Outside Lands 2014

Music festivals for me are like religious gatherings. It's a place to celebrate music, discover new artists, and reminisce about the past. Last year I attended the Outside Lands music festival for the first time and fell in love with the festival. This year some of the acts who performed at Outside Lands were The Killers, Haim, Chromeo, Death Cab for Cutie, the Flaming Lips, and Tom Petty. I had an amazing time up in San Francisco and I would like to share some of the pictures I took at the music festival. There will also be a vlog later on this week, but first let me tell you a little about my second year at Outside Lands.

My boyfriend, his uncle, and I started our day watching the Janis Joplin tribute at Outside Lands. The United States Postal Service honored Janis Joplin with this awesome limited edition stamp in their series of influential American musicians. Janis' brother was at the tribute which made this moment very special. After unveiling of the commemorative stamp the music began! Nicki Bluhm, Kacey Musgraves, and Mary Bridget Davies all paid respect to the queen of psychedelic rock. Out of the three women, Mary Bridget Davies was the best. She left the whole crowd with their mouths wide open because she sounded so much like Janis.

Once again I took these old Target boots to the festival. This was their very last trip ever because after this festival they were donzo.

I'm no fan of the band Fun but we decided to check out Bleachers for a few minutes. If you don't already know the Bleachers frontman is also in Fun and he's Lena Dunham's boyfriend. I wasn't the biggest fan of Bleachers but a lot of people were feeling them, just look at the crowd!

There's Beer Lands and Wine Lands so why not Sober Lands?

My Canadian homies, Chromeo, killed it at Outside Lands! This was the first time since 2009 that I've seen Chromeo and let me tell you they have improved their stage presence by a lot! The first time I saw Chromeo they were just performing at a small stage at San Diego's Street Scene festival and this time around they performed on the main stage in front of thousands of people.

As a longtime fan I felt so proud of their rise to fame. I cannot wait to see them again in a few months in San Diego, it should be a funktastic show.

Kanye West was Friday night's headliner and his set was incredibly underwhelming. When I first saw Kanye at Coachella 2011 he was incredibly humble and thankful about performing at the festival, this time around he was his normal arrogant self. He wore this bizarre mask, stopped various songs, and then kept ranting about everything and anything. It was an awkward set with some very mixed reviews.

Day 2 was a very cold one, so cold that all 3 of us had to buy sweatshirts at the festival. I swear it was a good 30º colder that San Diego which felt so nice.

I was so excited to see Haim at the festival and they certainly did not disappoint! It's crazy to think that I saw them perform at a very small venue in San Diego a few months ago because they brought their A-game to the main stage. My boyfriend had never really heard much about Haim but he became a huge fan after their set.

Most people choose to take selfies or drink a beer in between acts but not my boyfriend. Orlando brought a book to read in between acts which some people around us thought was weird. Pshh... haters.

Death Cab for Cutie brought me back to high school and early years of college. Their set was a good one, nothing spectacular but it was a good solid set.

Day 3 consisted of me camping out for the Killers in the front. I spent a total of 8 hours waiting in the front with limited 3G and only protein bars to keep me full. It sounds a lot tougher than it is because 8 hours isn't much for me but let just say my boyfriend couldn't hang with this fangirl.

I've seen Paolo Nutini twice and both times were because of me camping out for the Killers. He didn't even sing that New Shoes song. :(

Spoon was another band that took me back to high school and college. I haven't heard much of their music since then but I really need to check out their new album. I really loved what I heard and I loved that they recognized this one dude from the crowd. "That guy right there is insane," Spoon frontman Britt Daniel told the crowd. Then he played the song that the guy requested which happens to be one of my favorite Spoon songs called I Summon You.

I never thought a band would be more trippy than of Montreal but the Flaming Lips set was crazy. Most of the times I was like "what the hell is going on?" perhaps because I was sober and seeing all this absurd things on stage but once I let my guard go down then I began enjoying the set.

 Wayne Coyne is one crazy frontman but he was awesome. I posted two pictures of the Flaming Lips set on my Instagram and he commented in one of my pictures. A few minutes later I saw that he had reposted my picture which was one of the coolest things that happened that weekend.

Here's a picture of Britt from Spoon watching the Flaming Lips from the side of the stage.

When Wayne brought out the bubble I immediately said "holy shit" out loud because that only meant one thing, he was going to go into the crowd. It was crazy seeing him crawl through the crowd in that bubble.

This was the most WTF moment, Wayne singing on top of a cube with a fake baby. Everything sounds absurd but it was pretty damn cool.

Finally the moment I was waiting for all year came around, it was time to see The Killers! This was my 6th time seeing them and I still got those butterflies in my stomach. Their music helped me through very tough times in my life, so in my eyes they've been the shoulder that I've always been able to lean on. There's something very comforting about Brandon's voice.

The Killers blew me away once again. I screamed, sang, and pumped my fist during the whole set. All the pain of standing around hours went away and the only thing that mattered was me and the music. It was the perfect way to end an unforgettable weekend in San Francisco.

Overall it was an incredible weekend and I felt really happy about getting to experience it with my boyfriend and his uncle who is also a big music lover like I am. If you are a big music fan then I highly recommend going to Outside Lands, especially if you like a chill music festival.

I hope you enjoyed the picture recap but I will ask this politely: Please do not steal any of my pictures. If you wish to use one of my pictures please contact me and give proper credit for them. I'll have the video recap very soon, I promise!

Are you a big fan of music festivals as I am? If so, let me know which music festivals you've attended in the comments!