Photos and review of Sunday at Outside Lands 2012 in San Francisco. Check out our Friday and Saturday coverage, Phrases Heard at Outside Lands 2012 and full photo album as well.

Franz Ferdinand: Early afternoon opening spots can be a difficult slot to pull off. Franz Ferdinand started slow and nonchalantly, but slowly gained steamed until the sold-out crowd was full attention and loving it. By the time they dropped “Take Me Out”, the whole main stage audience was screaming every word and pitching in full, side-to-side hand waves in unison.

Regina Spektor: Following Franz Ferdinand’s lively festival set would be a tough task for any crew, but especially so for the singer/songwriter, primarily piano based pop of Regina Spektor. This isn’t to say Regina didn’t perform well, it was just more of an atmosphere issue. After a group of guys rocks tens of thousands of fans into stomping, clapping, waving and screaming, it’s a bit harder to appreciate the nuances of lyrically based material. But Regina’s bubbly excitement was contagious and her tunes fit well in the afternoon (somewhat clouded) sun.

 

Santigold: If Regina Spektor didn’t quite keep the party vibes alive after Franz Ferdinand, then Santigold was just what the doctor ordered. Starting off with new tracks off her 2012 album Master of My Own Make Believe to butter us up, Santi jumped into classic tracks off of her debut album Santogold like “L.E.S. Artistes” to usher the set into “dance party” status. Plus, she had the best attire choreography of the weekend.

Jack White: If there was other one man at Outside Lands who could match Neil Young’s guitar work from Friday, that would be Jack White. Playing in an earlier evening slot, we knew this wouldn’t be as extended or epic of a set as Jack’s Sasquatch headlining spot earlier this summer. Truncated or not though, a Jack White set is a Jack White set. Above all, the set further demonstrated how versatile Jack’s become. Ranging through early White Stripes garage rock songs to Dead Weather tracks he used to play drums on to new country ballads with his new live crew, Jack had no hesitations jumping between styles. The set felt a bit out of place during the afternoon, and Jack noted this by saying he felt weird wielding electricity in the daylight. Nonetheless, it was another electrifying set capped off by a fully crowd-backed “Seven Nation Army”. Check out Jack’s set in the woods earlier in the day too.

Bloc Party (by Austin Mell): After making the arduous trek from the Lands End Polo Fields from Jack White, all the way across the Park to catch Bloc Party’s highly anticipated set of the weekend, I was in albeit different place. I was quite anxious to see a band I adored so much from my teenage years (my expectations were high, to say the least.), but truthly, I was quite hesitant. Bloc Party are an English band formed in 2004, composed of Kele Okerke , Russel Lissack, Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong. With their freshman release Silent Alarm, they rode the Franz Ferdinand wave of angular post-punk into new and exciting territory. However by the time of its follow-up, A Weekend in the City, they’d dulled that edge with terminal, weight-of-the-world average-joe music. Live, of course, one would assume Bloc Party would’ve been a force to be reckoned with. When faced with the choppy, limb-jerking rhythms of ‘Banquet’ or the saucer-eyed beauty of ‘This Modern Love’ in a field of intoxicated bodies writhing around, it’s easy to get lost in the joyous buzz of it all. Cerebral subtext be damned, the show Sunday however on the Twin Peaks stage felt off kilter. Hell, even the stage banter of lead singer Kele Okerke seemed out of place, and quite cocky. It wreaked with the arrogance that you’d assume a Noel Gallagher set would have.  Granted, I’m sure there are plenty of logistical aspects that one would have to take into consideration to prepare/ perform at a venue of such immensity such as Outside Lands, but Sunday’s performance seemed to be missing something key—that Bloc Party post-punk flavor I love so much.

Stevie Wonder: After spending 8 hours on Bay Area public transit before leaving Sunday afternoon, I’d wizened up to beat the crowds instead of braving two hour waits on the way home. So admittedly, I didn’t catch much of Stevie Wonder’s headlining set. From what I gathered, Stevie wasn’t shy with the hits, broke out his “percussion jumbo” and left festival-goers concluding their weekend on a feel-good note.