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Linkin Park and JOAN JETT stand out at lagging Sunset Strip Music Festival
from: social.entertainment.msn.com
by MSN Music Staff
LOS ANGELES -- In the notorious Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip, there's a plastic banner that still hangs on a wall off stage left that reads "Miller High Life Welcomes Motley Crue -- Home Sweet Home." A couple of blocks west, The Roxy still has black-and-white framed photographs of Ozzy Osbourne and other acts who have played there. The history of the Sunset Strip, that stretch of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles legendary for its rock 'n' roll lifestyle (and debauchery), hangs overhead of every billboard, every marquee and every band that takes the stage of one of the Strip's clubs.
If the Strip is stuck competing against its past self, the Sunset Strip Music Festival is stuck competing against a crowded festival calendar in Southern California, and if the lineup of the 2013 edition is any indication, the Strip might be losing. While headliner Linkin Park was a great catch for both star-power and historical reasons, much of the rest of the lineup lacked either a tie to the community or a buzz to set the festival apart.
With HARD Summer across town featuring summer "it" duo Disclosure, local fave Flying Lotus and rapper 2 Chainz, much of the festival crowd found its way to the electro-bash at Los Angeles State Park over the weekend. Hipsters await FYF Fest in three weeks, with Yeah Yeah Yeahs and My Bloody Valentine headlining, while hip-hop fans are counting the days until Wu-Tang Clan, Kid Cudi and J. Cole take the stage at Rock the Bells. With Coachella owning the front part of the summer thanks to buzz and contract wrangling, Los Angeles has a glut of festivals in August and early September.
The 2013 edition of the Sunset Strip Music Festival had two major selling points, though: JOAN JETT was honored with the festival's Elmer Valentine Award on Aug. 1 and followed the presentation with a set of favorites and new tracks, while Linkin Park returned home to close the festival on Saturday night.
With a nostalgia-heavy set list (six of the 19 songs performed came from the band's debut album), Linkin Park ripped through 80 minutes of music on the shut-down Strip, just steps from the clubs where the band got its start. "Who would have thought the dream wasn't to play Billboard Live," emcee and guitarist Mike Shinoda said at one point, in between songs and in reference to an old name of the shuttered Key Club, "but to [expletive] play in front of it?"
While Linkin Park's sound has changed slightly over the years, the songs flowed seamlessly throughout the show. 2001's "Papercut" worked being paired with "Given Up" from 2007's "Minutes to Midnight," while "Castle of Glass" and "Lost in the Echo," two singles from the band's 2012 effort, "Living Things," transitioned easily into "Numb," one of the band's biggest hits. In addition, the band looked very comfortable on the stage, even though their biggest news of 2013 so far is that singer Chester Bennington has a side gig as the new lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots.
Three days earlier, Jett took the stage at the House of Blues for an energetic romp through her career, featuring several tracks from her upcoming release, "Unvarnished." Though unfamiliar to the crowd, songs like "Soulmates to Strangers" and "Make It Back" were warmly received, and Jett seemed to enjoy unveiling them for new ears. But it was toward the set's end that momentum really picked up: Jett's covers of songs like "Crimson and Clover" and "Everyday People" have become staples, while "I Love Rock and Roll" and "I Hate Myself for Loving You" endure to this day.
If Linkin Park are a part of the Strip's recent past and Jett is of its longer legacy, AWOLNATION sound like a band that could be its future. To hear the band perform live is to hear what the kids of '80s hair rockers would come up with armed with their daddies' records and a synthesizer or two. Singer-mastermind Aaron Bruno may have looked a bit like Kurt Cobain onstage, but the sound was all spiky aggression, especially on the crowd favorite "Sail."
The modern-day Strip, though, is also trying to (belatedly) embrace hip-hop, with the Roxy trying to remain relevant as a venue by bringing in up-and-coming rap acts like Iggy Azalea, Doomtree and L.A.'s own Odd Future. The festival lineup reflected that, with Wale closing the festival's east stage and veterans Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh performing earlier on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, both acts struggled. The crowd seemed only passingly familiar with Wale, and the biggest crowd reaction he garnered was when he invited R&B star and cultural lightning rod Chris Brown onstage. Combined with a set list that focused on laid-back, midtempo tracks, Wale's performance gave many festivalgoers one last chance to hit the beer garden before Linkin Park's set. Earlier, Doug E. Fresh got the crowd hyped for Slick Rick, but rap's great storyteller seemed content to do little but stand still on stage and run through hits for 20 minutes of the duo's promised 45-minute set. An unannounced freestyle appearance by, of all people, Wayne Brady at the end of their performance did add a little spark to the proceedings, however.
Linkin Park set list
A Place for My Head
Papercut
Given Up
New Divide
With You
Somewhere I Belong
Lies Greed Misery
Points of Authority
Waiting for the End
Breaking the Habit
Castle of Glass
Lost in the Echo
Numb
What I've Done
Burn It Down
In the End
Bleed It Out/Reading My Eyes
Faint
One Step Closer
JOAN JETT set list (via Setlist.fm)
Bad Reputation
Cherry Bomb
Do You Wanna Touch Me
Make It Back
Soulmates to Strangers
You Drive Me Wild
Fragile
Love Is Pain
TMI
Hard to Grow Up
The French Song
Any Weather
I Love Rock and Roll
Crimson and Clover
I Hate Myself for Loving You
Reality Mentality
A.C.D.C.
Bad Reputation
Everyday People |
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