Treasure Island Music Festival
Saturday, October 17th on Treasure Island

It couldn’t have been a more beautiful day for a music festival. The sun shined brightly and the wind uncharacteristically abated long enough to give us San Franciscans the rare sense that summer is not yet over. Upon entering the festival grounds, even at the early-ish hour of 2pm, it was clear that more people were in attendance than in years past, the first day having sold out earlier in the week. Due to the sunny weather and nature of the music, the festival had a full-on party atmosphere. Even in the early afternoon, it was clear that this was a really fun crowd.

By the time I settled in at a chosen spot to take in the scene, Passion Pit was kicking into their set. I very much enjoyed the debut EP, a collection of sanguine synth-pop made by singer Michael Angelakos as a Valentine present for his girlfriend, which was then was passed around virally before FrenchKiss decided to officially release it. But the charming polish sealed on the record in the studio was, obviously, absent and the high-pitched synth of his sound made the live translation of his set a bit grating. Next up on the Tunnel Stage was Dan Deacon, who had a large ensemble with him to get the energy going. Apart from some issues with his sound getting all washed out on one side of the stage, his music was really fun in a live capacity. He builds on his compositions by adding elements such as dual xylophones to effectively make sound collages, and he fully integrates the audience—he started a human tunnel from the stage that snaked way through the festival grounds.

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