As the sun--or really the snowy-white perpetual cloud cover--begins to fade, turning this chilly afternoon into an even chillier evening, the illusion of this joint as a pleasant outing filled with calm and gentle folk, the sort of people who like nothing more than sitting on blankets in meadows and sipping Napa Valley's finest wines (which there's plenty of opportunity to do here), crumbles and blows away like so much dust.

The after-work crowd has arrived at Outside Lands [ tickets ], and they are thirsty, and they want to dance.

I know this because they've bumped into me about 300 times, and every one of them seems to be holding a beer. Also: they're wearing ugly hats that tend to advertise mediocre products, and they're wearing them all crooked-like. And yes, I am Grandpa Simpson.

A highly amped crowd greets long-haired freaky hippie person Beck [ tickets ] Hansen, who--despite being badly in need of a haircut--swiftly launches volley after volley of his most easily identifiable hits in rapid-fire fashion, which gets the crowd rushing way forward to the front of tight and narrow Lindley Meadow. There might be 20,000 people just right here, right in front of this one stage. The stampede watch is in full effect.

Beck, perhaps sensing catastrophe, throws out a bunch of his lesser-known songs. Most of the party crowd up front reverses polarity and heads to the beer stands. Once most of these people are gone, Beck launches into an earth-shaking "Where It's At." Score!

Up next on the big stage, it's a bird, it's a plane... it's the Thom Yorke Superfriends Party! Early technical glitches plague Radiohead [ tickets ]'s first handful of songs (including a couple minutes of total silence, which prompts Yorke to wonder who spilled their beer on the power cord), but the remainder of the set is sensational.

It would be easy to take Radiohead for granted at this point. They are sort of everywhere, in a psychic sense, and they belong utterly to this generation. They are our Beatles. Twenty years from now you will realize this and it will make you smack your head that you didn't pay better attention when you had the chance.

Friday night in San Francisco, with the gorgeous strains of "Airbag" rising up to meet the mysterious fog blowing in from the ocean, up and over the enormous stage, and into the first nighttime concert ever held in Golden Gate Park, they were simply magic, like something that doesn't fully belong to this planet.

Yes, they're that good.

Additional Outside Lands coverage:
Blogging Outside Lands, Day 1: Black Mountain, Carney

Outside lands coverage from L.A. rockers Carney:
Video Blog: Carney at Outside Lands in San Francisco (No. 1)
Blogging Outside Lands: Carney arrives
Video Blog: Carney at Outside Lands in San Francisco (No. 2)