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Ok, boys and girls, I'm back from San Francisco and ready to blog about both the city and Outside Lands. I was too jet lagged to write yesterday, and today I was in teacher meeting all day. We also picked up the foster dog, Leo, yesterday. He is a great guy. Overal, my mind is unfocused and my attention span is limited, so rather than try to make this cohesive piece of writing, I'm going to ramble with thoughts and observations, Bill Simmons style.

The city is beautiful, the food is great, and the people are much nice than they are in Boston. August in San Fran really is as cold as they say. It's the only time I've gotten a sunburn while freezing my ass off.

I'm overwhelmed by great music, the power of great performances, the excitement of new musical discoveries, and hearing so many of favorite songs with personal meaning to me played live in a short period of time.

We arrived in town via BART train at Civic Center. From the map, I knew it was about a five block walk to the hotel. Little did I know that the walk was entirely uphill, a steep hill, and it ran me through a sketchy part of town called the Tenderloin. I saw a drug deal go down on the walk. Fun stuff.

Day one, we took one of those double decker bus tours to get a general idea of the city. Corny, but useful. Road on a double decker bus across the Golden Gate Bridge and froze. The wind must have been 50 mph across the span. Fun.

I love In-n-Out Burger. It needs to come to Boston. Now.

Highlights of the festival:

Radiohead - all of it.
Beck - Fantastic. Surprising cover of Dylan's Leopardskin Pillbox Hat.
Steve Winwood - showed the youngsters how to do it on his own set. His new material is solid, and he came on stage with Petty for two songs. One of the highpoints of the festival.
Cake - great set, I was psyched to "Stickshifts and Safety Belt." They also did a cover a "War Pigs." That band will cover anything and make it sound like they wrote it. Gotta love Cake.
Nicole Atkins and the Sea - I had never heard her before. She went on very early in the day. My GF wanted to see her, so we had an early lunch in Haight and headed over. She blew me away. She was doing a signing later that day, so I bought the CD and she signed it. Sweet woman. I recommend checking her out.
Tom Petty - did what Tom Petty does. This was my first time seeing him live and he didn't disappoint.
Andrew Bird - wasn't too impressed.
The Cool Kids - trying to be the Beastie Boys.
Wilco - didn't play enough old material, but still kicked-ass. I wasn't familiar with material from their last two albums and they played lots from them. It was good because I'll go out and buy the new one.
Jack Johnson - left early to beat the crowd. Listened to one song after Wilco finished. Wilco should have been the headliner.

I wished I could have seen Drive-By Truckers, Primus, and Mike Gordon, but that's how it goes at festivals, you sometimes have to make hard choices. I only go to hear a little of Ben Harper and Regina Specktor, but it was the same deal. Overall it was a great time.

After the festival ended, we went on a pub crawl in North Beach. We meet a bartender from New York who directed us to a wine bar with a Bostonian bartender. Turns out she used to bar tend at The Cask and Flagon. That place was shutting down, so we were directed to The North Star, which is now my favorite bar in San Fran. A jukebox, a pool table, and a bartender who knows how to pour. Good times.

That's all I got in me now. I'm trying to convert myself back into teacher mode and it isn't easy. More on that later......