Whether delivering coy political messages on stage or chatting casually backstage, Stars singer Torquil Campbell is always an engaging persona. And at Outside Lands he went a step further, treating SPIN.com to an intimate acoustic performance.

When Jeff Tweedy sang the opening line of "Via Chicago" last night at San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival -- "I dreamt of killing you again last night, and it felt alright to me" -- it seemed vastly appropriate that his band, Wilco, was performing on a stage named "Twin Peaks." But the frontman's demeanor was, for the most part, far sunnier, particularly when faced with a sprawling throng of

When we last caught up with power-blues duo the Black Keys, they were tearing up the racetrack at this year's Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore.

The weather at this weekend's inaugural Outside Lands festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park may have been a tad chilly for a summer rockathon, but it suited the Walkmen's dark-hued balladry and pale skin tones just fine.

On "He Lied About Death," from his band's 2005 opus Set Yourself on Fire, Stars co-frontman Torquil Campbell rants about our current president, calling him "an ape in a cage" and hoping his "drunken daughters are gay." So, on the weekend the Democrats picked their V.P. candidate, it wasn't surprising to hear Campbell chime in on this year's election.

Searching for an exciting end to the opening day of Outside Lands, concertgoers wiped bay-fog off their shoulders as they cozied in between the blood-red curtained walls of San Francisco's Independent Friday night for SPIN and Dell's afterparty, featuring sets from the Matches and the Felice Brothers.