A recap of the Life Is Beautiful Festival and more music insights and recommendations from LA Music Scene.
The Life Is Beautiful Festival in Las Vegas kicked off on Friday, September 16, 2022 with a lot of expectations. Given the fact that the Arctic Monkeys were headlining on the main stage after being absent from the music scene since 2018. The LA Music Scene went to both nights of their Hollywood Bowl appearances and met Vicky Hamilton there. Alas, their performance fell short of our musical expectations.
Gal pal Hamilton and LA Music Scene drove for over eight hours, due to traffic issues, on Thursday to see the Arctic Monkeys’ first U.S. appearance in four years. Expectations were high when we finally arrived at the Golden Nugget Hotel as to how Alex Turner and the guys would regale us with Turner’s vocal charms and the sound that these guys have become known for.
Sadly, the wafting clouds of marijuana were so thick that Hamilton and the LA Music Scene were choking on it and had to leave our spot by the sound booth to out near the street. The whole time we kept wondering what was going on with the Arctic Monkeys.
The Arctic Monkeys played our favorites such as “Do I Wanna Know” and “Don’t Sit Down Cause I Moved Your Chair” as well as “505,” “Arabella” and a new song “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am” from their new album “The Car.” Something was missing from this Sheffield quartet’s performance…it fell flat.
Turner was dressed like he went shopping at a thrift store, guitars broke strings and the whole thing fell flat. Where were those exquisite suits that Turner has or his leather gear that he looks so hot in? ”Teddy Picker” just wasn’t the same. There wasn’t even the “Mirror Ball” which is from their new “The Car” album. ”There Better Be A Mirrorball.” It’s on their concert t-shirt and it’s been featured on their tour.
LA Music Scene found out that their performance in Los Angeles at the Primavera Sound LA show wasn’t that great either. Turner forgot lyrics and allowed the audience to fill in the blanks.
None of this was lost on their audience which pushed their way out of the clouds of marijuana smoke to find something better at Life Is Beautiful. Color us disappointed and wondering what is going on with Turner. Is he lacking inspiration? Is he missing Lana Del Rey? Is he plagued with woman problems?
The best act on the main stage that day was a rockin’ rakish band called Cage The Elephant that took us on a voyage of their most excellent tunes and delivered the goods as no one else did. Funny with his gestures and hat changes, lead singer Matt Schulktz moves like Axel Rose with his swaying. The 38-year-old Schultz even has red hair like Rose.
Schultz’s voice resonated with us in a way that hits our rock bone and vibrates into our soul. Such was the case with this Grammy Award-winning act with “Broken Boy” and “Ready To Let Go” which are still stuck in our head.
Schultz’s ability to craft a song and construct the right amount of layering and backbeats is impressive. LA Music Scene kept praying that a gust of wind wouldn’t come up because if it had, he would have been blown off of the stage because he was rail thin. We’ve not been into the “Heroin” look for decades and hope that he isn’t on that garbage. For us, Cage The Elephant owned that stage Friday night.
The LA Music Scene has a YouTube channel that has shorts of the Arctic Monkeys and Cage The Elephant whose numbers are running pretty close. Please click the link provided to pick your favorite.
On our way over to the main stage, we passed by the “Up & Coming” stage that featured bands that had entered a “Battle of The Bands” by submitting their music earlier in the year and the winners got to play on the stage.
Enjoying the Life Is Beautiful festival was a good friend of Hamilton’s and quite a fascinating figure in Hollywood who has done her share of booking the top clubs in Hollywood… Ava Berman. She was the owner of the Velvet Margarita on Cahuenga Blvd in Hollywood, but relocated her business interests to Las Vegas where she owns two nightclubs: Back Stage and the Fremont Country Club which features live music.
Berman, Hamilton and the LA Music Scene enjoyed listening to the live music all around us and found a spot where we could listen, eat and enjoy conversation. Because the three of us have all paid our dues booking acts around Los Angeles, the conversation went to live music and how many we’ve booked combined. Berman estimated that between the three of us we must have seen/heard over a million acts. LA Music Scene was blown away by how fast Berman did the math in her head and came up with a figure of close to 400,000 acts for just her.
Berman’s nightclubs are on the walkway of the Fremont Experience and if you were coming out of the Golden Nugget Hotel they both would be on the right side of the walkway and down a few blocks.
In addition to meeting Berman with Hamilton, Mitch Schneider joined the party and talked shop with us. He has a PR firm with Marcee Rondan which has handled some of the top acts in the music business such as Tom Petty, David Bowie and The Jefferson Airplane.
LA Music Scene recommends giving The Pretty Reckless and STARCRAWLER a listen and be amazed by the female power singers that front these two acts. Pretty Reckless played a free gig in Las Vegas in September at the free concert on the Fremont Experience as well as The Wiltern Theater. STARCRAWLER has done a recent acoustic gig at Amoeba Music in Hollywood and has gotten ink from rock photographer and writer Alyson Camus at rocknyc.live on September 8, 2017, which is how the LA Music Scene stumbled onto them and now it seems that those who know music are into them. For this reporter, Berman put it into mathematical terms. So when you’ve seen nearly a half million acts while enjoying the scene in Hollywood for as long as LA Music Scene it takes a lot to catch our attention and STARCRAWLER did just that.
The willowy 6’3” lead singer Arrow de Wilde puts it out there ever so gracefully and gives off an aura of a chanteuse. Dressed in our least favorite color…pink, STARCRAWLER added depth to their creative efforts by adding a steel slide guitar that reminded us of Gram Parsons. Their onsom was leaning toward a boho chic cowboy look that worked. Guitar man Henri Cash gave the LA Music Scene a guitar pick for being the first one there at the gig and hanging in there until it started. Cash touched our heart with the guitar pick and we asked if we could give him a hug. Nice, unpretentious guy.
STARCRAWLER’s album “She Said” is out and you can enjoy it anyway you want. “Road Kill,” “Stranded” and “She Said” were our favorites in this short acoustic set. This local band is set to play the DMZ Peace Train Festival 2022 in South Korea on October 1, 2022.
For you locals that cannot do South Korea, STARCRAWLER has a gig scheduled for October 19, 2022 at 7:00pm at SoHo Restaurant & Music Club in Santa Barbara, CA. We’ve been there to see many acts, including Dave Davies from The Kinks.
Love “tribe” member Terry Moreland Henderson reminded the LA Music Scene that GTO coquette Miss Mercy appeared on the cover of STARCRAWLER’s album “She Gets Around” as well as their video for “She Gets Around.” Miss Mercy appears as a woman looking into a mirror and the mirror has “She Gets Around” written in red lipstick on it.
In closing, the LA Music Scene would like to give Dave Navarro from Jane’s Addiction our full-on support for his having to cancel another tour because of his Covid Long Haul which has been plaguing him since December 2021. The LA Music Scene is also suffering from the same thing and it is rough going. Fatigue and brain fog are very real symptoms and make having a normal life impossible. You do what you can do and then rest. Stay safe, Dave, and rest.