Best Places To Hear Outside Lands For Free In Golden Gate Park

Davidydave via Flickr

Outside Lands 2021 has beefed up its fencing and road closure system so hard that you can no longer rubberneck from sidewalks and paths to watch Outside Lands for free like in years past. But there are still Golden Gate Park quirks that can position you to pretty clearly hear performances from Lizzo, Tame Impala, and The Strokes, and anyone playing at the Land’s End or Sutro stages.

The Broke-Ass Investigative Gate-Crashing Unit has assessed the more-draconian-than-ever perimeter of this year’s Outside Lands fence, and found the best “free show” spots to be closest to the main Outside Lands stage (Land’s End) and also the second-best Sutro stage.

Be aware that the park is fenced the fuck off very thoroughly. But you can still hear Outside Lands live quite well from these locations.

LAND’S END STAGE (CHAIN OF LAKES DRIVE)

You can hear The Strokes (Friday), Lizzo (Saturday), Tame Impala (Sunday) from behind the main Land’s End stage, on Chain of Lakes Drive. This is all the way back at the western end of Golden Gate Park, though there will be a fair amount of headlights and traffic, because it is the staff entrance/exit.

Other notable acts playing at this stage include Glass Animals (Friday), Vampire Weekend (Saturday), and Rufus Del Sol (Sunday).

SUTRO STAGE (SPRECKELS LAKE / NEAR BISON FIELDS)

As you see above, this year Spreckels Lake is closed to vehicles. Pedestrians can mill around all they want! And it’s right by the Sutro Stage. You won’t be able to see the stage, but there’s some pretty cool light-up art you’ll be able to see. More importantly, you’ll totally be able to hear Kaytranada (Friday), Lord Huron (Saturday), and Kehlani (Sunday) from the sidewalk along Spreckels Lake. 

TWIN PEAKS STAGE LOOKS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET NEAR

With so much of JFK Drive super aggressively fenced off, there’s seemingly no way you’re going to penetrate the Twin Peaks Stage for Tyler, the Creator, Zhu, or J Balvin. Or is there? Chase your diminishing/outstanding returns and see what happens!

ranger dave is happy to announce that @levis is hosting the outside lands live stream on @twitch – bringing fans closer to their favorite music + artists. let's shop like the world depends on it. #buybetterwearlonger https://t.co/FCnGYsBZXt pic.twitter.com/AvNUg9tCKh

— Outside Lands (@sfoutsidelands) October 26, 2021

Outside Lands is teasing some sot of livestream on Twitch, but details are scarce, and the link they’re advertising above is broken. We’ll keep an eye on that sitiation and posts updates as they’re available.