By definition, the Inner Richmond neighborhood in Ess Eff is a walkers’ paradise. You can spot locals hitting the Asian markets on Clement, while younger hipster folk are getting their pho at the strip’s various mom-and-pop establishments. Scribes and critics (ahem) opt for the cozy, blissful confusion of Green Apple Books—it was Robin Williams’s favorite—losing hours obsessing over forgotten bestsellers. But come early August, you can spot that all-telling clear backpack. Worn by longhairs in leisure denim, strutting down Geary with two Porgie dogs.
Or that knockout, six-foot and change, red-haired, voluptuous goth woman in fishnets, Dr. Martens, and flaming lipstick, pondering beer decisions at the Safeway on 7th. You can peep the leather homie in the dayglow Lemmy Kilmister get-up. Or even the young svelte brunette hot mom, sporting color-splashed sweats, a red beanie, and a bright yellow hula hoop.
Yep. They all have that clear backpack, broadcasting to the whole world, “I too am en route to the 16th edition of Outside Lands.”
Friday, August 9, kicked off the three-day, seven-stage musical festival in Golden Gate Park, where you can get married, hit the dance club, sip on curated cocktails, preview prime culinary choices, delve into some weed as well, amongst a plethora of other options in Golden Gate Park. But sometimes it’s easier, a bit more comfortable to ease into the madness with chill vibes at a storied venue in the city.
Buddy, you may need to take the edge off before that famous Bushman leaps out to scare the bejeezus outta ya, near JFK Drive, as you enter the festival.
At a sold-out Rickshaw Stop official “Outside Lands Night Show” after the first day of the festival, BALTHVS, the surf-rock amalgamation band that fuses dub with Middle Eastern melodies laid out over cumbia, hailing from Bogotá, Colombia, were primed to play their first OSL show the very next day. The power trio consisting of Balthazar Aguirre, Johanna Mercuriana, and Santiago Lizcano had provided a cosmic trip at the Cornerstone in Berkeley back in late March.
“We are very happy to be here, it’s our first time in San Francisco. We hope you like our next selection,” stated lead guitarist and head vibe merchant of the group, Aguirre, who addressed the sold-out crowd at The Rickshaw Stop Friday night for their Outside Lands at Night performance, 12 hours in advance of their festival debut here in The Bay.
One-third of the way through the show, the power trio had some points to make that would direct the pathway of chakras moving throughout the crowd. It’d also clear up some confusion, which I’ll address in a bit.
Bogotá’s finest leaned into a fiery cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From The Sun,” which caught a large segment of the young, but groovy crowd, a bit off guard. Patrons—a shapely woman in the front row, feeling it, wearing a frilly white dress leaving hardly anything left to the imagination, and a skinny white dude, in a puffy Patagonia jacket, who could not decide if he was breakdancing or doing some Deadhead wave—merged into one.
So yeah, maybe the Hendrix title flew over their heads, but the mysticism was putting in a full word day.
For anyone who has been following this band, listening to their records, including their most recent release Harvest, which was recorded in a villa within the lush tropical hills in Colombia, you wonder. What do they sound like live?.
With their combination of surf rock and faraway sounds, BALTHVS is, I’m sure, tired of the comparison to another power trio currently amassing a fan base, which also features a (very welcome) woman base player and sublime grooviness.
Understand, that there is room for both bands to exist.
Seeing BALTHVS live, and they can deal jack, administering those sensorial pathways of movement, by way of some pirouetting harmonies, dynamic flows of hallucinatory guitar stretches: It’s Dick Dale dropped into a world music context, and it works. You realize nippily, that this combo is unique unto itself. Specifically, when you hear the opening stretches of the feel-good Nag Champa-esque “Mango Season,” or the disco-esque influenced “Sun & Moon,” BALTHVS is channeling some type of Dead mysticism.
And true enough, Balthazar has admitted in the press and on podcasts he is a closeted Deadhead. Whereas that other power trio is more about the funk (as Uncle George Clinton would say, “the One”), BALTHVS’ Middle Eastern-influenced “Asha” is not concerned about putting the listener’s foot in it; they’ve a sacred dance, where folks wade and sway.
So as they leaned into the statement of chill “Like Coconut Water,” and a hippy-dippy swell rose throughout the crowd, I had the passing thought as I exited out the door: These Colombian players could clean up if they relocated to the 415; BALTHVS is built for that type of fog.
