SAN FRANCISCO — SZA is an excellent musician and performer, and she showed how excellent as the Friday headliner, but first we have to talk about her stage production.

Even by Outside Lands headliner standards, SZA’s elaborate went above and beyond: an entire seaside setting to which the songs were connected. The main stage was a platform a few feet high with a screen across the front, with a small dock protruding from it off to the right. In the center was a lighthouse, with a moving spotlight on top and a screen on the front. The background was a huge screen. SZA took us on a journey.

When the rapper began the second song, “Supermodel,” the lighthouse came on and we saw it in full force. The background was a tranquil ocean scene with street lights, the front of the platform was piers under a boardwalk with the waves calmly lapping against them, and the lighthouse was quaint and ivy-covered.

For “Broken Clocks,” it was high tide, so you could see under the water, complete with fish. For “Doves in the Wind,” it was a major storm, with waves crashing against piers and rocks and the lighthouse door shuddering. There was a sunrise and a sunset, calm days and rough seas.

SZA shined with the actual performance as well. She kept the energy going without the raucous tempo of other headliners, and nearly every song in the setlist got cheers. “Broken Clocks” and “I Hate U” got an especially enthusiastic reaction.

Her stories also helped set the scene.

“When I wrote this, I was thinking about how we went to keg parties and I was by myself all the fucking time,” she explained as an introduction to “Drew Barryomore.” 

For “Normal Girl” she said, “Rights are being taken away, I heard the Earth is spinning like twice as fast as it once was. Sometimes you just want to feel normal.”

Sza said she had COVID-19 a week ago, though she’s testing negative now. A lot of the symptoms can last weeks after a negative test, including fatigue and exhaustion, so putting on a show as elaborate and as good as she did is especially impressive.

The packed crowd was lucky she battled back and made it to Outside Lands, because if she had still been sick they would have missed out on a good one.

Oliver Tree

Oliver Tree’s set was, by any definition, an experience.

There was his whole look. Oliver Tree came out on stage with a red and purple track jacket and teal pants, rocking a Joe-Exotic-style bowl cut/mullet combo, and even through three costume changes, he kept up the energy. And for the record, those costume changes took place after he stormed off the stage to protest the lack of energy from the crowd, while he was insisting everyone open up a mosh pit, and over 30 seconds at center stage while everyone watched.

Second, more than most musicians, he has developed a character. He was loud, he was demanding, he physically beat the person who brought him props and brushed his mullet on two separate occasions. He threatened the crowd on multiple occasions both for not doing things and for doing them before they were told. It took stage banter to a whole new level.

Then there was the music.

“I’m sorry we were a little late, I was in the back trying to get my hair nice and pretty,” he said. “Since we got started late, we’ve only got time for one more song.”

That song, “Alien Boy,” was not the last song. It was also not the last one more song. The man knows how to make a running joke.

Every song had an elaborate intro, nearly all of which were comedy gold. “Life Goes On” was preceded by a story about TikTok, which he described as an app for people ages 1 to 4; “A Swing and a Miss” involved crying about how sad a song it is because it’s about a threesome that never happened; introducing a special guest named Little Ricky ZR3 who’s a seven-foot alien with sharp teeth and blonde dreads before “Cowboys Don’t Cry.”

Little Ricky ZR3 was a real thing that was actually on stage. He was very tall.

Eventually, he concluded with three more “one more” songs: “Miracle Man,” “Cash Machine” and “Hurt.” Or at least he said “Hurt” was the last song. I’m still half-expecting him to jump out from the bushes to perform one last song again.

The story goes that Lil Uzi Vert’s name came from someone telling him he raps fast like an uzi, and nothing could drive that home more than the first few songs of his set.

Not only was the flow in those first songs fast, but he blazed through them. If the goal was to set a pace that got fans in the right mindset for the show, it succeeded; the only times the crowd paused was when he told them to.

If anything, it succeeded too well; he stopped a song in the middle because people were getting pressed against the barricades and needed to move back. Festival organizers more than likely asked him to do that—the previous act also asked everyone to take a step back between songs, and a festival rep took the stage between sets to ask the same—but none of the rest of them refused to get things going again until they complied. He did not play until they took three steps back.

That wasn’t the only instance of Vert being a good guy. Around halfway through the set, an extremely drunk man tried to run onto the stage and was grabbed by three very large security guards. 

“Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt him!” Lil Uzi Vert yelled when he saw what was happening.

He walked over and spoke to the guy.

“Sorry, but not now,” he told him. The man said something, and Vert told the crowd to hold on for 30 seconds while he took a picture with the guy’s phone. It’s hard to imagine that any other artist wouldn’t let him get tackled and pretend not to notice.

He was also extremely relatable: “I still watch cartoons,” he said. “I eat Pop Tarts. I’m decent at ‘Call of Duty,’—I’m not great but I’m OK.” He also likes “Final Fantasy,” so he performed the song “Final Fantasy.”

Not everything was perfection, of course. The screens either kept glitching out when they switched filters or it was just a very strange presentation. The DJ’s only move was to shout “One! Two! One, two, three!” before every song and occasionally before the chorus. But that isn’t the point. The point is the show, and as big as the reaction was to songs like “The Way Life Goes” and “XO TOUR Llif3,” and as much as people were dancing to “Sauce It Up” and “444+222,” any problems are just nitpicking. It was a strong set by a great performer.

Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers provided a captivating performance on the Twin Peaks stage, in front a massive, tightly packed crowd. Bridgers brought the night sky a little closer, with the starlight filling a massive projection screen at the back of the stage. The understated singer performed a compelling set with a relaxed and conversational vibe. Opening with “Motion Sickness,” Bridgers kept things moving right along into “Garden Song.”

Bridgers was delightfully deadpan in her stage banter between songs, casually checking in with the crowd from time to time.

“What’s up? How’s it going? Hey Mark, can I have a tissue?” she asked her bandmate. “Who has the sniffles? Who has a complex relationship with their dad? That’s cool.”

While she may not be metal, there were certainly some tongue-in-cheek references, from taking the stage to Disturbed’s “Down with the Sickness” to occasionally strapping on a jagged-edged electric guitar. Chants of “Phoebe!” filled the quiet moments between songs. 

Bridgers moved through the set with “Kyoto” and “Punisher” before the backdrop turned to stained glass windows for somber ballad “Funeral.”

“This one is an enormous bummer,” Bridgers said before launching into the song.

The singer’s most poignant moment came before “Chinese Satellite.” Bridgers talked about what it was like returning to her home country in the aftermath of the fall of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court.

“I hate this shithole; America is so romanticized it’s insane,” Bridgers said without mincing words. “It’s nice to have a good time while we watch the world burn around us.”

After performing “Moon Song,” Bridgers referenced her many local connections to the Bay Area.

“My grandpa lives in Ukiah, so I’d be here a lot,” she said. “I got hit by a Red Bull once, it was very humbling.”

In fact, Friday night’s festival set was Bridgers’ second performance in the Bay Area this week. She played a surprise pop-up set at a Healdsburg restaurant the night before.

Night turned to day on the projection screen and the digital clouds parted for “Scott Street,” as Bridgers jumped into the crowd and performed down the center aisle, even handing over the microphone to a fan to finish out one of the choruses.

“This song is about crying in a grocery store parking lot,” she said before launching into “ICU,” keeping things moving before continuing with “Sidelines.”

She dedicated “Graceland Too” to gay people. Pulling out an acoustic guitar, Bridgers asked if there were any songs people  wanted to hear. She cautioned that the festival might be tough for a quiet acoustic rendition of “Georgia.”

“It’s going to be a weird festival Phoebe/SZA collab” she said.

Bridgers thanked fans and her manager—who she met at a prior Outside Lands—for coming before concluding with a dramatic performance of “I Know the End,” hitting a near-scream at the end before the band played a frenetic outro, including a piece of Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Disclosure

Electronic music has always played a key part of the Outside Lands lineup, and Friday night was no exception. English Electronic duo Disclosure illuminated the hazy fog with laser lights and a vibrant production. The set began with an ode to the return to the club, and bringing together large crowds to move in unison, on the back end of the pandemic. Disclosure certainly packed them in for Friday’s night’s performance, with brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence on a small riser surrounded by dramatic flairs of light. 

The duo opened with “White Noise” and “F For You,” bringing an instant energy that kept the massive pit pulsing from the first notes. It’s difficult to compare an act like Disclosure to the rest of the day’s offerings. 

Disclosure had the crowd bouncing and dancing throughout the majority of the set. The duo pulled from all three of its studio albums, including their most recent release, 2020’s Energy. The two kept  the proceedings moving forward by hyping up the crowd (a reference to “San Fran” before “You’ve Got To Let Go If You Wanna Be Free” will be forgiven.

At its most chaotic moments, the staging was especially impressive, shooting off lights, strobes, and lasers into the sky in all directions. The duo provided ample electronic thrills to satisfy the large festival crowd.

The Marias

SoCal indie pop band The Marias provided silky smooth afternoon sounds, fusing jazz, Latin, and soul music. Singing in both English and Spanish, María Zardoya occasionally traded vocals with drummer Josh Conway. She donned a long flowing dress, moving between the front of the stage and a riser to the back.

With tracks like “Calling U Back” and “Little By Little,” the band took little time to break between songs, keeping focused on providing a relaxed afternoon set. A large video screen projected Zardoya across a deep red backdrop. A horn player added an extra layer of atmosphere to the proceedings. The Marias  even mixed in a cover of the seminal Britney Spears classic “…One More Time.”

And more:

“There’s nothing like coming back home,” San Jose native Ashe said. She opened with “Me Without You” and her set consisted of songs from her album Ashlyn,  like “I’m Fine,” and from her forthcoming LP, Rae, like “Another Man’s Jeans.” 

Between songs, Ashe expressed her anger with the U.S. before ”Angry Woman,” and pulled out a cover of Queen’s “Somebody to Love.”

Duckwrth brought the rhythm and the chill vibes to the Land’s End stage. Donning a rhythm nation-inspired outfit adorned with “Matrix”-like sunglasses, Duckwrth opened with “Coming Closer,” from 2020 album SuperGood. The new-age R&B cut was instantly groovy. Evoking early 2000s artists, “Power Power” offered a resounding 808 beat that drove the song.

Reminiscing about previously sneaking into Outside Lands, Duckwrth said he “was so happy to play [for everyone].”

“Too Bad” seemed to energize the crowd with a ‘70s-like funkadelic sound. He kept upping the ante, later bringing up some friends.

Singer-songwriter Del Water Gap—that’s the stage name of the frontman S. Holden Jaffe, not the band as a whole—probably should have had a later set time or a larger stage. The buzz around his recent work clearly spread to attendees. Opening with an uncharacteristic-for-the-festival guitar, bass and drums, “Better Than I Know Myself” was harder rock than one would expect and done well. Later songs skewed more indie, but the crowd didn’t mind; “High Tops” got a serious cheer.

Closing with “Black Widow” actress Florence Pugh’s favorite song, “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat,” Jaffe stage-dived into the crowd, whipping the diehards who got there early enough to make it into the front into such a frenzy that it’s surprisingly they caught him. Then, before the song even ended, he left the stage. The man can make an exit.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis at Twitter.com/BayAreaData. Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald. Follow photographer Onome Uyovbievbo at Twitter.com/byonome and Instagram.com/by.onome.