Treasure Island Music Festival - Day One

September 15th, 2007--The promoters of San Francisco’s Noise Pop Festival, and the creative team at Another Planet Entertainment finally bore the fruits of their labor September 15th and 16th for the first Treasure Island Music Festival. After months of debate involving traffic flow, location, parking, shuttle service and lineup, the arrangements proved to be a perfect fit (save for some questionable Porta-Potty issues) for the highly isolated island celebration. The event was divided into two days; the first for a potent onslaught of electronic, hip-hop and funk-flavored revelry, the second for the rock, pop, shoegaze, dance-punk and punk-grass sets.
    The only way to get to the island was to get across the Bay Bridge, toward San Francisco, and into Parking Lot A of AT&T Park, where you then board a swanky limousine-style bus to head back in the opposite direction toward Treasure Island and its extreme-angled exit. The festival was held along the area of the island (a former United States Naval Base during World War II, and property of the Navy until 1997) dubbed “The Great Lawn,” a locale perfect both in terms of the intimate size of the event, as well as for the picture-perfect view of San Francisco’s skyline, and the immediacy of the Bay’s infamous Alcatraz Island to the West — both of which were breathtakingly viewable from the Ferris wheel included as a featured attraction. The organizers included only two stages, both of which were occupied by rollicking musical acts in tandem and within close proximity to each other, making walking back and forth to check out every band easy.

Day One:

It was advised that Day One would be sparser in attendance than the huge crowd expected for Day Two, and if you arrived with even a minute amount of timeliness, you could have deduced that you’d be in for a light crowd. However, this proved to be a hasty inference, mostly due to the stuttering arrivals via the shuttle service.
    Dengue Fever opened the main stage (bequeathed the “Bridge Stage”; the smaller stage was the “Tunnel Stage”) to an appreciative audience still wiping the sleep from their eyes, and doing their best to shield themselves from an unwavering sun. The group’s hypnotic reprise of Middle Eastern pop and dreamy lyricism found a happy home with the crowd. Bands gracing the Tunnel Stage included Mocean Worker (a funky blend of soul and groove that ignited the first wave of energetic dancing), Honeycut (a rock group that conjured elements of ‘60s garage and early ‘90s electronica), Kid Beyond’s one-man beat box techno, Kinky, Flosstradamus and West Indian Girl. The Bridge Stage was an altogether different monster, as sets by Zion I and Ghostland Observatory brought the hip-hop and DJ-rock vibe to a now-swelling crowd. The much-anticipated set by M.I.A. was unrivaled during the day, as the UK hip-hop beauty strutted the stage and ended up climbing the side support beams to get a better look at the crowd. Her set was followed by a great performance by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, who used 7-inch vinyl on eight different turntables to create their bizarre soundscape. Gotan Project introduced a spellbinding concoction of tango, classical, Spanish and DJ-peppered beats, followed by headliners Thievery Corporation bringing a sample-laden spiral into subconscious trance to finish up the evening.

See more photos of the show at the Synthesis blog. A review of day two and more photos will be posted on Monday.

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