To be outdoors, in weather, in summer feels increasingly fraught. Outdoor concerts carry a persistent charm and are safer for those with COVID concerns, but climate change increases the riskiness of these open-air events. We’re not just considering heat and unexpected weather, but also the now-seasonal wildfire smoke that blows over urban areas with some regularity.

This summer we attended a number of festivals and outdoor concerts in the Portland area; here’s the report back:

Project Pabst

This year, we welcomed Project Pabst back to Tom McCall Waterfront Park for a two-day, two-stage, eclectic ADHD juke-box lineup of rock, hip hop, indie pop, garage punk, and other such sounds. The common musical thread was they were amped, and every band felt good—sounded good—as sets jumped back and forth around a 24-feet tall unicorn statue that sat at the fest’s center.

While this critic thinks mid-80s is too hot to be in a crowd—but acknowledges that crowds are by definition crowded—the Pabst grounds had a shocking number of seats with sun umbrellas and actual tree shade, plus a little pop-up dive bar in an air-conditioned tent. 

We never got too close to either stage, based on a time-honored preference for standing near the sound booth, where the music arguably sounds best. And the sound at Project Pabst impressed. When the music hit as the day cooled off, everything lined up like an unflappable, sensorial argument about music outside. Music outdoors! Music everyone can hear! 

People who hadn’t forked over the $115-220 ticket price lined up on the Morrison Bridge or danced on the waterfront promenade. This is a style we can’t help liking, even if we are deeply in our pay-for-art-you-love phase. Speaking of love, this was the first time we’d caught Gossip since their new record Real Power dropped back in March. Hearing the voice of Beth Ditto is still akin to hearing the voice of god.

A Project Pabst representative estimated the fest drew 15,000 people over the course of the two days. They’re already planning the line up for next year.

Pickathon

My first few years at Pickathon were focused on nighttime sets and dance parties in the woods and in open fields under the stars. But at some point, I started shifting to day festival mode. 

This year, in our group Pickathon round-up, I ventured that there are multiple festivals happening within the annual art- and music-packed weekend that unfolds in early August on Pendarvis Farm.

Performances start as early as 11 am and continue into the next day, past 1 am. That’s over 14 hours a day, on multiple stages. There’s no way you could take in all of it, and at some point, I became a sunhat-wearing day festival type, attending some of the foodie dinners; my metal cup dangling from my jorts. The organic-looking air conditioning system in the Galaxy Barn became my benevolent deity, and I considered building a religion around it. The femme concertgoer, holding a baby and eating a burrito during Rhododendron’s prog metal set, could be our first saint.

There were more tickets on offer at Pickathon this year, as its organizers secured a 10-year permit renewal and gained permission to expand the audience from 5,000 paid attendees to 8,500. From what I saw, the fields and forest absorbed them easily.

PDX Live

Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square turned 40 in April, a fact you may already have surmised from all the big banners all over it. Like with Project Pabst, I have come to appreciate the free show passerbyers can find, just from standing along SW 6th. It’s actually a better view of the stage than from the square’s red brick steps. 

As an outdoor venue that gambles on multiple dates per year, the weather seemed to treat the Square kindly—though an August 17 Waxahatchee show had to move up its showtime to 1 pm, to avoid an uncharacteristic thunder and lightning storm. The vibe at the Square is surprisingly atmospheric at dusk, when the city’s crows swoop dramatically overhead. 

Attending the sold out Sleater-Kinney on August 7, I had some complaints about the sound, which felt too tinny. The group’s thought-rock punk energy seemed to evaporate before it made it very far into the crowd.

XOXO

The final XOXO Festival was planned for 2020, but of course, that didn’t happen. The experimental fest for tech-savvy artists and makers, which began in 2012, had skipped a year before, but never more than one and never while trying to wait out a pandemic.

“The last five years sucked the moon out of the clear blue sky,” festival co-founder Andy McMillan said during opening remarks, referring to an anxiety he now felt, which hadn’t been there before. 

But he and the fest’s other co-founder—and Andy—Andy Baio didn’t want to leave the chapter unfinished or attendees without one final reunion. Their reasons for concluding XOXO (after putting together seven of them and also organizing a coworking space called Outpost) were related to no-longer-plentiful company sponsorships. “And always there, waiting: COVID,” Baio said soberly.

For this reason, in 2024, the festival built a giant tent on the lawn of Revolution Hall to shelter attendees who didn’t want to remain masked inside the venue’s amphitheater. And quite uncharacteristically, for the end of August, the weather turned surprisingly cold and rainy on the morning of the first day.

XOXO wasn’t a music festival, although there was music, and it wasn’t a conference, although there were talks. But it was partially outdoors and in Portland, so I’m including it. It’s also potentially the most Portland of all the summer festivals I attended.

At several moments throughout the fest, people mentioned “living the XOXO dream,” which Verge editor Sarah Jeong confirmed onstage is “visiting XOXO and then moving to Portland.”

XOXO 2024 had a great line-up of journalists and cultural critics. Ed Yong received a standing ovation for a talk he adapted from his regular “How the Pandemic Destroyed America.” This one was called “How the Pandemic Destroyed Me” and covered his thoughts on journalism as a “caretaking profession.” It’s very easy, he argued, for journalists to become conceited assholes, and he tries to ground his work in empathy, curiosity, and kindness. “Much of what I do comes from that,” he said.

Other takeaways: Casey Newton thinks everyone with a newsletter should also have a podcast and vice versa, though the listeners won’t overlap very much. Cabel Sasser has an incredible story about a McDonalds mural that I daren’t paraphrase. Sarah Jeong discussed what happens when you’re overwhelmed by waves of internet harassment: “You get over it.” Ryan Broderick thinks the internet “is rotting; it’s falling apart.”

“I want to say one thing, which is that I don’t like events organizing,” Andy Baio closed XOXO with, as he and Andy McMillan drank beers on stage to celebrate the festival’s end. McMillan dubbed the festival his life’s work, and once again tried to describe exactly what XOXO is: “It’s a community of people supporting each other through dark times.” “Now,” Baio said, “go make new things together.”