{"id":36777,"date":"2024-10-07T12:46:57","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T19:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=36777"},"modified":"2024-10-07T12:46:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T19:46:58","slug":"sfs-comeback-summer-could-be-permanent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/10\/07\/sfs-comeback-summer-could-be-permanent\/","title":{"rendered":"SF\u2019s comeback summer could be permanent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Constant live music, public drinking, gay bathhouses \u2014 is San Francisco suddenly cool or something?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A free rave by Another Planet Entertainment drew thousands to Embarcadero Plaza this summer. | Source:Jason Henry for The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Astrid Kane<\/a> Published\u00a0Oct. 06, 2024 \u2022 SFStandard.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plugging Downtown First Thursdays on her Instagram this week, Mayor London Breed posted a slick, swiveling drone video of Salesforce Tower by twilight<\/a> that cut to crowds on the street below. For the accompanying music, she didn\u2019t source the song about someone leaving his heart here, that hoary flower-child retread by Scott McKenzie<\/a>, or something else ripped from the \u201cForrest Gump\u201d soundtrack \u2014 oh no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the mayor \u2014 or possibly a very online staffer \u2014 chose Australian DJ Dom Dolla\u2019s 2019 electronic dance track \u201cSan Frandisco.\u201d It\u2019s not just hip. It\u2019s aggressively, self-consciously hip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Another Planet Entertainment partnered with SF’s own Dirtybird Records for a free July rave on the Embarcadero. | Source:Jason Henry for The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

San Francisco, coming off a long revenge summer of massive outdoor raves and large-scale laser shows<\/a>, doesn\u2019t seem prepared to go dormant after this heat wave ebbs. Rather, its cultural recovery is only intensifying. Covid-era relaxations on laws against open containers have become full-on public drinking zones<\/a>. Underground venues are taking a chance on challenging neighborhoods<\/a>. Amsterdam-style weed cafes <\/a>are back on the menu (if likely a ways away), and we might even get a gay bathhouse<\/a> or two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This marks a distinct vibe shift. Only eight months ago, every other day seemed to bring announcements that Macy\u2019s flagship was cratering<\/a> or three-quarters of voters believed the city was on the wrong track<\/a>. Now, museums are moving downtown<\/a>, AI companies are decamping for Union Square<\/a>, and there are so many big outdoor free shows that they\u2019re conflicting with more established<\/a> outdoor free shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it possible that national-punching-bag, poster-child-for-urban-collapse San Francisco is not only pulling back from the abyss, but actually \u2014 gasp \u2014 regaining its lost swagger for good?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bollards on Capp Street in the Mission pushed sex work to nearby Shotwell Street; a comprehensive solution has proved elusive. | Source:Jason Henry for The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As in-person as it gets<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think San Francisco has been through a very rough patch and has had a slow recovery,\u201d said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who last week introduced legislation to remove a quirk in the police code that prohibits gay bathhouses. \u201cThere is a desire for in-person experiences. It\u2019s certainly more in-person than an app on your phone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, a bathhouse quite literally offers the most \u201cin-person\u201d experience of all. And it\u2019s not the only movement toward greater sex-positivity, either. In response to the game of whack-a-mole<\/a> the city has been playing with sex workers in the Mission, District 9 supervisor candidate Jackie Fielder suggested that a regulated area away from residential neighborhoods<\/a> would be a more sensible solution than installing traffic barriers on Shotwell Street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opponents pounced on the idea of a so-called red-light district, although termed-out Supervisor Hillary Ronen last year called to decriminalize sex work<\/a>. Fielder declined to comment, but Mandelman agreed that the human sex drive can\u2019t be legislated away. \u201cIf you can find an area for people to meet up for sex work that was not causing those problems for surrounding residents, that\u2019s worth exploring,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Illuminate SF was behind this installation of lasers on Coit Tower. | Source:Morgan Ellis\/The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A change in mood, doesn\u2019t have to be sexual, of course. Sometimes it\u2019s comparatively wholesome, luring people to Golden Gate Park\u2019s Music Concourse with the promise of a late-afternoon show. Steffen Franz is the technical director of Illuminate, the nonprofit that mounts large-scale light works like Pride Month\u2019s beefed-up laser cannons down Market Street<\/a> and the Bay Lights (which are set to return to the Bay Bridge next year<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Franz has programmed the bandshell for the past four years \u2014 since Illuminate updated the lighting and sound systems \u2014 to the tune of 575 free performances by reggae artists, singer-songwriters, and internationally famous house DJs. Have audiences displayed an increased appetite for any particular genre? \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more everything than there used to be,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the old days, if you didn\u2019t have a band, people didn\u2019t take it seriously. People didn\u2019t take a DJ seriously. Now, it\u2019s a different world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formerly, he said, attendance by 100 to 150 people would be a great night, but Fridays now average around 500, and acts like DJ\/producer Doc Martin and punk band Scowl each bring in more than 2,500. Kronos Quartet, the genre-spanning local string ensemble that books gigs like the Transamerica Pyramid\u2019s grand reopening<\/a>, got 3,000 fans to come out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sound system has redefined what is possible, Franz said, broadening the idea of what a top-tier concert in the park can be. \u201cWhat was all about Jerry and Jimi and Janice is now all about current-day music,\u201d he said \u2014 particularly EDM, which appears to be the unifying sound of San Francisco\u2019s post-pandemic comeback, crowned by the Portola Music Festival, a massive two-day event at Pier 80<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Interplanetary Criminal was one of the acts at this year’s Portola Music Festival at Pier 80, perhaps the biggest example of electronic music’s hold on San Francisco. | Source:Morgan Ellis\/The Standard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

SF Live, the six-month series of shows in the mold of the Stern Grove Festival, is just one of the city\u2019s forays into house, techno, and other electronic genres. Independent promoters Noise Pop and Another Planet Entertainment have curated and cross-pollinated raves and dance parties<\/a> nearly every weekend, sprinkling shows throughout Golden Gate Park<\/a> and in outdoor gathering places like Union Square<\/a> and the Embarcadero. \u201cIt\u2019s popping a lot more than it was a year or two ago,\u201d Franz said of this burgeoning scene. \u201cIt\u2019s people not only believing our city is making a comeback, but it should be the amazing hub of art in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can data support vibes?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, not everything\u2019s rosy. In September, a 49ers player was shot in broad daylight<\/a> in Union Square, and well-known queer muralist and performer Diego Gomez was severely beaten<\/a>  outside his Tenderloin home. Michelin-starred restaurant Aphotic closed last week, with chef Peter Hemsley placing the blame in part on its location at the \u201cugly butt end of a desolate convention center suck hole<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For too long, bad vibes have outstripped positive statistics to become de facto evidence that the city is going in the wrong direction. It was City Hall\u2019s misguided policies, not national retail trends, that killed Macy\u2019s and emptied the former Westfield mall \u2014 or, at least, that was the narrative on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if Bip City<\/a> is to become Bop City<\/a>, sooner or later, the city will have to show its math. According to Kate Patterson, director of external affairs for the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, preliminary data is in. The 70 events that City Hall staged in June, July, and August drew more than 45,000 attendees to formerly moribund downtown San Francisco. A single independent event with OEWD support, the Oktoberfest street party<\/a> in California\u2019s first Entertainment Zone, attracted 10,000 revelers. Participating businesses reported 15 times their typical sales, Patterson added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Countering the jab that City Hall has been fiddling while Rome burns, the city has thrown substantial sums at a range of events, from June\u2019s monster Fred Again x Skrillex rave<\/a> in Civic Center to Litquake and the inaugural Black Art Week<\/a>. The recovery, then, is driven by rediscovery. \u201cIf you can go into the street or a park or a plaza and be surrounded by hundreds or thousands of people, it just creates a new experience that you wouldn\u2019t have otherwise,\u201d said Ben Van Houten, OEWD\u2019s director of nightlife initiatives. \u201cIt\u2019s an embarrassment of riches, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some 25,000 people paid $80 on very short notice to see Fred Again and Skrillex play Civic Center on June 1. | Source:Courtesy Skyler Greene<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of course, one person\u2019s music is another\u2019s deafening racket. San Francisco loves a formal complaint: about festivals, about bars<\/a>, about possibly losing a chunk of the 49-Mile Scenic Drive to a park<\/a>. But what about something like Golden Gate Park\u2019s bandshell, which has a couple of hundred thousand people living within a two-mile radius? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complaints are rare. \u201cWe have really tried to manage the sound in a way that is responsible for the neighborhood,\u201d Franz said. In fact, Illuminate makes an effort to acknowledge neighbors who say a show has gone on long enough. \u201cBut we can also be very frank when it\u2019s a Saturday afternoon,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, if it\u2019s a Saturday afternoon, it\u2019s gonna bang a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Astrid Kane can be reached at astrid@sfstandard.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Constant live music, public drinking, gay bathhouses \u2014 is San Francisco suddenly cool or something? By\u00a0Astrid Kane Published\u00a0Oct. 06, 2024 \u2022 SFStandard.com Plugging Downtown First Thursdays on her Instagram this week, Mayor London Breed posted a slick, swiveling drone video of Salesforce Tower by twilight that cut to crowds on the street… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36778,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36777\/revisions\/36778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}