SAN FRANCISCO — Fresh off a stadium tour and with 30 years of experience, Green Day showed how to make Outside Lands bigger and better with a nonstop barrage of early classics, mid-career hits, covers, fan participation collective and individual, and quite a few digs at San Francisco from the East Bay natives.

Opening with a trio of protest songs—“American Idiot,” “Holiday” and “Know Your Enemy”—Green Day set a pace that rarely slowed down. Even the stage banter was delivered mid-song, and the band just kept playing as the crowd was whipped up or someone was brought on stage.

That someone wasn’t a special guest, mind you. During “Know Your Enemy,” singer and frontman Billie Joe Armstrong asked people near the front if anyone knew the lyrics and wanted to come on stage. He picked a woman, made her promise she knew the words, and she sang a verse.

After “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Longview,” Armstrong introduced “Welcome to Paradise” with, “This song’s about the East Bay!” It would not be his last pronouncement of which side of the Bay Bridge he prefers.

For example, the very next song, “Hitchin’ a Ride,” included Armstrong getting the crowd to cheer louder and quieter by how high he lifted his hand before laughing and saying, “You’re all a bunch of suckers! But not the ones from Oakland.” Then the song ended with a barrage of pyro from the stage.

Led by a rousing cover of KISS’ “Rock and Roll All Nite,” Green Day kept the energy high with an extended version of “Brain Stew,” “When I Come Around” and “Waiting,” before its only miss of the show with “21 Guns.” The song was excellent, but apparently some of those in attendance weren’t as familiar with 21st Century Breakdown as the other albums, because the audience started to drift.

Then the band immediately won them back with a singalong of “Minority.” Hearing about 100,000 people singing a chorus written to evoke Irish drinking songs was an absolute experience.

The band introductions after that definitely leaned into local references. “We are Green Day! We are from west Contra Costa County in California!” Armstrong said to cheers. But the best band member intro was, “From Mendocino County, California, the birthplace of marijuana, it’s Tre Cool!”

During a cover of fellow East Bay band Operation Ivy’s “Knowledge,” Armstrong asked if anyone played guitar. Someone nominated a 10-year-old in the front, and after Armstrong asked if he could really play (and got a nearby adult to vouch for him), he was brought on stage and given a guitar.

The kid absolutely crushed it.

His name is Montgomery and after some initial nerves, he crushed his part. At the end of the song he jumped off an amp and the steps of the drummer’s platform, commanding the crowd. Led by Armstrong, the tens of thousands of people chanted “Monty! Monty! Monty!” and Armstrong said, “Oh, you can keep the guitar.” That got nearly as big a reaction from Montgomery as the actual performance.

Closing out with signature song “Basket Case,” a mashup of mini-covers, “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” “Jesus of Suburbia” and a fireworks show, Green Day wrapped up a night that could go down among the all-time highlights of Outside Lands as a festival.

Jack Harlow

If Green Day was the most coveted act of the day, Kentucky rapper Jack Harlow may very well have been a close second. Playing on the Land’s End stage prior to the Bay Area punk legends, Harlow pulled in an absolutely massive afternoon crowd, spanning the better part of the polo field. It’s quite the promotion for Harlow, who played the festival back in 2018 (a gig he referenced a handful of times).

“Take a look at the flier for that 2018 festival, I was way down at the bottom in the fine print,” Harlow said.

The anticipation for Harlow was fairly immediate. The crowd near the front of the stage packed in tightly together in hopes of getting closer to the rapper. That led to a few people being pulled out to rehydrate. Harlow even stopped the performance briefly to make sure those in the pit were OK.

This was also the first time Harlow has played with a live band. The live drumming added an extra jump and energy. The band occasionally delved into jazz and soul-influenced interludes. The stage production included fire and smoke cannons, breaking it out first opener “Nail Tech.” The rapper kept things upbeat, but lightened the mood with “I WANNA SEE SOME ASS.”

After mentioning a staircase at the side of the stage on which he could easily get up and close with the fans, he finally descend into the crowd toward the end, leading to a mad rush to the barrier to try to get a a piece. 

Harlow continued to power through with tracks like “Dua Lipa,” which lyrically is pretty on the nose in terms of song subject. Harlow’s delivery was relaxed and as cool as the other side of the pillow. The 24-year-old may not become hip-hop’s next big thing, but he’s certainly having his moment right now. 

Harlow even mixed in a cover of Lil Nas X’s “INDUSTRY BABY.” He closed things out by thanking the crowd and rolling into “First Class.”

Pop singer Kali Uchis held the unenviable task of going up against one of the biggest Bay Area bands around. 

She delivered a flashy choreographed pop spectacle complete with backing dancers and an expansive set.

Uchis started 10 minutes behind schedule, though those extra minutes proved to be vital for those attempting to hop between main stages. She performed in both English and Spanish. She also seemed to have some sound issues, though the problems seemed more noticeable to her than to the audience. On a hot mic, Uchis was heard telling the sound guy that she couldn’t hear anything through her monitors. 

Playing tracks like “Dead to Me” and “Loner,” Uchis brought a flashy performance that filled the stage with a flowing pink hue, the video screen sometimes shifting toward a Roman-style palace. 

She pulled in a solid crowd, especially considering Green Day knocking out some of its biggest songs early.

On “Loner,” Uchis and her dancers lied down on the stage with a camera overheard to perform some unique choreography. Uchis had an interesting presence, fusing a number of styles including pop and Latino tunes, occasionally with an Amy-Winehouse-like quality.

Rina Sawayama

During Lizzo’s 2021 headlining set, she mentioned that she had previously played in the afternoon and when she came back she was Saturday’s headliner. Rina Sawayama wasn’t quite as early—she was the second-to-last act on the second-largest stage—but her performance was so good, it wouldn’t be a surprise if she was headlining soon.

Sawayama is essentially a pop singer with a metal backing band. There are certainly some more traditional pop songs, especially among the singles from her impending second album, but anyone expecting a pure vocal performance was instead confronted with absolute shredding guitar work.

Her guitarist, Emily Rosenfield, deserves special mention. She was the driving force behind the show nearly as much as Sawayama, with her face-melting guitar playing setting the energy and tone of the songs that required her services. She was as good a guitarist as Billie Joe Armstrong.

Rosenfield was spotlighted early, along with Sawayama’s powerful pop vocals, on “Dynasty.” From there Sawayama led the crowd in a chant of “Shut the fuck up!” before the band kicked off second song “STFU!” and she headbanged to the music.

From there, she went into more traditional pop song, “Comme Des Garçons,” which she said was about confidence; and “Akasaka Sad,” about depression. The two showed her range and ability to stick to pop conventions, and it seemed like that pattern would continue with the operatic opening of “Snakeskin,” until the guitars came roaring back and the song morphed into a rocker.

Since Sawayama’s tour ended, she’s released four singles from her next album, and she played two of them live for the first time: “Hold the Girl” and “Hurricane.” She apologized beforehand for any potential issues—“Don’t judge me, this is my first time performing it!”—but it was unwarranted because both sounded as tight as if she’d played them dozens of times.

After leading the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday” to her drummer, Simone, Sawayama launched into a hard-hitting finale. “XS” was possibly the hardest rock song yet, “This Hell” was a crowd favorite, and “Free Woman” got the crowd jumping in unison.

Sawayama got the greatest compliment a performer can get at a festival, which is that her audience steadily grew as the set went on. After it was over, a common topic of festival-goers’ conversation was about how they heard her while walking nearby and had to stop, or someone saying a friend texted them and told them to get over there.

Mac DeMarco

The tone for Mac DeMarco’s set was established with the first thing he said on stage: “Let’s keep it respectful and have a good time.”

A chill oasis on a day heavy on the raucous and loud, singer-songwriter DeMarco’s set skewed to the yacht rock side of the spectrum. The crowd bounced and danced to his psychedelic-influenced indie pop and rock at a slower pace, regaining some energy for the day’s end.

“This is a song that came out— I haven’t put out a record in a while so they all came out a long time ago,” DeMarco said before “For the First Time.” The realization seemed to amuse him, because he went on to introduce several songs, including one from his 2019 album, as “old ones.”

His performance included “Nobody,” “Passing Out Pieces” and “Another One.” He didn’t say much between songs, but did call out that it was his shirtless bass player Darryl Johns’ birthday.

DeMarco concluded with a run of fan favorites. He got big cheers for the 10th anniversary reissue of his first EP, Rock and Roll Night Club, and for the song he played from it, “Baby’s Wearing Blue Jeans.” The bouncing and dancing got more intense for “Freaking Out the Neighborhood.” An even bigger cheer came at the first line of “Chamber of Reflection.”

On “Together,” each band member had a few bars of scat singing. Some were better than others, for sure, but it was a nice way to give his backing band the spotlight for a bit.

Sam Fender

English roots-rocker Sam Fender may have felt like he was running on empty during his afternoon set, but he and his band’s top-notch playing would prove otherwise. Fender said that he and his band had hustled up to San Francisco in an RV, and were going on little sleep, yet they still turned in a solid performance. Fender also said that he needed to clear up one possible misconception right off the bat.

“You might think this is some shit stage name. It’s not,” Fender said, offering up his parents’ names as evidence. “This is my real name.”

Fender tapped into a wide array of rock subgenres, from alt-rock and lo-fi to classic and folky, with a little bit of punk mixed in.

Playing tracks like “Getting Started” and “The Borders,” Fender kept things moving along, opting primarily for upbeat crowd-pleasers. The singer-songwriter was often self-deprecating.

“This is the stupidest song we’ve ever written,” he warned prior to “Howdon Aldi Death Queue.” “It was written about going to the grocery store during the pandemic. It’s stupid and we play it every night.”

Fender’s lyrics were often about his family, particularly his father, and his upbringing in the U.K., which he said likely had some relevance to San Francisco. Fender couldn’t miss one more opportunity to slide in a joke before he and his band left the stage.

“If you like us, I’m Sam Fender, hope to see you again,” he said. “If you don’t like what you hear, we’re Simply Red.”

Zoe Wees

Zoe Wees’ set began much as you’d expect a singer-songwriter with a competition show pedigree—she was on “The Voice Kids” in her native Germany—with smooth, polished vocals and a refined pop sound.

While there was a guitarist, bassist and drummer backing her, the early focus was on Wees and her two backup singers. And the sound suited the subject matter well. She explained that “Hold Me Like You Used To” was a song she wrote for her late grandmother. “Daddy’s Eyes” was about the father she grew up without. “Lonely” spoke for itself.

But then the focus shifted to the band. Her middle run of songs went surprisingly hard. “That’s How It Goes” and “You Don’t Know Me” especially had rock influences, and her guitar player showed serious chops. Tonal shifts don’t always work but this one very much did because of the quality on both sides of the change.

At the end, Wees pumped the brakes with “Control,” her biggest hit to date, but over the course of the set she showed impressive and mold-breaking range.

And more:

The youngest band at Outside Lands also rocked the hardest. The Linda Lindas, who originally broke into the public consciousness with their incredible performance of “Racist Sexist Boy” at the Los Angeles Public Library (and wee playing their second Bay Area festival in less than a month) blew the metaphorical doors off the main stage to open up Day 2. Ranging in age from 11 to 17, they played room-filling, head-rattling hardcore punk that exceeds similar acts that have been touring since before they were born.

While their original songs were headbanging crowd-pleasers, the highlights were covers of Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” that rivaled the original and “Tonite ” by the Go Go’s, featuring Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Gina Schock sitting in on drums.

“The future is coming!” Schock shouted as she left the stage after the set. Not to disagree with the legend, but obviously, the future is already here.

Angeleno Empress Of greeted the crowd wearing a crème-colored top with red and orange accents, and started off with “Give Me Another Chance,” from her 2020 album, I’m Your Empress Of. This disco-influenced modern take on a classic sound, had flourishes with nods to sounds from her rich Honduran culture. The vivacious rhythm of the song sent pulsing airy synths through the crowd. Performing a remix of MARINA’s “Man’s World,” Empress Of showed off her different take on the song, adapting it as a dance track. She sashayed and swished her bountiful curls.

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.