The year may be drawing to a close, but music festival season in the Bay Area isn’t over just yet.
If Coachella or Outside Lands did not make it into your agenda this time around, you still have time to get your yearly dose of an all-around musical melting pot.
The Treasure Island Music Festival has prided itself on serving the Bay Area with fresh lineups and local art collectives. It returns this weekend at a new location, Oakland’s Middle Harbor Shoreline Park.
The venue will be ushering in a colorful array of genres onto its two stages, including artists pioneering hip-hop, indie, electronic and dance music.
Headlining this year’s festival is rapper A$AP Rocky, Australian rock band Tame Impala and Silk City, a joint project by DJs Mark Ronson and Diplo.
Rocky released bursts of new music this year through side projects, artist features and his album “TE$TING,” which he released in May.
The rapper has not performed big shows in the Bay as of late, not
making stage appearances during Outside Lands or Oakland’s recent two-day hip-hop festival Rolling Loud.
Tame Impala’s last festival stop in the Bay during Outside Lands took the audience on a trip, pulling listeners in with their well-known psychedelic rhythms and echoing falsettos.
I am especially excited to see Silk City on the festival lineup. The new collaboration between Ronson and Diplo only made way into the music scene in January of this year.
The weekend also continues to be star studded with acts like Lord Huron, Pusha T, Amine, Jungle and Cigarettes After Sex.
The festival is going beyond focusing on just a fiery lineup of artists by bringing an extensive lineup of food vendors to the space.
This year’s food trucks and eateries are proud products of Oakland or have deep ties to the East Bay, ranging from cuisines dipping into the tastebuds of those who keep it vegan, Oriental or all Western.
Arubaya, a punk rock-influenced contemporary Oakland joint, is known for its unique Japanese fried chicken and seasonal izakaya plates.
The chicken’s vibrant flavor will be bursting through the festival grounds — the best way to accommodate the adrenaline-pumping acts
paving their way through the weekend.
Treasure Island is looking to create an all-encompassing experience that festival goers look for each and every time they step foot onto one.
The festival will be placing a primary focus on Bay Area artistic culture, one further accentuated with a backdrop of downtown San Francisco and the Bay Bridge at the location.
Audiences will get the opportunity to roam alongside experiential art installations playing on the unique creativity of several artists bred in the eclectic currents of the Bay.
A “Cosmic Voyager” will be making its appearance this weekend, taking the form of a laser-cut stainless steel sea turtle exhibit that viewers can get their horoscope readings with just the push of a button.
Middle Harbor Shoreline Park will be painting an experience splashed with the epitome of festival energy, allowing attendees to make their way between the two stages housing non-overlapping sets.
