Radiohead headline the first Outside Lands as the PA fails twice

Radiohead headlined the opening night of the first Outside Lands festival in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, on Friday, and the PA gave out on them twice. The first time was during “Airbag”, the third song, when the sound stopped for about 30 seconds. The band, listening through in-ear monitors, played on without noticing, and the crowd cheered when it came back. Thom Yorke asked Who put their beer next to the plugs?² The sound went again later in the set, to a groan from the field.

The band were announced in March as one of the new festival's three headliners, with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Jack Johnson. About 60,000 people stood in the cold and damp, with fog over the park, and Beck played directly before Radiohead. No band had played Golden Gate Park after dark before.

The set ran for nearly two hours and 22 songs, with “Just” and “Exit Music (For a Film)” among them. Jeff Weiss of the LA Weekly, no great Radiohead fan by his own account, could not find a weak song in it, sound aside. For Peter Gaston of SPIN, the picture of the night was Colin Greenwood's broad grin.

Setlist, Golden Gate Park, 22 August 2008