If I had three thumbs I would put them all up for Treasure Island Music Festival Day 1. Props to Noise Pop, Another Planet and those that put together the festival, applause to the people dancing around on stilts, envy to the girls with hula-hoops and gratitude to the spicy pizza pie people for fulfilling my hunger.


(the view from the ferris wheel)

As I entered the festival Aesop Rock was rhyming with reason on stage and the festival was fairly empty, making it extremely easy to walk around and see just about everything (find the port-o-potties, VIP area, shortest drink line, meeting destination and the best tree to climb).

From 1:45 until 10:00 pm I didn't miss one artist on the line-up, yup that is right the festival grounds are extremely intimate.  Antibalas Orchestra (one of my personal favorites) charmed the afternoon attendees with some crowd interaction, splitting the stage left and right into groups called patience and persistence. The 10 (or so) members of Antibalas evoked enough energy and emotion to have everyone either yelling urghhhh or chickchickchick.


(Amayo of Antibalas)

Following Antibalas we headed straight to the Foals. The Oxford boys played on the solar power stage, which is environmentally cool, but posed a few sound difficulties for the guitars. It's cool though, because the 5 set ensemble kept the party going with a jazzy-rock groove and joint effort drum collaboration. Their stage presence was kind of adorable, they all face each other in a horse shoe shape opening up visibility for the crowd to see everyone in the band ...  rock.



With two stages and no two acts overlapping, you basically go back and forth between the stages all day long and a ferris wheel ride or a Kodak moment in between. Watching the tight rope walkers and the pirate pimp on stilts with his hula-hoopers during Goldfrapp entertained me for a while.


(stilt dancers)

Late in the afternoon I got an extremely disturbing Twitter alert about Blink 182's Travis Barker and DJ AM getting injured in a plane crash. Then around 6:45ish Mike Relm got on stage and dedicated his set to his two good friends (AM & Barker), which would have normally been a moment to raise your lighter and wave it side to side, but instead Relm dropped the 'Jungle Boogie' and kept everyone upbeat, aware and dancing.


(Mike Relm)

The sun set over the bay during Mike Relm's dance party and the festival officially got crowded with new arrivals there just for TV On the Radio. Joining TVOTR on stage was Antibalas' horns and percussionists ... not too shabby! Now I have to admit I was a little thrown off when I initially read that Justice was headlining, but I take it all back because Justice was served!


(Justice members: Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay)

Everyone wants a little pick-me-up after being on their feet all day at a festival and after a mellow set from TVOTR, the sky lit up with glow sticks, the Bay bridge, the ferris wheel lights and Justice's illuminated cross and massive stacks of Marshall amps. The photo pit was really fun for Justice, even though I got awful pictures. I dorked out at the end of the night on stage with Justice getting on my D.A.N.CE. and raving around like I know how to rave, but so did every other last person standing on the festival grounds at 10:00 pm.


(front row crowd for Justice)

There are only a few things that could have made day 1 of Treasure Island Festival better: my hair not turning into a nappy dread, Band of Horses playing and Nick in Antibalas kissing me.