Treasure Island Music Festival 2013

October 24. 2013 | By Jay Raco

Hard to believe our favorite festival is already seven years old. They grow up so fast! Treasure Island hasn”t changed a bit, and this is great. Sure there”s more people going and the lineups are bigger and better, but all in all, TI remains consistently excellent and unique.

Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/20/13

What sets it apart? Well, besides the amazing views? The set up. Most festivals do too much: 2000 bands! 10 stages! Two million square feet of fairgrounds! But the only three bands that you really want to see are all playing at the same time. What? Here, there are two stages and the bands take turns playing. Simple. Beautiful. You can catch every act, and if you”re not feeling a set, the festival offers plenty of distractions, from world class people watching, short beer lines, great food, a Ferris wheel, and the hilarious silent disco.

Danny Brown @ Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/19/13
Danny Brown

This year was colder than normal, with serious fog and wind chill rolling in, especially Saturday. Traffic also sucked, due to the BART strike, and caused us to miss Danny Brown“s set (luckily our photog made it). The colder weather was hardly noticed by the crowd on Saturday due to a myriad of reasons. First, nearly every concert goer appeared “enhanced” by something other than alcohol. And that type of music draws out some super fun characters who were in full force on Saturday. Secondly, the crowd was so amped up and dancing so feverishly, that they didn”t notice that it was 50 degrees.

There were so many excellent moments and highlights (especially Sunday), but for the sake of brevity, and because everyone loves a good list, here were our top five songs of the weekend:

5. “Pon De Floor” – Major Lazer

Major Lazer @ Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/19/13
Major Lazer @ Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/19/13

Lazers Never Die! Diplo and crew had the audience going bonkers to the military drum barrage from the classic single from the epically titled record Guns Don”t Kill People, Lazers Do. The onstage and off stage twerkers were going off! Not sure if Diplo did much in the way of playing music (he had other DJs that he”d check in with during the set), but he”s one hell of a hype man and brought great energy while leading the whole island in a pogo.

4. “The House That Heaven Built” – Japandroids

Japandroids @ Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/20/13

Arguably the hardest rocking set of the weekend, Japandroids furiously ripped it. Legend has it that the version of the song that appeared on Celebration Rock was the first take that they did in the studio and was such an epic vocal performance by Brian King that he admittedly would never be able to do it again. Sunday, he proved himself wrong and the crowd オンライン カジノ thrashed about. For those that didn”t want to mosh, there was a huge grassy space next the right side of the stage and a crowd gathered to run in a circle and punch the sky.

3. “Loser” – Beck

Beck @ Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/20/13

Beck has always thought it ridiculous that some artists feel the need to distance themselves from the song that made them famous. The song is awesome! Why withhold it? When “Loser” came on early in the his set, the crowd showed appreciation by rapping/singing along to the words like it was “93. Beck put on a brilliant set starting with “Devil”s Haircut,” and did covers of “Billie Jean” and a mashup of “Tainted Love”/”Modern Guilt” by the end of it.

2. “Harrowdown Hill” – Atoms For Peace

Atoms For Peace @ Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/19/13

Thom Yorke“s voice cutting through the cold foggy night wailing “We think the same things at the same time, we just can”t do anything about it,” was haunting and goose bump inducing, yet had nothing to do with the weather. The AFP set was the first on the their North American tour and really humanized their songs. Piano was substituted for synth and gave the music an organic balance. It was the perfect way to end the night on Saturday.

1. “The Wire” – Haim

Haim @ Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/20/13
Haim @ Treasure Island Music Festival, SF 10/20/13

I know! Crazy, right? The Haim sisters put on the most fun set of the weekend and their standout track from Days Are Gone was the caper. Unlike the album, which is pure pop polish in its production, sounding like Tusk Era Fleetwood Mac, the girls channeled their inner Led Zeppelin and ripped incredibly hard and with so much precision that it wasn”t fair. They turned the festival into a talent contest, and they were the winners. The girls have been playing instruments since they could hold them. At one point they all grabbed drum sticks and started pounding in unison, it sounded like “Drums Not Dead” from fellow LA band Liars. It was shocking and visceral.

See more fantastic photos of Saturday”s festivities HERE and Sunday”s festivities HERE!

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