Sunset Strip Music Festival 2009

report by Jason Tucker

The 2009 Sunset Strip Music Festival was quite a treat. There’s no other time where you can walk from club to club on the Sunset Strip and check our some amazing new talent for a good price. We started our SSMF visit checking out Talib Kweli at the Key Club on Friday night.  The line up was Diz Gibran. Tunji. Bleu Collar. Strong Arm Steady then the man of the hour Talib Kweli. Strong Arm Steady came on stage and dominated the crowd. Krondon had the crowd heads bob’n and throwing their fists in the air when commanded. There were a few more DJ sets and then Talib hit the stage. His set was great playing new and old stuff and the crowd loved it.

When we arrived The Donna’s were on the west stage (Doheny and Sunset) around 3:30. It looked like the schedule was being followed with very little deviation. While The Donnas were playing we walked around to get the lay of the land and get acclimated. At 4:30 Pepper hit the stage and the crowd went wild, their sound reminds me of a raunchy version of Sublime which was humorous and at most times over the top but were very entertaining to say the least.

After Pepper finished we checked out part of Shiny Toy Guns set at the east stage and I wasn’t really feeling it so we headed back to the VIP area above Bank of America overlooking the west stage to check out Korn. The VIP crowd were singing along and enjoyed the awesome view that we had. Towards the end of Korn’s set I went down to check out Shwayze, I’ve heard of them but I have never listened to their music. Their set was entertaining and they drew quite a crowd, the same size crowd carried over to when LMAFO came on stage. I don’t fit LMFAO’s demographic but their repetitive lyrics kept the ADD crowd entertained as I headed back over to Bank of America’s second story parking structure to see Ozzy Osbourne.

It ended up that the VIP area was at capacity so I worked my way into the crowd which was packed to the gills with new and old Ozzy fans. The Prince of Darkness himself jumping up and down and a twelve year old came on stage and soaked the crowd with massive fire extinguisher. He has a grin from ear to ear as he did so again jumping up and down with excitement. Ozzy opened with “I Don’t Know” which sounded pretty awesome. He played quite a few Black Sabbath classics and some newer stuff too “Suicide solution”, “War Pigs”, “Bark at the Moon”, “Crazy Train”, “Paranoid”, “I Don’t Wanna Stop”, “Iron Man”, “Mr. Crowley” and “I Don’t Want to Change the World”.

About Jason Tucker

Jason Tucker is a Contributing Editor for Beatweek Magazine and Webmaster for Beatweek.com. He's also a Systems Administrator, Disney Fanatic, WordPress hacker and father of three.