LA
Weekly Detour Festival
Downtown Los Angeles
October 7, 2006
If
you’re fortunate enough to live in Southern California, you now
have several options to satiate your hunger for music festivals. You’ve
got the granddaddy, Coachella (which unfortunately includes a journey
to the hot desert of Indio), Arthurfest for the freak-folk set, the Hot
Topic-centric KROQ Inland Invasion, and now it seems that we can add the
excellent L.A. Weekly Detour Festival to that list.
Set smack dab in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, with four stages’
worth of talent from all over the world, the show came off as a tremendous
success despite one major logistical error. Switching the two main stages
in the festival map caused unnecessary confusion, but it didn’t
ruin an otherwise fantastic day that started with a glamtastic set by
Athens, Georgia’s very own Of Montreal.
The colorfully cross-dressed band, fronted by Kevin Barnes, performed
songs off of their last effort, The Sunlandic Twins and generally
rocked the house, owing a tremendous debt to David Bowie in the process.
Slightly disappointing was Blonde Redhead,
who delivered a haphazard set during which it seemed that they didn’t
have enough time to soundcheck beforehand. Cali’s Redd
Kross delivered power punk/power pop songs from their 26-year career
with precision and fun in the day’s most surprising performance.
The
festival’s real ace in the hole came, unsurprisingly, from Basement
Jaxx. As one of the best live bands around, the Jaxx in L.A. didn’t
disappoint. Opening up with “Good Luck,” Lisa Kekaula from
The Bellrays belted out the empowerment anthem to a horde of dancing fans.
The hipster-heavy crowd was moved to shake what their momma gave ‘em
during such classics as “Romeo” and “Where’s Your
Head At,” so much so that the band got some much-needed extra time
to close out with first album fave “Bingo Bango.” After the
Jaxx, many beat freaks hightailed it to see a bit of the excellent Mexican/electronic
hybrid Nortec Collective whose hot sound
and sheer number of musicians had the crowd in a rhythmic haze.
Mike
Patton’s dedicated fanbase was in force during the performance of
his latest musical incarnation, Peeping Tom.
He worked the crowd and had them giving him the finger in unison during
his diverse and trip-hop influenced set. Beck
entertained the hometown crowd as he waltzed onto the stage during “Loser”
while a team of marionettes mimicked their actions live on the big screen
behind the band. Largely relying on his hits (“Devils Haircut”
“Where It’s At”) and songs from last year’s Guero,
he was, well, a rock star.
Perhaps one of the most memorable performances of the year was from newcomer
and fashion-forward artist Kelly. A San Fernando
valley girl who works her life into her art (“Let me borrow that
top. I want that top.”) and viral videos leading the way, Kelly
has quite a career in front of her. Her superhero and Parker Posey look-a-like
sidekicks only added to the fun that was packed into a too-short ten-minute
set. Immediately following Kelly was !!!,
who exploded onto the stage with spastic crowd humping and speaker jumping
lead singer Nic Offer nearly having an epileptic fit on the mic. They
rocked, rocked, rocked!!!
Closing out the night were the Palm Desert heroes Queens
of the Stone Age featuring the towering Josh Homme at the front
of an all-out testosterone aural assault. A great mix of material new
and old (including “Go With the Flow” and “No One Knows)
were tightly performed as the crowd started to wander away to the Metro
Line to ride and mingle with Kings fans who were also on their way home.
It was a rare occasion in which many Los Angelenos spent their weekend
downtown, giving our fractured city an even rarer sense of community.
Already waiting for next year.
Words and Photos by Nick Hyman
!!!
Beck
Blonde Redhead
Kelly
Nortec Collective
Of Montreal
Redd Kross
10/2006