the country and critical nods from national media.
He also lost both of his parents. They died within months of each other in 2021, after battling cancer and other health problems.
In the grief-stricken weeks since, as the world begins to reopen after more than a year of pandemic shutdowns, Raj has poured himself into touring and has been deeply grateful for the chance to perform live again.
“It all feels more meaningful now,” he says, phoning from a tour stop in Oklahoma City.
Certain songs have taken on new layers for him, like when he performs “Time,” in which he raps about struggling to balance his home life and career, his father’s illness, and how he should have been a doctor instead of a rapper.
But mostly, he says, when he thinks about playing Outside Lands for the first time, he’s thinking about the chance to cut loose with his friends, and how he’ll never take that for granted again. He’s planning his Halloween costume (he mentions the words “inflatable” and “Jurassic Park-themed”). He’s ready to celebrate with a renewed sense of purpose.
“It means the world to me to get on a stage, because I’ve missed it so much,” he says. “It also feels like this is what they (my parents) would want me to be doing. Like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
Outside Lands 2021:11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Oct. 29-30; 11 a.m.-9:40 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 31. $165-$855. Golden Gate Park, S.F. Proof of vaccination or negative test required.sfoutsidelands.com