AhhSan Diego Street Scene, the festival that took a charming event nestled in the Gas Lamp District and moved it to a lackluster stadium parking lot. I suppose the street is “technically” still there in asphalt form. This year, the Street Scene folks crafted another blunder and pitted their festival up against the mega-festival that was Lollapalooza. The Street Scene line-up was decent, but when comparing to Lolla’s, it sent you searching for last-minute airfare deals to Chicago.
But for me, Street Scene it was, and deliver good music it did. Friday was a bit mediocre, but that’s admittedly because I don’t get into the radio rock scene that populated the majority of the day. However, there were some great standouts including Queens of the Stone Age, who tore through a killer set while trash talking the wannabe-punks in the front, as well as The Wu Tang Clan, who reunited to honor their fallen comrade, ODB (ed. aka Big Baby Jesus). Its always a treat when the Wu Tang Clan assemble as a whole, and as expected, chaos ensued.
Having a music festival over Friday and Saturday creates a strange environment. Being one of the more drunken venues of the summer, I found myself weaving a path between the stumbling frat boys and jarheads mixed with freshly legal surf-styled chicks learning the intricacies of moderation the hard way. The combination of hot asphalt and puddles of vomit made finding a seat to rest upon nearly impossible.
All observant griping aside, I still had a great time. Saturday was a blast with a heap of great bands clogged together, setting many swarming masses from stage to stage in synchronized pandemonium. Newbies Tapes n Tapes sounded absolutely amazing and The Subways destructo-finale was pure rock-n-roll bliss.
Saturday also brought a few of my favs around with The Shins making a welcomed appearance. They teased a few new tracks off their recently postponed til January album, “Wincing the Night Away,” which they seem to have been recording forever. Coachella vets Bloc Party and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs played expectedly stellar sets and Tool and Snoop Dog evenly split the crowd as they closed out the festival. I left Street Scene feeling pretty damn wiped out after 2 days of baking on the “street,” but pleased that I had subjected myself to it.
