Treasure Island is simply the best festival in the Bay Area. Don't get me wrong; Outside Lands is great. But it just doesn't beat TI. The mid-October festival is always predictably well curated, easy to get to, runs professionally and smoothly, and has possibly the best setting ever. In the center of the bay, the festival faces the San Francisco city line, beautiful day and night, and absolutely exquisite at sunset. Couple that with the perfectly selected sunset sets (which in the past included the likes of Four Tet, Chet Faker, and Classixx), the two day festival never fails to deliver.
The other genius behind the festival is that they curate the line-ups for electronic and indie focused days, Sunday known as the chill day, and always have a silent disco for a nice little respite from the main grounds. This allows people to save money and time if they aren't into what's playing on the stages... or just want to laugh at people dancing with headphones on.
This year, Saturday was certainly hard hitting, as expected. Arriving for the second set, we caught the amazing duo Bob Moses, who brought melodic, vocal-driven house to the sunny island. Other highlights included Samir, Cashmere Cat (apparently his remix of Miguel's "Do You Like Drugs?" was a hit...), Big Grams' first-ever performance with Killer Mike on stage for a track, Hudson Mohawke's banging beats, the pop-electro group Gorgon City, and, of course, the headliner himself. Deadmau5 absolutely brought his A-game with his spherical, crazy light setup, and hard hitting, progressive tech-house set.
Sunday, as predicted, was an overcast chill day filled with sets from the beautifully energetic Father John Misty and his irresistible yet spastic dance moves, the mind blowing Deerhunter, Jose Gonzalez, the crowd-pleasing CHVRCHES, and finally The National to close the weekend. The Sunday headliner even brought out Lauren Maybarry of CHVRCHES for a track.
We miss Treasure Island already...is it 2016 yet?
