Went to the Outside Lands festival on Sunday, mainly to see Bon Iver and Wilco. In fact, besides a couple minutes of Jack Johnson, I didn’t really pay attention to any of the other sets.
Bon Iver’s show was great. It felt quite different from the show at The Independent because of the stark change in location and number of people. Still, the chanting during Wolves of ‘what might have been lost’ was perhaps even better at this show. There were a couple frat-boy types just in front of me that were clearly skeptical of Bon Iver until that moment; the guy drinking Jack Daniels was converted into a Bon Iver fan over the course of that song.
Wilco’s set was good … but they never play Sunken Treasure. I enjoy their other songs; I’ve even grown to like the longer solos of Impossible Germany and Kidsmoke … but I just want to hear Sunken Treasure. It’s like an itch. Unfortunately, this show also cemented my feeling that Wilco in a large venue is not really worth it. At least not for much money or many more times.
And my last story from the show: A professional scalper bought the shirt off my back for $26 bucks. It was the Finding Technocolor shirt from woot.com. He said he liked to buy one shirt of someone’s back every concert. I did like the shirt but was happy to do it for the story and the opportunity to get a Wilco shirt. And on that note: the 70% bamboo and 30% cotton shirts feel amazing.