This was my second time at Outside Lands and I have to say, it’s definitely gained some traction! When I last went in 2008, the second year of Outside Lands’ existence, the headliners were Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, and Beastie Boys (who canceled due to Adam Yauch‘s throat cancer and were replaced with Tenacious D), and while there was a pretty huge turnout, the crowd at this year’s festival was noticeably larger, especially on Saturday with the OK Go, Arctic Monkeys, Black Keys, Muse rockfest.

I’ll go ahead and sum up my feelings in a nice, bulleted, Worms-style awards list, accompanied by some lovely media:

• Sounded Most Like Their Album: TIE – The Shins and MGMT
• Most Spirit: The Limousines for hanging in there even when their sound guy didn’t.
• Best Team Up: Win Butler & Mavis Staples on “The Weight”

• Coolest Look: Arctic Monkeys for their 60′s greaser style
• The Energizer Award: Phish and their 4-hour long set
• Best Performance I Missed: Girl Talk
• Guitar Throwing Champ: Matt Bellamy / Muse

• Most Heard Variations of a Band Name: !!! (“Chk-chk-chk”, “The Punctuation Marks”, etc.)
• Most Unexpectedly Fun Band: OK Go – they don’t need treadmills to rock!
• Band Who Rocked My Socks Off: Black Keys

• Best Non-Mainstage Band: Foster the People – their cover of Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” was AWESOME
• Best Stage: Arcade Fire

There you have it! I’m still hoping Outside Lands finds it in their heart to remedy the situation they placed me in by selling me tickets promising “side stage” or “front of house pit” for Arcade Fire, then sticking me in a packed area 150 feet from the stage behind hundreds of other people and saying sorry. Come on Outside Lands, you can do it!

Oh yeah – remember when I said Vanessa Hudgens was at Outside Lands? I wasn’t lying! She was dancing right next to me during MGMT’s set:

P.S. TUNE IN SUNDAY! I’m back for a week, then gone for two while I skip across to the east coast and then come back and hit BUMBERSHOOT.