Sunset Strip Music Festival Highlights

The third annual Sunset Strip Music Festival may have come to an end, but it managed to attract various artists in the music industry with rock, hip-hop, soul, gospel, swing and jazz sounds. About 30,000 music fans headed to the Sunset Strip for the three-day music festival, according to event organizers.

The festival continuously surprised me and introduced me to a lot of new performers. With any festival, it's impossible to catch every act, so it required a bit of forethought to see everyone deemed important, here's recap of some of my personal highlights and picks.

Saturday was the Street Festival, which featured the Smashing Pumpkins as headliners and included about 50 bands on two outdoor stages.

Streets between Doheny Drive and San Vicente Boulevard were closed off to accommodate the performances. The Whiskey A Go-Go, Viper Room, The Roxy and other venues along the Sunset Strip also hosted bands.

The Head Cat which includes band members Lemmy (Motorhead), guitarist Slim Jim Phantom (The Stray Cats) and drummer Danny B. Harvey (Rockats), performed at the House of Blues on Thursday. They played a forty minute set of obscure covers which turned out to be quite enjoyable.

Warner Drive at the Viper Room on Friday night, I caught a blazing set by the group where they played to a full house. The crowd was moving and the sound was solid; eventually, the room stank with sweat and beer.

I began Saturday with a performance at the East Stage by Big B, a Las Vegas singer who is definitely no lounge lizard.  His style parallels Everlast or Sublime and is a great music choice to party to.  A good-sized crowd formed in support and many of the beautiful female concertgoers knew the words and sang along.

Neon Trees put on a solid set to a big crowd at the East Stage as well.  If you like pop with soul, gospel, and R&B, then this band is for you.  Both men and women seemed to love this band.  The cute female drummer was my favorite part.  She did the Phil Collins thing and sang background vocals as well.  The lead singer requested that we all "use our assets" and shake our hips causing more girls to jump in and support.

Travie McCoy of Gym Class Heroes really impressed me with his energy and showmanship.  A hip-hop act with live instruments proved to be one of the most pleasant surprises of the day.  He's a sleepy-eyed-baby-faced bad boy tattooed from head to toe; but most importantly, he's got the gift.  His set was enthralling and mesmerizing and he includes the crowd and encouraged us to dance like idiots, "you don't go to be the best dancer in the room...just try." McCoy even showed us some of his own corny dance moves and performed Cupid's Chokehold with the Supertramp sample that I love.  Excellent show, I wished it had been longer because at thirty minutes, I definitely wanted more.

Then it was off to the Key Club for Vanaprasta's set at 5:20 p.m.  The five-piece was conducting a sound check when I walked in and there were a few fans waiting patiently.  Vanaprasta meshes classic rock with experimental sounds and tones; even blending what sounds like big band, swing, and jazz.  They're a talented group of musicians and craft intricate melodies with complex layering; their songs contained many beats with stops and starts.  By song two, a crowd had gathered, and by song four, the room was full.  G Minus was the track that brought the set to a close and it plays with tempo changes while delivering a hard-rocking sonic assault, in a good way.

Now the day wouldn't be complete without catching the guest of honor, Slash and his band.  I must confess that I'm not too familiar with many of the new songs, but when I heard the bass line from Rocket Queen it evoked a powerful feeling in me.  Sweet Child O' Mine was also performed and I certainly enjoyed the walk down memory lane.  He still shreds on guitar and looked great doing it.

I caught the tail end of Common's set, which was quite enjoyable, playing to a large crowd as they patiently waited for the turntables while they set up on stage.  There was about a 20-minute wait while the stage was set.  When I returned, the set was in full motion and the crowd loved it.           

The grand culmination of the day for me was the Smashing Pumpkins. In my humble opinion, getting to see them perform was the primary reason to purchase a ticket for the SSMF, which meant a lot of pressure was riding on Billy Corgan and his compatriots.  But they proved to be more than up to the task.  Shockingly, the band began early by about ten minutes (very un-rock and roll of them) and was the reason I missed the first song or two.  As I approached the set, I knew only one band on the today's bill could sound that good. I enjoyed nearly two full hours of greatest hits mixed with a few new songs.  Having been an enormous fan since Gish, I am very familiar with the band's catalog and I was very impressed by the set list.  Ava Adore was fantastic and so was Eye, a song I recall as being the best Smashing Pumpkin's song of all time. We got a fast tempo version of Zero and a super mellow take on 1979. 

All of the radio friendly singles were played and performed extremely well. Corgan still has his performance techniques--more than ever before--by singing and playing the guitar and making it look easy.  He also shows his chops as lead guitarist and played the Star Spangled Banner with his teeth.  Before the encore, Corgan took the time to humbly thank the fans for "makin' us feel good."  And the feeling was mutual.  Corgan proceeded to pay tribute to many great bands that he said inspired him "to rock" before jumping into the final two songs. 

On Sunday, Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies reported the Sunset Strip Music Festival paid attendance at 7,000 people. 

All in all, it was a banner performance for everyone involved. Special praise goes to Nic Adler from The Roxy and his team for pulling off what I regard as the best Sunset Strip Music Festival yet. See you next year!

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Editor's Note: This article was originally posted under the byline of "Chad Zachary," a pen name used by the freelance writer. Patch requires that all contributors use their true names. The byline has been changed.