BeachLife Plants Stake In Redondo Beach With Local Flavor, Added Festival Comforts

Jessie Lee Cederelom – Chevy Metal
Taylor Hawkins’ dirt-rock super group does an all Van Halen set at BeachLife May 4.

The inaugural BeachLife Music Festival got a fitting close to its second night with Brian Wilson, whose Beach Boys formed along the Santa Monica Bay and whose timeless hit “Surfin’ USA” shouts out the festival site’s Redondo Beach specifically, a highlight for the throng of people gathered for a comfortable boutique festival experience right on the Los Angeles beach.

“For me it’s like goosebumps,” said APA’s Andy Somers, who along with Bruce Solar represents Wilson. “It’s Brian on the beach, where the band was formed. It’s a great opportunity for Brian to kick off the new year. He loves to tour, he’s been busy, and the band is outstanding with Al [Jardine] and Blondie [Chapin].” 

Wilson’s set, chock full of hits like “California Girls,” “Run Run Get Around,” “Good Vibrations” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” was just one of a lineup filled with them, such as Everclear’s Saturday afternoon set. Although early by most standards kicking off a little after 1 p.m., about 5,000 people jammed to the festival’s main stage to hear ‘90s staples like “Father Of Mine” and “Santa Monica,” which frontman Art Alexakis joked, “is the real reason we’re here right?”

courtesy BeachLife – Brian Wilson
BeachLife

Adding to the hits was Chevy Metal, a supergroup of sorts fronted by Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, a self-described “70s dirt rock cover band,” complete with foul-mouthed proclamations from the Laguna Beach native, donning a trucker hat and tank top. After kicking off a few note-by-note faithful renditions of Van Halen hits, Hawkins explained they would continue doing just that. Although the organizers asked for the band’s 1984 in entirety, they compromised with a greatest-hits, David Lee Roth-era only VH.

“That’s actually a true story he told onstage,” said Madison Entertainment’s Adam Spriggs, who handled talent buying for the festival. “We said let’s make it Chevy, but ‘Chevy does Van Halen,’ let’s do something a little different. They said we’re not going to tell you what we’re going to play, you have to be surprised. And It was great.” Guitarist Mick Murphy nailed every note, from the staccato intro to “Mean Street,” the multiple crescendo-ing solos of “Hot For Teacher” as well as the full “Eruption,” while the band played deeper-cut favorites such as “I’m The One” and “Drop Dead Legs.” 

Other highlight performances from the weekend included Jason Mraz, who brought a super-fan on stage who came all the way from Sweden for the show. Keeping the Santa Monica beach theme was also-’90s hitmakers Sugar Ray, and Blues Traveler, who did a not-so-subtle beach shout-out with an extended jam version of Sublime’s hit “Love Is (What I Got)” along with hits like “Run Around” and “Hook.” 

The ’80s were represented as well, with the not-completely-acoustic Violent Femmes bringing the crowd pleasers such as “Blister In The Sun,” “American Music,” “Old Mother Reagan,” and the always moving “Add It Up.” Colin Hay of Men At Work packed em in at the “Low Tide” second stage, with a full band for everything from Men At Work’s classics “Who Can It Be Now?” and “Land Down Under” as well as a cover of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.”

The weekend also gave some opportunity for jam sessions, with the jam legend Bob Weir doing some tunes with Slightly Stoopid on Friday night, and Blues Traveler frontman John Popper joining the red-headed stranger himself, Willie Nelson, for a few soaring harmonica solos. 

Meanwhile, a lively and jovial Nelson closed out Sunday night as the sun set with a fast-paced gauntlet of tunes, including “On The Road Again,” ‘Georgia On My Mind,” and, dedicated to Merle Haggard, “It’s All Going To Pot.”

A first-year festival is always a challenge, and adding to that in this case is a public beach, which means traffic, sand and early curfew. Neither seemed to be much of a problem, with the city embracing the event early on and with a 10-year permit already in place after years of discussion to make the dream a reality.  

“The city has been incredible, the new mayor is awesome,” Spriggs said. “They’ve seen what Long Beach and Huntington Beach are doing, and think we can do something on a whole other level.”

Courtesy BeachLife – Willie Nelson

Pennywise’s Jim Lindberg served as creative director for the festival, which he described as “basically giving the thumbs up.” One thing everyone noticed was the blanket of impressive turf covering the main stage crowd space, as well as parking being a relative breeze.

“The first words outta my mouth when Allen Sanford, one of the founders, said, ‘We’re thinking about doing this festival, we’ve got Willie and Weir and Brian Wilson penciled in,’ I said, ‘What are you going to do about parking?’ Somehow they solved it, I don’t know how they did it.” Part of that was providing literal thousands of bike and skateboard valet.

Sanford, who owns live music venue Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach, partnered with Rob Lissner for the event.

Spriggs, who lives mere blocks from the festival site, said, “As a local, had I not watched this get built up over the last two weeks, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Going forward, Spriggs said the focus is to continue building and staying true to the established mission.

“We don’t want to be a 30,000-40,000-cap festival, we want to be at 10,000, and cater to our community because we know what our community wants,” said Spriggs, who was also running meet and greets, helping marketing, doing settlements and making time to enjoy the show with family.