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BRIAN GIBBS |
Could I have taken any more craptastic photographs? I highly doubt it. I wanted to demonstrate exactly how far we were from the show and still a lot closer than most. Danielle and Dores being the exception who were sitting in V.I.P.
Last Friday Radiohead performed in Golden Gate Park Headlining the Outside Lands Festival which the entire city all had tickets. Never in my life have I seen so many people traveling to the same place. It was insane. Seriously, the entire city was there. All of the buses were completely packed going to the park.On multiple occasions the bus lines did not even stop to pick up passengers because they were so packed. We tried getting a Taxi but we had to compete with the rest of the world for that to happen. Bus it is.
Our game plan for the show was to go after 6:30 after the dancers got out of work. Garen, Scott, Myself, Jeezy, Martin, Jaime, Z, and Jonathan(imported from London) were all supposed to meet up in the park. Garen, Scott, Jeezy, Z and I all traveled together to the park on a packed bus. Once we got to the park it was about a half mile walk to “Will Call” which was another hour in the line for our tickets. Finally after getting our tickets we rushed into the gated area to go see Radiohead. Upon first step of being in the actual festival I hear the first 2sec of “Reckoner” my favorite track off of In Rainbows. “Reckoner” was the song I was most excited about hearing live. I got so excited that I started to run thinking that the guys were behind me. I look ahead and Jeezy is in front of me but his phone is dead and so is Garen’s who was with Scott. I had to catch up with Jeezy so he would not get lost by himself. A few moments go by before I catch up to him while loosing Garen and Scott. We are running through the park with a mob of people whom all have tickets and gone through the security checkpoints. We run upon some disgruntled security a little ways in. They wanted all of us to turn around and go the opposite direction that the firsts security check point told us to go. We tried talking to them but, we ran. It was a huge mob with Jeezy and I weaving through them so that we can get a good view of the show. Everytime we thought we were at the Radiohead stage we had another field to go through. 10 min later we get to the opening where Radiohead were performing. At the top of the opening was another 2 football fields with an endless sea of people listening and watching. The band was on the opposite side of where we were. By the time we arrived , we had completely lost everyone else that we came with. Not too mention finding anyone there was a lost cause. For some reason or another the site was a black spot for cell phone service so we had to try and mark Tree’s or something to find each other. I have never seen that many people in one place in San Francisco or anywhere else in my life. After inching threw the packed fields we had found a spot where we can see, chill and dance. The band were in top form with the exception of the music cutting out twice on “Airbag” and “All I need”. (I would hate to have been the sound man that night) Thome Yorke apologized and said “Ultimately it is all about the music”. I loved how they used Led light bars for an incredible light show to accompany they’re music. A lot of the songs they played were off of the new album In Rainbows but the older material was played too with added re-mixes.
The official number that was released for the festival attendance that night was 60,000. 80,000 was the unofficial number with people jumping fences and sneaking in. Still, 80,000?
Could you imagine to have 80,000 people wanting to travel in cramped, spaces from far and away to come see your work? Thats incredible!
After the show ended we walked home, or to some bars, or to a house party. All of which were no closer than 3 miles. Even with all of the mayhem getting to and from the show, it was magical night and we all ended up back together exchanging stories of our fantastical journies
B
