After a year hiatus, the Bay Area’s annual fall music festival Treasure Island returned this year. After losing their location on the namesake island in the bay, the festival relocated to Oakland’s Middle Harbor Shoreline Park on October 13th and 14th. And while a modicum of charm was lost on the non-island location, the setting was still great, with fantastic views of San Francisco across the Bay, and a terrific soundtrack to some lovely scenery. (The year off also helped to mitigate the awful memories of the disastrous, rain-soaked debacle of the last Treasure Island in 2016). Though not as big nor as celebrated as the other Bay Area music festival, Outside Lands, Treasure Island is in many ways more enjoyable. First of all, it’s a sensible two-day affair, and the acts are segmented along genre lines by day. Day 1 is rap/dance/electronica, and Day 2 is rock and roll. There are only two stages, placed in close proximity, with only one stage going at once so if you want you can see (or at least hear) every band perform. As fun as Outside Lands can be, it’s also over half a mile from one end of the festival to the other, and at most you can see 1/3 of the bands performing.
This year’s lineup was headlined by A$AP Rocky on Saturday and Tame Impala on Sunday, with outstanding sets all weekend long by the likes of Courtney Barnett, Pusha T, Santigold, Sharon Van Etten, Soccer Mommy, Lord Huron, Aminé, Alex Cameron, and a particularly energetic set by UK punks Shame. Check out the gallery from the festival below…
Three Match Breeze 