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A 76-year-old Grace Jones made the greatest stage entrance in Outside Lands history

A performer is singing on stage, wearing a dramatic headdress with a golden skull and feather-like spikes, along with dark makeup, a net-like accessory, and a dark outfit.
Grace Jones entered atop a 40-foot gown and hula-hooped through an entire song, in a mesmerizing performance. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

The hordes of girlies eager to claim their spot for their hero Sabrina Carpenter were already positioning themselves to pounce when the matriarchal deity Grace Jones made her entrance to “Nightclubbing” on the Lands End stage early Saturday evening — atop a flowing, 40-foot ball gown that looked vaguely like a 1980s Keith Haring painting.

A performer stands tall on a stage, wearing a strikingly large white dress with black abstract symbols and a bright red, tall headpiece, under dark stage lighting.
Grace Jones began her set with this enormous, Keith Haring-print dress, and proceeded through a number of costume changes until she was wearing comparatively little. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

It was the most technically impressive and fabulous entrance in the history of Outside Lands. And it was only the beginning for the 76-year-old Jones, whose feline stage presence remained intact through one costume change after another. Case in point: She hula-hooped through the entirety of “Slave to the Rhythm” (as she is known to do).

Nothing and no one can outmatch the high-femme yet androgynous Jamaican performer, who climbed atop a muscled stud for an extended detour through the audience while wearing a silver sequined bowler hat. Given to vanishing into the darkness between songs only to emerge wearing yet another massive headpiece, Jones held the audience’s attention with the occasional pronouncement, like “I’m going to take you to church!”

A performer in a sharp black outfit with fishnet stockings and knee-high boots sings into a microphone. They wear a colorful headdress with red, yellow, green, and black stripes.
As her set progressed, Jones wore less and less — swapping out headpieces between virtually every song. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

She wasn’t a headliner, fine, but she exudes big headliner energy in all that does. And when her slightly truncated set wrapped up a little before 8 p.m. — she started a little late, and in retrospect, who could blame her? — a more youthful cohort of festival-goers practically overran the Polo Field to get the best spot they could for Sabrina Carpenter, a diva of an entirely different sort.

A musician in white clothing passionately sings into a microphone while playing an electric guitar onstage, with bright spotlights illuminating the scene.
Ben Gibbard of The Postal Service has expressed his surprise that the band's sole album, 2003's "Give Up," is still such a cultural touchstone. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

The Postal Service, as surprised as anyone to be riding the high of “Give Up” some two decades after it was recorded as a one-off side project led by Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, didn’t have the luxury of running through the entire album as they’ve done elsewhere on this year’s 20th anniversary tour.

There were nips and tucks — the extended handclaps at the end of “Clark Gable” were absent from this set, for instance — but the energy was there. A peak-2000s indie rock album about love and loss, “Give Up” is shot through with ambiguous references to nuclear war and some kind of airborne disaster, and if the whole thing is fundamentally Gibbard’s baby then Jenny Lewis is the visual focal point, ever self-assured

A crowd of people is seated on grass at an outdoor nighttime event, with some lying on blankets and others sitting in groups, surrounded by illuminated trees.
While Sabrina Carpenter played way across the festival, nostalgia attracted people to The Postal Service's set, as excited to hear "Give Up" as for a chance to chill. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

The Postal Service may be the only band with only a single album to its credit that can still give off the feeling of playing its greatest hits.

Performers, dressed in elaborate and glittery costumes, dance energetically on stage under a colorful, geometric-decorated canopy with stage lights overhead.
Drag queen Nicki Jizz dances with other performers as part of Reparations, an all-Black drag show at the Dolores' stage. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

Dolores’ is the LGTBQ-programmed stage that’s only in its second year, and it inherited the occasionally manic energy of the almost-forgotten food-and-music GastroMagic stage that Outside Lands used to have.

Although the all-Black drag show Reparations remains as popular at the festival as it is at its home at Oasis, the highlight of the afternoon was Princess. During the afternoon, just when it felt like the sun might never come out, it suddenly did — on a go-go boys and dancers in blow-up unicorn costumes, all jamming out to ABBA.

A performer in black underwear dances on stage while a cheering crowd holds up phones and money, creating a lively and excited atmosphere.
Of course, dancers accept tips. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
A large crowd at an outdoor concert stands and sits on a grassy hill, bathed in golden sunlight filtering through tall trees in the background.
Just when it seemed as though the fog would never burn off, the sun burst out — and it stayed out. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
A woman in a black outfit sings into a microphone on stage, with a pink-purple background. A blurred dancer is performing nearby.
Sabrina Carpenter performs her headlining set. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard
A group of excited concertgoers are pressed against a barrier, some with phones raised to capture the moment, all seemingly enjoying the live performance.
Fans of Sabrina Carpenter tore through the crowd at the Lands End stage before Grace Jones even finished her set, hoping to secure the best spot possible. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard
A person wearing a black shirt with the text "Jesus was a Carpenter" stands in an outdoor crowd, with people blurred in the background.
Superfan Brianna Cardona wears a decidedly biblical Sabrina Carpenter shirt while waiting for her set to start. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard