Treasure Island Music Festival (Sunday Sept. 21, 2008)

Yesterday I was fortunate to attend day two of the Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco, adding yet another music festival to my list. Recently, I was at Rock the Bells SF and day one of Outside Lands. While I have not been disappointed with any festivals this summer-although Outside Lands was a cluster fuck-I was extremely pleased with this island experience. Included in the ticket price was parking at the ballpark and luxury buses to the island.

The set-up was a nice scale and included shops, live art, surprisingly good food and a ferris wheel. There were two stages with a large grass area and an epic view of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge. Artists alternated between the main stage and smaller stage throughout the entire line-up and there was very little downtime between sets. The line-up was hearty-14 acts-and pretty well selected.

In my opinion, the top five acts of the night were-in ascending order-Tokyo Police Club, Tegan and Sara, Fleet Foxes, Port-O’Brien and The Raconteurs. I will give an honorable mention to Vampire Weekend, The Morning Benders and Spiritualized as well for playing some really great songs in their sets. 

Tokyo Police Club: These young guys have great energy. Their set built as it went along and their song order was arranged well. 

Tegan and Sara: Oddly the only band there that I had seen before and yet still I don’t know much about them. They put on a very entertaining show and really captivated the audience. 

Fleet Foxes: Between songs the dialogue between bandmates was hilarious. Then, suddenly they would turn serious and launch into their style of harmonic lyrical delivery that would build into a nice folky tune. Very talented, crisp performance. 

Port O’Brien: This emerging band blew my mind. I was turned onto them in the spring by a friend and recently started listening to more of their material. These guys seemed to shut out the audience while performing a song in sort of a trance-like manner. At one point the lead singer and a few other members were jumping and swaying, getting more and more aggressive as the song progressed. When the song was over, the lead singer gasped for breath into the microphone and said “There are a lot more people out there then last time I looked.” They have a very comfortable family feel-even featuring the drummer’s Dad on Cello. While a short set, these guys were amazing. I would suggest checking them out.

The Raconteurs: Awesome, awesome, awesome. The scale of the festival made it fairly easy to get close for any performance, including the headlining act, The Raconteurs. This super-group played like legends and while their performance was of the quality of a studio recording, they changed up some of their songs and added great transitions. Jack White and Brendan Benson sang and strummed their guitars flawlessly and their bassist and drummer from The Greenhornes and keyboardist certainly maintained a crucial presence as well. Do not miss a chance to see these guys!

Click here to see the full line-up from both days:

http://www.treasureislandfestival.com/lineup.php

The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes (from last night’s performance)