Jess Nelson Outside Days returned May 29–31, and if you’ve never been, it’s not quite like other festivals. It bills itself as an outdoor industry event as much as a music festival — think gear brands, speaker series, and community activations woven in between sets. The result is a weekend that feels less like a lineup to survive and more like a place to actually exhale.
More Than a Lineup
One of the moments that genuinely stopped me in my tracks all weekend didn’t even happen on the main stage. It was hearing Rue Mapp speak, woven right into the middle of the music. Rue is the founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, a national nonprofit that connects Black communities with the outdoors, giving people the resources, representation, and the encouragement to get out onto trails and into nature. I was so impressed listening to her talk about that work. Getting to hear someone doing something so meaningful, right there in the middle of a festival weekend, was one of my favorite parts of the whole thing.
The Atmosphere: Rest Was Part of the Program
Anyone who’s covered a multi-day festival knows the vendor rows can start to blur into one long exhausted haze. Not at Outside Days. This felt different because so much of it was built around actually taking care of us instead of just selling to us. REI had a s’mores pit going and you best believe I indulged. I picked up other snacks and freebies along the way, and then, be still my heart, they had an entire rest-and-recovery area for festival goers to enjoy. Hammocks included. An actual permission slip to lie down and reset between sets.
PCD is built around the intersection of live music and mental health, so seeing this included…I could have cried a little. Festivals are exhausting by design, and having an organizer bake rest into the programming instead of treating it like an afterthought is exactly the kind of thing more festivals need to be doing.
Photo by Outside Days Festival
Day One: Settling In With Goth Babe and Death Cab for Cutie
Friday was all about arriving and letting my shoulders drop. Goth Babe’s set was an early standout, that laid-back, sun-soaked energy that set the whole tone for the weekend. Then Death Cab for Cutie closed the night, and my first time seeing them live did not disappoint. Songs I already loved hit completely differently in that setting, and the whole set had a warmth that made for the best possible first night.
Day Two: The Flaming Lips Earn the Stay
Saturday was brutally hot, and my plan was simple: catch Dawes, then bail before I melted. The Flaming Lips had other plans for me. I’ll be honest, I went in not knowing much of their music, and nothing about them had me excited beforehand. Then they completely flipped that. Bouncy balls rained through the crowd, there was a “FUCK YEAH OUTSIDE DAYS” sign spelled out in balloon letters, and the whole thing was pure chaotic, colorful joy. That’s the kind of set that reroutes your entire night, and mine got rerouted hard.
Day Three: Tash Sultana Steals the Weekend
Sunday opened with Grouplove, which was such a good time, but everything was building toward Tash Sultana. I don’t even know how to explain the musicianship, layering guitar and loops and instrumentation live, more instrumental than vocal-heavy, which usually isn’t my thing since I’m such a sucker for a vocal-heavy set. But the sheer talent on display made that not matter even a little. There was a literal rainbow over the crowd during their set. For an artist who’s somewhere along the queer umbrella bringing that much light to a stage, it felt almost unfair how perfect it was. Getting to watch a queer artist command a moment like that made it hit even harder.
Then Cage the Elephant closed it out, and I did not clock the sheer magnitude of energy they bring live beforehand. I knew some of their songs going in, but nothing prepared me for the scale of that performance or how the crowd responded to it. They were exactly the right note to send everyone home on.
The Takeaway
Outside Days isn’t trying to be the biggest festival on the calendar, and honestly, that’s exactly why it works. Between Rue Mapp’s message on outdoor equity woven right into the weekend, REI’s rest-and-recovery setup, and a lineup that kept surprising me all three days, this was a festival that took care of the people in it, on stage and off. I’m still thinking about it.
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