The first-ever Outside the Box festival wrapped up today, but the lasting image of the eight-day music and arts showcase will likely be the Mighty Mighty Bosstones performing for several thousand revelers last night at dusk on the Boston Common. Throughout a very hot week things were building up to that moment — a string of free live performances, theatre productions, food demonstrations, and a bunch of other stuff — and the fest’s organizers can feel pretty satisfied with not only their product by the city’s response to it.
The local music lineup was excellent (Gentlemen Hall, Buffalo Tom, Adam Ezra Group, Air Traffic Controller, Boys Like Girls, Shea Rose, Bearstronaut, the Lemonheads, Abadabad, Will Dailey, Ruby Rose Fox, Tallahassee, and on and on) and if there’s one minor quibble, it’s that we’d love to see a Boston music lineup of that caliber in one or two days rather than stretched out over a week. But that’s a real picking of nits and a conversation for another day.
If you missed anything, Outside The Box has released eight daily recap videos, and they’re all worth a look, starting with yesterday’s festivities up top and rolling backwards through the previous week. Spend some time ignoring work duties Monday morning with these very cool videos, and we’ll start the countdown to next year’s party.