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The Road to Outside Lands, Part 1: Italian Food and David Grisman

posted by Marjana Jaidi on August 06, 2012

  • Outside Lands is a festival that I've been looking forward to for a while -- I've been wanting to go for years, but I've always had other festivals on the agenda for that same weekend (Street Scene 2009 in San Diego, Oya 2010 in Oslo, Flow 2011 in Helsinki).

    This is the year that I finally get to go to Outside Lands, and I'm so excited about it, I decided to take a week before the festival to explore the great state of California, and document my adventures for Cultivora.

    Read on for the first installment of this weeklong series, and if you're following us on Twitter or Instagram, be on the lookout for our adventures, hashtagged #road2oL. If you're headed to Outside Lands, join the fun and hashtag your tweets and Instagram pictures with #road2oL, and be sure to check out our Outside Lands festival guide for info, insights, travel recommendations and coverage.

  • Before we start our adventure, let me introduce you to our wonderful tour guides for the first leg of the trip, Stephanie Sales (one of my best friends from college) and Michael Klotz, who graciously put us up in their lovely NoPa house for the weekend. Also on the trip are fellow New Yorkers Aaron Leeder (another good college friend) and Ali Ropiak, who are driving to Yosemite and Tahoe after this leg of the trip. I couldn't ask for better companions on this journey.

  • The street art in San Francisco is vibrant, creative, and quirky, just like the city it inhabits.

  • On the way to dinner, Aaron stopped to take a picture of an Outside Lands poster, which features his friends (and fellow GW alums), Jukebox the Ghost. Aaron plays guitar in a band called the Drunken Sufis with Jukebox's Tommy Siegel.

  • We sat down for an early dinner at Uva Enoteca (568 Haight Street; 415-829-2024; www.uvaenoteca.com), one of Steph and Mike's favorite Italian restaurants. We made it in time for happy hour, which meant $12 bottles of the featured house wine (uh oh), and grazed through a sampling of Italian meats and cheeses and a scrumptious burrata and faro salad, before ordering our own pasta entrees. The staff was attentive and friendly, and the bill came out to a very manageable $40/person.

  • After dinner, we headed to The Independent (628 Divisadero Street; 415-771-1421; www.independentsf.com) to see the David Grisman Quintet.

  • The five-piece bluegrass band featured Keith Little on banjo, Chad Manning on fiddle, Sam Grisman on upright bass, Jim Nunnely guitar, and David Grisman on the mandolin.

  • Before each song, David Grisman gave an introduction, explaining the song's significance and historical context. As a newcomer to the genre, I appreciated these interludes and learned a lot.

  • It was wonderful to see Grisman performing with his son, Sam, who plays the upright bass.

  • Grisman, Little, and Nunnely harmonized beautifully.

  • On the next installment of our adventure, we take a mini road trip through wine country. Stay tuned...