It’s that time of year again. With the start of May, I return to the South Bay I know and love for my favorite three-day weekend: Beachlife Festival. With another great line-up, I made sure to arrive early to get a jump on the fantastic day of music.
While the day began with one disappointment (the truck that gave our free ice cream was not in attendance this year), I counted that as a blessing for my waistline and went to the Grillo’s Pickles Speakeasy stage to hear some power pop from Phantom Planet. I had recently seen the band in February, but being able to catch them on a smaller stage with a more acoustic set still felt special. The band gave the growing crowd beloved bouncy numbers like the euphoric “Wake the Dead” and “Do the Panic”, as well as groovers like “Bali Song”, and old hits like “Lonely Day”. Despite a bit of feedback issues at the beginning, the band overcame these, and had the whole audience singing along to their evergreen hit “California” by the close of their set.
While I know Digable Planets more by reputation than their music, they immediately ingratiated themselves with me by opening with a snippet of a famous piece of Godzilla theme music before launching into their jazz-inflected hip hop. While I only caught the beginning of their set, the three-MC attack and melodic delivery fit nicely with the early afternoon beach vibes.
While enjoying a lunchtime poke bowl, I caught the set of Midway at the Riptide stage. The band’s sound was clearly indebted to The Smiths and other 80’s alternative artists, but they owned the sound. Dressed with style and throwing out roses to the crowd, there was an admirable theatricality to their set. Announcing that this was their first ever show during the day and outside, they proved they were more than an indoor nighttime band.
One of the artists I was most excited to see this year were British rockers The Struts. On record, their brash, hip-shaking rock n’ roll is a blast, and I had a hunch they would own a live stage. I was correct. Frontman Luke Spiller (who recently released a solo album) showed bravado without being obnoxious, while the band played truly struttable songs like “Body Talks” and “Fallin’ With You”. “Too Good at Raising Hell” and “Put Your Money On Me” were perfect festival songs, getting the audience dancing, clapping and jumping.
And the group even took a request for “Pretty Vicious”, which had a friend next to me in awe. Doing something a little differently, Spiller had the audience at one point raise their hands in the air and freeze, creating a tense moment of silence before starting the music up again and getting everyone jumping. The band closed out their set with their platinum hit “Could Have Been Me”, and a lot more fans than when they started.
I had seen O.A.R. once before in 2022, and so I already knew they would be great, but a refresher couldn’t hurt. They are one of the few acts that managed to crossover from the college jam band world into the mainstream pop/rock world, as they proved they were as good as writing hooky, three-minute tracks as improv-heavy, multipart epics. Both sides were brought to the stage that afternoon, with the band playing catchy rockers (“Love and Memories”), pop-leaning hits (“Shattered (Turn the Car Around)”, “California”), reggae covers (Bob Marley‘s “Stir it Up”), and the song that first introduced me to them over twenty years ago, “Crazy Game of Poker”. The band had some fun noodling around with this track, as fans threw playing cards into the air and the joyously sang along.
I made sure to catch part of genre-defying artist Aloe Blacc‘s set. How could I not, as he opened with his smash “I Need a Dollar” (sadly more relatable than ever). Following this, he paid homage to reggae music, with snippets of tracks like The Police‘s “Walking on the Moon” and Bob Marley‘s “No Woman, No Cry”, before playing his song “Hey Brother”. While I would have loved to see more, I couldn’t miss watching Descendents‘ frontman Milo Aukerman’s solo set back at the Speakeasy stage.
Armed with just a ukulele, Aukerman played a set of beloved Descendents songs like “Good Good Things” and “Bikeage”, along with other famed punk hits by X and The Germs. It was unusual seeing the normally intense frontman (I previously saw the full band play at Coachella years back) chilling with a ukulele, but he seemed to be having fun with his set, and the crowd was loving it. Watching of course was Pennywise frontman (and one of the festival founders) Jim Lindberg, who I interviewed last year. I said hello to him briefly and congratulated him on the fest. We didn’t talk long, as he was so excited to be watching Milo, he didn’t want to miss a song. Full respect for the music love.
I posted up early with my group for Train, and enjoyed Aloe Blacc‘s solo version of “Wake Me Up” on the monitors as we awaited the band. While it wasn’t considered cool to be a fan of Train‘s brand of extreme Momcore music back in the day, I could never deny enjoying most of their hits and knowing how successful the band has continued to be after all these years, I figured they would have to have a great live show to have endured over twenty years in the biz.
Yup, they did. First off, the band simply sound great. Frontman Pat Monahan’s voice is impeccable, and the rest of the band showed through the set that they weren’t too shabby at vocals either. The band played hit after hit, opening with “Calling All Angels” and the extremely catchy “Drive By”. The band reached back to the 90’s with their debut hit “Meet Virginia”, to more recent hits like 2017’s “Play That Song”. For “Bruises”, as Ashley Monroe was not available to participate, Monahan let the other members of the band take turns doing her vocal parts (they all killed it).
The band also threw a number of covers into their set, sometimes just snippets (a bit of Steve Miller Band‘s “The Joker”, or The Beatles‘ “Hey Jude”), and sometimes full songs like Led Zeppelin‘s “Going to California”, Teddy Swims‘ “Lose Control” (which the band said they learned recently, as it was a track they would have liked to have written themselves). For their cover of Dirty Heads‘ “Vacation”, Monahan brought out his 13 year old son to join him on vocals. Despite being at the most awkward age of life, his son showed off some confident vocals that harmonized well with his dad’s. His son left the stage, and for their song “Marry Me”, Monahan was accompanied just by acoustic guitar.
While the lyrics of “Hey Soul Sister” have been scrutinized by critics, no one in the audience seemed to care as every single one of them were singing along to the diamond smash. Monahan took a moment to share his excitement to watch Lenny Kravitz‘s set, but promised a bit more music from his band. His son came back out for Eagles‘ “Hotel California”, which also allowed the whole band to show off their skills. Monahan went behind the drums, while the drummer picked up an acoustic guitar. The two electric guitarists shredded on the solos, while Monahan’s son took over vocals and played tambourine. The band then closed with their beloved “Drops of Jupiter”, which despite being overplayed in the early 2000’s, remains a song I still enjoy hearing today.
For my Day 3 coverage of Beachlife 2024, I made some suggestions as to who I thought would be good for the bill this year. The only act from that list that actually ended up on the line-up this year was Lenny Kravitz. One point for me. With the release of his album Blue Electric Light last year, there was talk of a “Lennaissance” happening. People were reevaluating Lenny Kravitz as an artists, giving him more credit than he had received in the past couple decades, and so choosing him as a headliner this year seemed like a perfect chance for audiences to revisit the rocker’s legacy.
While I had intended to watch his full set, I got caught up in a conversation with two alumni from my high school (something that happens when you attend a music fest just south of where you grew up), but I was able to catch Kravitz going hard on tracks like newer single “TK421” and “Minister of Rock and Roll”. I wasn’t able to pay full attention until he went into some of his slower hits, playing “I Belong to You”, “Stillness of Heart” and “Believe”. All three tracks were undeniable melodic gems that show off Kravitz’s soulful side. Aside from “Paralyzed”, I wasn’t as familiar with the next few tracks he played, until he went all the way back to 1991 with “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over”, one of his earliest hits.
From here, Kravitz dug into the songs his fans knew best, starting with his cover of The Guess Who‘s “American Woman”, which has become more iconic than the original. Kravitz’s swagger on the song is enviable, and something most artists wish they could be pulling off at half of Lenny’s age. The moving “Again” still hits an emotional chord with me when I hear it, as I remember seeing the video for it all over VH1 back in the day. While Kravitz has proved he has this soft side, at heart he’s a rock n’ roller, and proved it with the ending one-two punch of his alt rock hit “Fly Away” and the blistering “Are You Gonna Go My Way”.
I made my way out of the venue as Kravitz played this, knowing I had a long Saturday to come and needed to conserve my strength for Day 2. Enjoy some Lenny Kravitz music until then.
The Indy Review 