Other Side of Outside Lands

By now, anyone attending or even contemplating going to Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival this weekend is well aware of headliners Neil Young, Metallica and Stevie Wonder.

These are things most people know:

Metallica just returned home from their inaugural Orion Festival on the East Coast, stoked to play the largest Bay Area festival for the first time.

“As a Bay Area resident and as a music fan, going to see Outside Lands every year is a huge thing,” said drummer Lars Ulrich in a conference call with reporters last week. “Not only for me but also my family. Getting a chance to play it and to headline is obviously a huge thing for us.”

Neil Young just released an album of rocking nursery rhymes and folk songs packed with timeless royalty-free classics like “Oh Susannah” and “God Save the Queen.”

And Stevie Wonder may be going on 63, but he’s the same funk-and-soul force of nature he was when he broke out at 13 and will undoubtedly close out the festival with a bang.

That’s the obvious stuff. But with Outside Lands there’s always a surprise if you dig a little deeper. For instance, did you know they’re rendering whole sheep in a tent known as “Outside Lambs”? (Btw, check out Heather Irwin’s guide to eating your way around Outside Lands)

Or that there’s an unlikely preacher’s son named Allen Stone who will take the stage in nerdy, horn-rimmed glasses at noon Sunday to show people why he reached Top 5 on the iTunes R&B charts with his debut album?

Or that Adult Swim is programming part of this year’s Barbary comedy lineup in a funky Belgian mirrored tent?

And, as questions abound, surely at some point you’ll find yourself wondering — are they really powering the Panhandle Stage off the sun or is there a secret generator somewhere?