Photo: Molly DeCoudreaux The afternoon sky is overcast in San Francisco’s Mission District as indie rock and pop quintet Heartwatch gathers at the home of guitarist-keyboardist Eric Silverman to rehearse. The band is gearing up to play in front of another huge crowd: BottleRock Napa Valley. It’s potentially their most-significant…

The producers of the BottleRock Napa Valley festival scored big when they booked Stevie Wonder, Florence and the Machine, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to headline the 2016 event, which takes place May 27 to 29 in downtown Napa. Even the undercards are impressive, with Grouplove, Death Cab…

BottleRock culinary stage lineup. Music fans at BottleRock Napa Valley will see an increase of performer traffic at the Williams-Sonoma Culinary Stage this year, with members of some of the biggest bands in the world participating in presentations by Michelin Star-rated and celebrity chefs. Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers,Taylor Hawkins of Foo…

Janelle Monáe, courtesy. The Stern Grove Festival has announced its full summer lineup of free concerts, featuring Janelle Monáe, George Clinton, Hieroglyphics, Julieta Venegas, The New Pornographers,as well as regular performers, the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Ballet. The festival, approaching its 79th season, will run from June 19 to Aug. 21.…

BottleRock lineup. The producers of BottleRock Napa Valley, the North Bay’s upstart concert festival that is now in its fourth year, revealed a lineup of night shows around the Bay Area, from Napa to San Jose. Several of the festival’s performers, including Grouplove, Michael Franti and the Struts, will perform…

Joywave performs at the Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Oct. 11, 2019. Alessio Neri/STAFF. There are four things fans of Joywave should know in order to understand the motivations of the Rochester, New York indie rock quintet. First is that Rochester is the home base of Eastman Kodak…

Fantastic Negrito was one of several musicians we met up with at BottleRock in Napa. The organizers of the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival wanted to cut down on counterfeit tickets at last weekend’s festival. That’s one of the big reasons they switched out the easy-to-fake paper tickets…

The Black Keys perform at Outside Lands 2015 in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Photo: Paige K. Parsons. If you attended this year’s installment of the Outside Lands Music Festival, you likely have already a list of your top favorite moments. But if you’re still trying to make up…

Benjamin Booker performs at the Greek Amphitheater in Berkeley on July 28, 2017. Jay Demetillo/STAFF. Blues-punk singer-guitarist Benjamin Booker, who’s playing at Outside Lands, is also a well-educated man. He attended an International Baccalaureate supplementation in high school in Florida, which means that he has not one but two high…

Courtesy: Outside Lands Deep in the vegetation of Golden Gate Park, among the tens of thousands of attendees at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in 2012, beside the fairytale-like “houses” peddling chocolate – hot, cold, hardened and molten – and next to a carnival sideshow with clowns,…