the dope report

More than 20,000 elite aesthetes of modern music gathered on the grass shores of an island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay over the weekend for the ‘festival for people who hate music festivals’: the Treasure Island Music Fest.

No mud, no rain, no long lines, no meatheads, no expensive food or crap filler acts: Treasure Island’s end of summer extravaganza was all meat. With closing sets by MGMT and MSTRKRFT on day one and The Flaming Lips on day two, the drug culture was well-represented. Kids were rolling around on the grass, cuddled up against their designated watchers. Neon headbands abounded. Where day one’s adjectives were “hot, fierce, and naked”, day two served a crowd much more cool, reserved and scarved. And the music reflected that.

Day one’s ten out of ten weather encouraged mucho skin and bikinis among females in attendance who went absolutely apeshit for Dan Deacon’s smashing midday set. It didn’t matter that it was 3 p.m. and sunny instead of midnight in a club. Deacon’s 10-person live act simply destroyed it, and the crowd looked like a foam of neon and flesh for the entire hour. Deacon ordered dance contests, dada-ist games of Simon Says, and dance tunnels, eliciting a delirious fury unmatched in today’s musical landscape. It was, quite simply: The Happiest Mosh Pit on Earth.

The Streets’ Mike Skinner soon followed but the closest his reserved set could come to Deacon’s wake was his final, ravey track “Blinded By the Lights”.

Soon after, DJ Krush ditched his jazzy, downtempo bedroom antics for a festival-style set full of deep, deep drum and bass, as well as fierce cuts, stabs and mixing, clearly at the apex of his game.

And Brazilian Girls turned in a Lady Gaga-esque dance performance full of theatricality, though much more organic than the over-hyped Gaga.

Of course, day 2 was all about the Flaming Lips. Let’s just let the fotos tell the tale. More from Blurt Magazine on that in a bit.