THOUGH I'M SURE it's been going on forever, it seems like over the past decade there's been an upsurge of free, local open-air music events all over town. From remote industrial spaces to tucked-away neighborhood parks, every weird, and not-so-weird, band has had an outdoor showcase of some sort. It's a positive, community-building use of public space in a world of co-opted "dead areas" full of billboards and parking lots. Permitting should be way easier, something a simple San Francisco Board of Supervisors measure could achieve.

Warm Water Cove is one such treasure, nestled among heaved-up slabs of cracked and crumbling concrete, perched on the edge of the bay with a stellar view of the Port of Oakland across the blue rippling water and bordered by huge mounds of bulldozed gravel and the burned-out shells of heavily graffitied warehouses. It's the perfect place for extremely loud musical performances. There's nary a neighbor in earshot to call the gendarmes, save for the occasional non-telephone-equipped vehicular residence.

The kids call it Toxic Beach, and for good reason. Many a scribe has compared the place to what the world will look like after the cataclysmic fall of humankind. Wend your bicycle through the broken glass and shattered pavement and marvel at the contrasts – a glimpse up the skirt of Mother Nature, glorious hints of natural beauty perversely hidden by the rough, uncomfortable artifacts of civilization. Seabirds circle and call above the half-sunk post piles and rocky landfill shoreline. Trees and flowers sprout amid the wood chips and asphalt. It's tempting to forget the Superfund sites and nuclear waste in the vicinity. But then again – are those muddy puddles from the park's sprinkler system? Or seepage from a leaking underground storage tank full of some vile cancerous brew?

The second annual Noise Rock Picnic is part of this excellent San Francisco outdoor concert tradition. This year it was warm and sunny amid the ruins, in contrast to 2002's cold and blustery wind, always stirring up that dubious postindustrial dust. Event organizers Conan Neutron (a Bay Guardian contributor) and Ben Adrian of Replicator passed the hat to recoup the cost of the generator, plus kick down some travel-and-expenses money for the grindy, spazzy, arty, and really great L.A. bands the 400 Blows and the Mae Shi.

And, barring a brief survey by genial-seeming police officers, the afternoon unfolded without a hitch. An expertly tended barbecue was open for any BYO fare, and the bands rocked heavily – crushing, thunderous, loud-as-fuck, totally metal, punk, whatever, and often rather, well, prog. These are arty noise-rock bands playing dynamic and complex tunes full of, yes, goddammit, poise and balance – even when they're out on a limb in spazzy abandon or stomping around like heavily armored monstrosities from a Black Sabbath outtake.

Speaking of which, Oakland's Totimoshi really kicks ass, big sludgy monster-riff metal and menace, all kicked up by a driving rhythm section and dragged around by a really raw, crusty barbed-wire guitar. Porch, a very good and very loud band, followed. Bludgeoning but precise, and more inclined to sort of wander off in improvisation. Replicator closed the afternoon with a go-for-broke, audience interactive, fall-in-the-mud performance full of roaring guitars, pleasingly theatrical drumming, periodic robot keyboards, and lots of screaming, on and off the mic.