Temperatures heat up for first day of HSB

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- With this heatwave, even the normally cooler places in the Bay Area like Golden Gate Park will feel uncomfortably hot and nowhere will that be more apparent than at an event with tons of people.

Since early this morning, people have been filtering into the park for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, an annual free music festival.

HSB began with nine bands in 2001 and 75,000 people showed up for the three days. This year, organizers expect about a million people to hear almost 100 musical acts, and not just bluegrass anymore.

This year, Emmylou Harris, Waxahatchee, Chris Issak, Ryan Adams and John Prine were all set to play.

PHOTOS: Nearly 1 million are expected at the HSB music fest

Claire Gallagher, one of the early arrivals, has been coming for 10 years. She calls herself a festival head.

"You have to be dedicated to music and love music and be a big fan of music," Gallagher said.

Another concert goes said he loved HSB for the diverse crowd it draws.

"This particular event, I just like how many different people you can find," he said. "It's a blue grass event, which I love the blue grass, but there are people here who reggae is their predominant music, electronic music is their predominate music. It gathers people who are not even interested in Blue Grass.

The festival has aid stations, this year to help people deal with the heat, in addition to medical tents.

The advice and not hardly strictly speaking for Friday's 90 degree temperatures is to hydrate.