Photos: Diana Cordero, Nick DeCicco and Ian Young TREASURE ISLAND — Mother Nature was the unintended guest performer Saturday on the first day of the Treasure Island Music Festival Saturday. A downpour drenched festivalgoers, causing a three-hour delay between sets. After hundreds if not thousands left in droves, promoters reversed policy…

Christine and the Queens. Courtesy. It’s been a busy couple of years for Heloise Letissier, a French singer-songwriter-dancer who began the span by setting aside her dreams of Broadway stage production in favor of a career as Francophile synth-pop musician who has successfully crossed over to an Anglophile pop…

Ten years ago, a couple small, local music production companies decided the Bay Area needed more live music. They envisioned a festival that didn’t force ticket holders to decide which acts to skip. They decided that if a festival was planned well enough, it should be possible to see every performance.…

Photos: Nick DeCicco SAN FRANCISCO — An almost-reunion for rock supergroup Monsters of Folk was the highlight of a strong Conor Oberst set to close out Friday’s first day of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park. Jim James and M. Ward joined Oberst for a pair…

  For the first time in 10 years, October’s Treasure Island Music Festival is extending its shuttle service to include East Bay music lovers. The festival itself is moving to the east side of the island, which makes it easier to run shuttles across the eastern span of the Bay…

Photos: Ché Holts When the operators of a U.C. Berkeley alumni campground first contacted the Bay Area’s Strong Brew and One Foot Productions about hosting a music festival in the Stanislaus National Forest near Pinecrest, the producers dreamt of a much larger project. The U.S. Forest Service shuttered their hopes of a Burning Man-esque…

The first-ever Bear Music Fest will be nothing like its organizers originally brainstormed, and they say that’s how they would prefer it. “I think the best things in life come out of the limitations with which you’re presented,” says Kevin Merritt, the event’s executive producer. The idea pitched two…

Kamasi Washington performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco in 2016. Che Holts/STAFF. Tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington does not believe in the words that describe music. Sitting on a brown sofa backstage at Outside Lands, facing a journalist sitting on a slightly different brown sofa, he draws…

Photos: Lorenz Angelo and Nick DeCicco SAN FRANCISCO — Australian synthpop group Miami Horror brought a showy finish Saturday to the 20th Street Block Party in San Francisco. In a day that brought many subdued or introspective performances, Miami Horror stood out for its energy and showmanship. Band members…

The Knocks. Courtesy photo. The Knocks may be among the most popular, sought-out production teams in the world. But in the universe of Justin Bieber, Ben “B-Roc” Ruttner and James “JPatt” Patterson are observers like everyone else. Bieber is such a fan that he invited the electronic duo to open…