While at Lollapalooza I heard some rumors of an upcoming festival that was gonna go down in Downtown Los Angeles. The details weren’t set but the list of bands definitely had me interested. A few weeks later the word was out that LA Weekly and Goldenvoice were throwing Detour Festival and the lineup for the one-day event was quite impressive. Headliners Beck and Queens of the Stone Age would bring out the crowd then Basement Jaxx, Peeping Tom, !!!, and the rest would keep the kids dancing all day. I think it worked rather well, especially for their first attempt.
We didn’t have a set spot for Bessie when we showed up so I drove around the perimeter to see where she might fit. There were two main stages and initially we thought we were going to be in, or near, the catering area behind the stage Beck and the Jaxx were playing on. After a couple hours hanging out, waiting, slinging cream, and drinking more coffee, the news broke that my parking spot wasn’t gonna happen. The area behind the West stage was many times larger and finding a place over there wasn’t tough at all. I wasn’t too bummed because Peeping Tom was rockin’ that stage and all the incarnations of Mike Patton Projects I’ve seen (PT, Bungle, Fantomas) have been mind altering and quite impressive.
I was down to chill in Bessie most of the time but the going was super slow. A couple days prior our buddy Jeff wrote an Ice Cream Man article for the LA Times and since this was the first event after the press I wanted to make sure I had plenty of cream on board. While sitting on the step I was asked if I’d mind moving forward a bit for Danny Devito’s car when he showed up. HA! Like there could possibly be more than one answer to that question. There are a small handful of people I admire for how they’ve chosen to live their lives after achieving fame and/or wealth. Danny Devito is one of them. Partly because he said the best thing he saw at Coachella in 2005 was Fantomas and the other main reason is because crew member Jay got to meet him at Coachella and he said Danny was particularly friendly and encouraged him to keep up his photography. I was hanging by the truck as he walked past and we had a cordial wave but ice cream wasn’t entering his world on this particular day.
I slipped out for the Peeping Tom show, which Mr. Devito introduced, and danced by the side of the stage for a while before returning to the truck to load up Chris and Maya with some more treats to pass out.
The only other band I felt I had to see was !!! (pronounced chk chk chk). A while back I read a quote somewhere from the guys that put on Bonnaroo. Their main criteria for booking bands was, “Bands that are good live.” Sounds pretty simple but I’ve seen quite a few great bands that just don’t pull it off live. !!! is the ultimate dance party. If they can’t get people movin’ then no one can. I shuffled up as they were playing and slowly made my way toward the stage. It wasn’t long before I was shakin’ it and emulating the dance moves of lead vocalists/dancer Nic Offer. I went around the side toward the front and rocked out with Ikey for a bit before I had to get back to the truck to work on our masterplan.
The masterplan was quite sophisticated. It went something like this. Since we only gave away a few hundred free treats all day, we would leave the fest before Queens of the Stone Age finished and find a parking spot near the main entrance to sling some cream.. It worked perfectly and we found a spot for Bessie on a side street that had was blocked off. Mochi Ice Cream was kind enough to sponsor us for this outing and Vanessa, Jeremiah, and I starting sling it like crazy. We probably set a new record for number of treats dished in less than an hour. It’s so much fun to give away free ice cream and it’s especially fun to introduce people to new treats, like Mochi.
I was a bit nervous when we first pulled up but no one seemed to bother us the whole time we were there. Once everyone had come and gone, we made the rounds to clean up any ICM trash within the general vicinity then fired up Bessie. Jeremiah and Vanessa were heading to another party so I dropped them off and hopped on the 110 to get back to Long Beach. Sometimes writing reviews can be a good time because they remind you how much fun you had. Looking forward to another Detour next year, maybe I’ll actually take them up on their DJ offer….ha ha ha, I’m not sure anybody really wants that to happen.
Redd Kross
What can be said about a band that has been playing together for over 20 years? Redd Kross are consummate professionals who have managed to stay together, in some fashion, when so many of their other colleagues have fallen by the wayside. One can see that only years of performing together live can create what Red Kross has on stage. Their songs are still catchy and sound current even after all these years, which is largely because of their old-school pop influences and pop-punk sound, which they had even before the term was officially coined. Complete with leg kicks and spinning guitar tricks, Red Kross were still as entertaining as ever on stage at Detour.
Blonde Redhead
While I have always liked their name, I have never quite gotten Blonde Redhead. I love Sonic Youth, but Blonde Redhead, who is much like a modern day version of Sonic Youth, never captured my attention like Sonic Youth did. Seeing them live didnt change my opinion either. While their music is pleasing to hear, their stage show is rather boring. I like a performance and not just a sonic recreation of the album on stage. Granted, sounding great live is a difficult feat in and of itself, but doing that and being dynamic on stage takes even more, which Blonde Redhead couldnt deliver.
