Outside Lands:
1 To hear The Chronicle’s Outside Lands 2017 playlist and keep up with our team of reporters during the three-day festival: www.sf chronicle. com/out side-lands
Damon Albarn of Gorillaz helps kick off three-day festival. Full coverage at www.sf chronicle.com/ outside-lands.
The summer fog descended on the west end of Golden Gate Park just as Outside Lands headliner Gorillaz took the stage on opening day of San Francisco’s annual outdoor festival Friday.
About 70,000 people flowed into the festival, which runs through Sunday, for the rare Gorillaz appearance — the virtual band spearheaded by English singer-songwriter Damon Albarn — and had also hoped to catch A Tribe Called Quest, which was scheduled to warm up the main stage before sunset. Unfortunately, the festival had to cancel the hip-hop group’s set “due
to unforeseen travel issues” midway through the day, forcing Swedish electronic band Little Dragon and producer RAC to change their set times (to RAC fans’ delight, they got a double dose as the Grammy-winning artist played on two different stages) to help fill the void. Tribe, featuring Q-Tip and Jarobi White, are now scheduled to perform Saturday night.
But that was the only major glitch so far at the festival, which is celebrating a decade of offering a vast sampling of Bay Area food, music and wine. Fans caught sets by former Walkmen singer Hamilton Leithauser, the reunited rap outfit Dr. Octagon, Scottish indie group Belle and Sebastian, as well as a risque performance by Swedish singer Tove Lo, who flashed the crowd from the stage during her afternoon set.
Greeting the crowd under the gray skies, Gorillaz frontman Albarn said, “It’s marvelous to be here!”