San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
From electronic music festival to free Hardly Strictly to tours, season loaded
Summer might be coming to a close in most parts of the country, but everyone knows the Bay Area concert calendar really heats up in the fall.
As the sun emerges from the fog, the season brings another batch of eclectic music festivals and headlining shows to keep the good vibes going. From the newly-hatched Portola Festival, which offers two days of electronic music superstars on a San Francisco pier, to the long-awaited return of the free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, which promises many familiar faces, the next few months will make you want to keep your sunscreen — and earplugs — close by.
The new season also brings an influx of pop icons who are bidding adieu to life on the road: Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, Elton John, and the B-52s are all making what they have indicated may be their final Bay Area appearances (although with rock stars, you can never be too certain).
And if that doesn’t do it for you, “Old Town Road” hitmaker Lil Nas X is sure to entertain on his first-ever headlining tour.
Roger Waters:
Roger Waters, who postponed his “This Is Not a Drill” tour at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, plans to return to Northern California nearly two years after the concerts were originally scheduled to take place.
The set list for the multimedia, inthe-round concert will include several Pink Floyd classics as well as his solo material.
“Same writer, same heart, same soul, same man. Could be his last hurrah,” Waters said in a statement. “My first farewell tour! Don’t miss it.”
Grace Jones: Grace Jones gets not one but two shout-outs on Beyoncé’s “Renaissance,” confirming her status as the original multi-hyphenate star. The 74-year-old “Slave to the Rhythm” singer is set to return to Oakland’s Fox Theater, where the last time she appeared her concert was punctuated by wild fashions, topless hula-hooping, body paint and Studio 54 flashbacks.
Portola Festival:
San Francisco is set to get another major music festival when the first Portola Music Festival, produced by the promotion company behind the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach Festival in Southern California, comes to Pier 80 this fall. The two-day concert is expected to feature a constellation of electronic music artists, including headliners Flume and Chemical Brothers, alongside acts like the East Bay’s own Toro y Moi as well as James Blake, Jamie xx, Jungle, Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, Caribou, Fatboy Slim and others.
“This is the festival I’ve wanted to produce for the past decade,” Danny Bell, a talent buyer for Goldenvoice, said in a statement. “San Francisco is the perfect city for it and now is the perfect time.”
S.F. www.portolamusicfestival.com
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival:
San Francisco’s beloved, free, three-day outdoor concert is expected to make its in-person return to Golden Gate Park after two years of COVID-19 pandemicrelated disruptions. The lineup features familiar faces and newcomers alike, including Emmylou Harris, Mumford and Sons singer Marcus Mumford, original Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison and former touring guitarist Adrian Belew, San Francisco bluegrass band the Brothers Comatose, Swedish indie act the Tallest Man On Earth, the Brooklyn-based Afrobeat band Antibalas, and many others.