A pounding bass — boom, boom, boom — could be heard in parts of San Francisco and the East Bay over the weekend during the two-day Portola Festival at Pier 80 in Bayview, where top electronic music acts such as Flume, the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim performed.
Residents complained on social media that the pulsating music was “shockingly loud” and driving them crazy and could be heard in San Francisco’s Noe Valley, Castro and Twin Peaks neighborhoods — and all the way across the bay to Oakland and Alameda. Mark Schulze of Alameda told SFGATE that at times the music was so loud that the windows in his home rattled.
“Unbelievable that … I can hear the thumping bass from the Portola Music Festival all the way here in Noe Valley,” wrote one Twitter user.
“@LondonBreed time to SHUT DOWN the nightmare of a ‘music festival’ tonight in San Francisco!” shared another. “We live miles away in Alameda and our walls in our house are shaking from the vibrations! This is a violation of State of California noise laws. Shut it down!”
The city of Alameda issued a message on Sunday alerting residents of the noise source and said the police department was aware of the issue but is “limited in their ability to address the issue.”
Some Twitter users said they were confused by where the sound they heard in their homes was coming from. “I went outside in my jam-jams to have a neighborly chat with the hooligans bumping the deep, pulsating bass reverberating through my floors only to discover it is coming from @PortolaFestival, ACROSS THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY,” wrote one.
“Where’s the noise coming from, do you know?” said another Twitter user. “Folsom Street Fair, or Portola Music Festival? I’m in Twin Peaks and the bass is driving me wild.”
While the festival ran Saturday and Sunday, the Friday rehearsal could also be heard. “That bass rumble: Portola music festival, Pier 80 in SF. Friday rehearsal, still going at 10:30 tonight,” a Twitter user shared.
Many on social media also applauded the musical acts. “The Chemical Brothers are the undisputed masters of electronic dance music,” wrote one. “They just absolutely slayed Portola.”
The festival was produced by Goldenvoice, the same promoter of Coachella, and also received complaints about crowd management, with fans rushing over fences at one stage. This was the festival’s first run in the city. The event’s name is a nod to the 1909 Portola Festival that celebrated a reopening of the city after the 1906 earthquake.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health, which handles the city’s noise enforcement program, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. SFGATE also reached out to the San Francisco Police Department and Goldenvoice for this story but had not received responses as of publication.
This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.