By snoadmin
Over the last 23 years, San Diego’s Street Scene music festival has grown from a five-band, five-hour, five-dollar event to a two-day, 50-plus-band, pretty expensive event. Last year’s festival was held in the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot for the second consecutive year and featured the biggest names in music like Tool, Kayne West, AFI, Snoop Dogg, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Queens of the Stone Age and more. Festival goers ran from stage to stage watching the hottest bands around and thought to themselves it couldn’t get any better.
They thought right.
The 24th annual Street Scene hit San Diego last weekend bearing little to no resemblance to the festival from just the year before. With relocation to Coors Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, a lineup that failed to impress and an obviously smaller crowd, it was evident that this was a rebuilding year for the festival.
Yet when I was walking through Coors Amphitheatre on Saturday, the atmosphere felt quite festive. People were there to have a good time, and the artists wanted to give it to them.
I started my day by watching Huntington Beach singer and songwriter Matt Costa. He was headlining the Coronado Stage, which was one of the smallest of the six stages and was placed in the lawn section of the amphitheatre.
Fans sprawled out in the grass and watched Costa and his talented band blaze through a 45-minute set of old and new songs.
Costa got his start when his homemade demo made its way into the hands of No Doubt guitarist Tom Dumont. Dumont was impressed and offered to record Costa in his home studio. Since then, Costa has become a favorite opener for Jack Johnson, Pinback and Built To Spill. It wasn’t hard to see why.
Costa wowed the crowd on the guitar, keyboards and harmonica while playing favorites like “Cold December,” “Behind The Moon” and “Astair.” Rapper MIMS was playing one of the other stages in the distance and “This Is Why I’m Hot” echoed through the amphitheatre, but Costa made light of it and belted out a new song, “Cigarette Eyes,” over it.
The Academy Is… was one of the first bands over on the main stage. This year, the festival’s main stage was the actual amphitheatre stage, which was both good and bad. It was good because there were seats for people to sit in and it could handle a large crowd, but it was also bad because it was general admission, so people couldn’t just hop from stage to stage and watch different bands like the previous year because everybody wanted to stay in their seats to keep their good spots
The Academy Is… kicked off its half hour set with “Attention,” the first track off the band’s 2005 debut album “Almost Here.” That was followed by the KROQ single “Slow Down” before the band played “LAX to O’Hare” from its new album “Santi.”
The band is one of the many upcoming prodigies of Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz. It is signed to his Decaydance label, and has toured with Fall Out Boy and other popular Decaydance acts like Gym Class Heroes and Panic! At The Disco. The guys play catchy pop-punk songs and have an energetic live show that is fronted by the electric William Beckett.
The band finished with “Slow Down” and thanked fans for coming out before leaving the stage.
Up next on the main stage was Augustana. This San Diego-based power-pop band is known for its hit single “Boston,” but most of the hometown crowd seemed to wander away when the band the stage. It was a little mellow for my taste, too, so I went and found a pretzel.
Jack’s Mannequin took over the stage next. Front man Andrew McMahon is best known as the lead singer for popular pop-punk band Something Corporate, which is currently on hiatus.
Kicking off with the single “Dark Blue,” McMahon played his trademark piano rock in energetic fashion. Popping on and off of his piano stool, he engaged the audience and pointed out fans that were singing along. He finished up with “MFEO Pt. 1” and left the crowd chanting for more.
Sin City’s Panic! At The Disco brought its exclusive brand of dance pop next. Leaving all their dancers, makeup and theatrics at home, the guys played a powerful set, using virtually every song in their arsenal to fill their hour-long set.
Kicking off with “Time To Dance,” Panic! played every track off of its debut album, “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” and a cover of The Band’s “The Weight.” The band also played two new songs, which was surprising considering it supposedly recently scrapped its whole sophomore album.
The crowd reacted really well to Panic! Almost everybody was up out of their chairs dancing and singing along. And when front man Brendon Urie said “bitchin” – which was the pre-established code word for the crowd to scream – the crowd went crazy.
Everybody knew who was coming up next, and even the guys in Panic! admitted they were excited to see the British guitars heroes in Muse. Panic! made sure to finish its set on time to give Muse as much time as possible.
Being the headliners, Muse got to bring its whole stage setup to the festival. Three huge television screens hung from the stage and were covered with lights. When the band took the stage and started playing “Knights of Cydonia,” the screens flashed lyrics and designs and the lights went crazy.
I’ve often lost interest when the six-minute rock anthem comes on the radio, but I couldn’t take my eyes away when the band played it live. The band members’ mastery of their instruments was fascinating and proved why they consistently win “Best Live Act” awards.
“Starlight,” “Map of the Problematique,” “Supermassive Black Hole” and the cover of “Feeling Good” were probably some of the most intense songs I’ve seen performed live. There wasn’t a song in the band’s 75-minute set that wasn’t played well. The crowd was the loudest I had heard all day, and people screamed for more when the band was finished.
Even though it was a rebuilding year, the headliners of the first day of Street Scene still made it worth it. I was bummed to have missed Slighty Stoopid, Pepper, G. Love & Special Sauce and T-Pain, who also played throughout the day but at the same time as other bands I wanted to see.
When figures come in next month, Live Nation will decide whether or not to keep holding Street Scene or to kill the festival. Those who did attend the festival this year really seemed to enjoy it, and I think everybody hopes it will happen again next year.
