Arcade Fire photo by Casey Flanigan

1. Arcade Fire: Long past the days when they could still be deemed “indie,” Win Butler and company are now one of the biggest bands on the planet and Arcade Fire proved why when they closed down the festival on Sunday with the best set of the weekend. Triumphant, uplifting, epic; it was everything we’ve come to expect from the sprawling Canadian outfit. There were moments that recalled the weird textures and interludes of Radiohead, the hypnotic grooves of Talking Heads and the everyman struggle of Springsteen, yet it always felt totally original and unique. There’s immense power in group sing-alongs, put tens of thousands of people in a field and get them all singing, hands raised over head, and it borders on spiritual.

2. Phish: A full two set Phish show in Golden Gate Park sounds like a slam dunk, and for the most part it was. A well executed, and long, first set that included “Tweezer” and closed with “Mike’s Song” > “I Am Hydrogen” > “Weekapaug Groove” hinted at the darker jams to come during the second half while a nice array of covers, including Zappa’s “Peaches en Regalia,” Velvet Undergrounds “Rock & Roll,” David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” and Ween’s “Roses Are Free,” helped bring fringe fans into the fold.

3. The Weather: If you don’t live in San Francisco, or better yet, if you don’t live in the Richmond or Sunset Districts of San Francisco, then you just don’t understand how lucky we were to have hot – seriously, put on sun block, bust out shorts hot! – weather on Saturday and Sunday. Friday was par for the course, foggy and cold; the rest of the weekend was simply beautiful, helping to truly give Outside Lands that festival feeling.

4. Vetiver: One of the most surprising sets of the weekend, Vetiver’s inviting indie-folk was reminiscent of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty -era Grateful Dead and proved to be the ideal soundtrack for basking in the sunshine, toes stuck in the grass of Golden Gate Park. They even covered the Dead’s “Don’t Ease Me In,” creating a wonderfully strange place where hippies and hipsters commingled with pride.

5. Food & Wine: Though not quite at the level of New Orleans’ Jazz & Heritage Festival in terms of gastronomical delights, Outside Lands is pretty damn close, and has arguably closed that gap with Wine Lands, where the areas top vineyards offer up some of the best wine in America, if not the world. Extra points to organizers for the addition of Food Truck Forest; the fried pickles and green tomatoes from Those Fabulous Frickle Brothers was worth the 20 minute wait!

!!! photo by Kelsey Winterkorn

6. !!!: Wanna start a party? Look no further than dance-punk heroes !!!. Unstoppable grooves that paid homage to Prince, Talking Heads, The Clash and more, frontman Nic Offer is as engaging as any singer on the circuit, and his hip-thrusts are not to be rivaled. Backed by a large, air-tight ensemble, the slinky guitars, sexy keys and perfectly placed percussion made this one of the most enjoyable sets of the weekend.

7. The Black Keys: Not as musically un-hinged as a Black Keys show inside a dark, confined club, there is clearly strength in numbers and the massive audience at Outside Lands didn’t seem to notice any shortcomings with crowd surfing erupting 300 rows deep. The set moved from the original duo of Dan Auerbach (guitar/vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums) to the four-piece configuration they’ve been touring with and back to the duo. Covering their decade-stretching catalog, the Keys leaned heavy on latest (and best) album Brothers, showing off their softer soul side that now accompanies the famous garage-blues fury.

8. Little Dragon: Sweden’s Little Dragon picked up where !!! left off earlier on Sunday, sending fans gyrating to its electro indie-funk. With slick drums and well conceived songs, the best moments were reminiscent of LCD Soundsystem. You can believe the hype on Little Dragon.

9. Arctic Monkeys: The crowd at Arctic Monkeys was enormous as the U.K. superstars (the band’s 2006 album “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not,” became the fastest selling debut in British history) slammed through an impressive set of dance-punk rock & roll, including “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor,” which damn near started a riot.

10. Mavis Staples & Win Butler: Making a play for one of the peak moments of the weekend, Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler joined gospel legend Mavis Staples for a Sunday afternoon sing-along as they took hold of The Band’s epic “The Weight.”

11. Golden Gate Park: You can make an amazing festival happen just about anywhere; muddy fields, sweaty city streets, parking lots, the desert, but San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is hallowed grounds. Bordered by the Pacific Ocean on one end and historic Haight-Ashbury on the other, the park is ground zero for the hippie movement and you can feel the flower power mojo that has seeped into the soil over the past 50 years. And then there’s the park itself; rolling hills that create natural sound barriers, vast meadows of plush grass that allow stages to nestle in perfectly, and trees that seem to roll on forever.