Being out of town for most of the week, I could not attend the Sunset Strip Music Festival, which was happening from August 26th to 28th. This festival was taking place on the west side of LA, along the Sunset Strip and if this part of town is legendary and has given birth to unforgettable music in the 70’s and 80’s, these days, when it comes to music in LA, I rather think about the east side, Silver Lake, Echo Park, and Downtown, as everybody else.
On Thursday and Friday, music acts were performing in the famous venues along the Strip, the House of Blues, The Key Club, The Roxy, The Viper Room, Whisky A Go Go, the Cat Club, and on Saturday, the festival turned into an outdoor event with stages on Sunset between San Vicente Blvd and Doheny Drive, just before the famous boulevard enters Beverly Hills. Of course, they closed Sunset blvd for the occasion, something very hard to accomplish in this part of of town.
In three days, 60 bands were scheduled to play indoors and outdoors and the headliners on Saturday were Slash, The Smashing Pumpkins on the West outdoor stage, and Common, Kid Cudi on the East outdoor stage.
With dates so close to those of the Sunset Junction Fair which happened just last week, you have to wonder whether it was an attempt to prove the west side has as much to offer as the east side regarding music; however, the price of the Sunset Junction was $20 per day, whereas that of the Sunset Strip was $50 just for Saturday! I guess they think the Smashing Pumpkins worth that much.
Rick Adler, the owner of the Roxy theater said about the event:
‘There’s totally room for two music communities in Los Angeles, there are east and westside sounds, and people want to move to this side of town for what we have.’
What did I miss?
August 26th was declared ‘Slash Day’ by the city of West Hollywood
Fergie and Myles Kennedy were supposed to perform with Slash on August 28th for a special tribute to the Guns N’ Roses guitarist.
And our favorite Saint Motel was playing at 1:15 pm on Saturday, the only act the Sunset Junction Fair and the Sunset Strip music fest had in common!