Sunset Strip Music Festival

Sunset Strip Music Festival
Review By ~ Aniruddh (Andrew) Bansal
Place: Sunset Strip, West Hollywood CA

This was a huge event. The biggest I've been to, that's for sure. I tried my best to see as many bands as I could over the two nights that I attended.

Friday 09/11/09: Shows were going on in as many as six different clubs on the strip. But I was only interested in the bands playing at the Whisky-A-Go-Go and Cat Clubs so I was going back and forth between the two. Here are the bands I saw.

Whisky-A-Go-Go:
1. The Faded Spades: They brought a lot of energy and were a great warm up for the night. They played some of their own songs and a medley of covers including Back In Black, Paranoid and a few others. They were quite entertaining. The singer was running around in the crowd while singing and encouraging everyone to participate in singing the words.
2. Hypnogaja: Some of their songs were too soft for my taste, while some others were cool. One of the songs was a dig at TV celebrities titled 'Look at me, I'm a TV star'.
3. Wild Child: I always love watching this band play at the Whisky, which I feel is a perfect setting for performing Doors songs. They played a set of about 18 songs and it included almost all of the Doors classics and popular tunes. I was enjoying every moment of it, and so was the crowd who were really high in their spirits.

Cat Club:
1. Wreched Child: They were the opening band for the night. They played half an hour of rock tunes and they were ok at best.
2. Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls: Very interesting band. Their songs were a combination of Folk, Americana and Alternative music. They even played a cover of Crazy Train in their own style. This band were a good diversion from some of the other bands and I would give them props for that.
3. Mr. Crowley: What better than an Ozzy tribute to close out the night before Ozzy's performance! I had seen this band once before too and they are really good. They did all the popular Ozzy songs along with War Pigs. The guitarist's impressions of Zakk Wylde were pretty awesome.

Saturday 09/12/09: It was a great atmosphere on the sunset strip. The street was closed for a few blocks just for this festival. Food and drink stalls were in plenty all along the enclosed street. In general, people were having a great time. Bands were performing all day starting at 2 PM on the two outdoor stages as well as in the six club venues. Although a total of 40 bands played on this day, the west stage was the main attraction and I was there almost for the whole time. These are the bands that I saw.

1. The Donnas: This was an awesome choice of band to open things up on the west stage. This group of female rockers was highly energetic and intense in their performance even at 3.30 in the afternoon. To a large extent they succeeded in getting the crowd ready and excited for the night ahead. They thanked the crowd for being so supportive even in the heat and sun, and closed out their show in about 30 minutes.

2. Pepper: Although I don't really listen to bands of this kind of genre, I didn't mind their set too much. It was a mix of reggae and rock and some of it was actually good. They didn't exactly "rock" the crowd with their performance, but they were very good for the time of day allotted for their set, a time when the sun is still out and the place isn't really packed with a lot of people yet.

3. Korn: I haven't been a Korn fan in recent times, but I did enjoy their show here. I have to say that they do put on a good live show and if you're in the crowd, you're sure to have a good time. They did two of everyone's favorite covers We Will Rock You and Another Brick In The Wall. Needless to say, I enjoyed these much more than Korn's own songs. But overall, it was a fun show, specially for the head-bangers in the crowd.

4. Ozzy: It started at 8 o clock. I made it to within three rows from the stage by that time. There he was. The Ozzman himself. An unbelievable sight for me, having never seen him perform before. I've been seeing a bunch of Ozzy and Sabbath tributes in recent weeks and I had honestly never thought I would get to see Ozzy himself, considering his age, health problems, fallout with Zakk Wylde and with Black Sabbath members and a bunch of other things. But there he was, still rocking the crowd at full speed! 'Are you ready to go fuckin crazy!!!' is what he said before kicking off the show.

The first song was 'I Don't Know' and as Ozzy said, it really was the time to go crazy! We all went mad with joy and excitement at hearing the song from the great man himself. Everyone in the crowd was going wild during this song. Ozzy got hold of a soap gun and he started showering us with massive jets of soap! I knew that he throws buckets of water on the crowd, but I didn't really expect this kind of a thing. I was shocked for a minute as my camera was engulfed entirely in soap, but then as everyone else was enjoying the soap showers, so did I!

The next song was 'Suicide Solution' and it was followed by the amazing 'Bark At The Moon'. The best part of the set was yet to follow, with War Pigs, Crazy Train, Paranoid and Iron Man! I think that list of songs speaks for itself and I can't add anything to it except by saying that it was Godly!!

He kept showering us with soap throughout the whole show and we were really drenched by the time the show got over. The song with one of the best guitar solos of all time, Mr. Crowley was played next. Then they closed out the night with two encore songs I Don't Want To Change The World and I Don't Wanna Stop.

Ozzy still has the energy on stage. He was jumping around all over the stage, shouting out to the crowd in almost every song and he was relentless with his soap gun and buckets of water! He looked like he wanted the crowd to enjoy the show, and not something he had just turned up to do for the sake of it. That's what I liked best about this show. He showed that he still wants to rock and do shows. The new guitarist Gus G was really good in his performance but I wouldn't rate his stage presence as the best, certainly not as good as Zakk Wylde. Its only the beginning for him and I do feel he'll get better at that as they do more shows. Plus its always hard to match the Ozz at his stage presence! Gus played the Randy Rhoads era, Sabbath songs as well as newer songs with effortless accuracy. I love and respect Zakk's work with Ozzy and BLS, but a lot of people criticize him for overusing the pinch harmonics in the solos. These people can be assured they wouldn't have the same complaints with Gus.

In my opinion, most of the criticism and cruel jokes directed towards Ozzy are highly unfair. People say that he is 'terrible' in live shows, but after seeing this show I have no idea on what basis that opinion was even formed. If you're a fan of the music, I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy seeing Ozzy perform, specially with Gus on guitar.

Here's the full set list:

1. I Don't Know
2. Suicide Solution
3. Bark At The Moon
4. War Pigs
5. Crazy Train
6. Paranoid
7. Iron Man
8. Mr. Crowley
9. I Don't Want To Change The World
10. I Don't Wanna Stop

Here is the interview that took place with Andrew and Ace Frehley

FMR: Your new album Anomaly is coming out in three days. Excited?
Ace: What do you think? (laughs) Yes I'm very excited, you know. It's been a long time coming and it's a very very anticipated record and I think I'm going to deliver the goods. I don't think anybody is going to be disappointed.

FMR: Can we look forward to a big tour to promote the album?
Ace: Yeah well we're kicking in some dates in mid-October and you know we're going over to Japan, Australia and then we're coming back and probably will do something in the States then Europe, or Europe and the States. You know, I'm just kind of coordinating that right now.

FMR: Which is your favorite song off of the new album, something we can really look forward to?
Ace: My favorite song is Genghis Khan and its .. you know, all of the songs are good, but that song is like my baby. It was over a 100 tracks in pro tools and I labored over that. It was like a lab our of love, you know. I changed it a lot, I nurtured it so you know, its like my baby. I don't think I've ever written a song quite like Genghis Khan.

FMR: Do you listen to other music, like new bands? Any bands you feel are promising enough?
Ace: I haven't had much time to listen to a lot of new music. I don't listen to the radio much, I don't watch TV. You know, I've pretty much been locked away in the studio for the past couple of years. I caught up once with some stuff by Wolfmother and it was kicking ass and that's about it!

FMR: You are such a legend and so many people look up to you. Who did you look up to while you were growing up, and even now?
Ace: I mean obviously the Beatles and the Stones, then you got Led Zeppelin, you got Jimi Hendrix, you got the Cream. The Who was a big influence on me. I mean you know, they were the first theatrical rock group I saw! Wrecking their equipment and blowing up smoke bombs and stuff, and I remember when I saw the Who, I said wow, mixing theatrics with music is really exciting. From that point on I always wanted to be in a theatrical rock group. Look where I ended up! (laughs)

FMR: What do you feel about playing a lot of KISS songs on the tour?
Ace: I always do KISS songs on tour. I wrote a lot of KISS songs, so its part of my legacy.

FMR: We're here at the Sunset Strip Music Festival. What do you have to say about the idea of honoring Ozzy Osbourne?
Ace: Well, Ozzy was a big influence on me. I should have included him in my list of influences. We actually opened for Ozzy back in the 70s and that was a big treat. I've been friends with Ozzy for a long time, he's just a great guy and incredible performer. I got a chance to .. we did a show together a couple of weeks ago at the House of Blues for ESPN and he was just wonderful! He's still got it. He was jumping all over the stage, his voice sounded great and it was a pleasure to see him healthy and taking care of business.