A Look at Detour Festival 2007

Great photos Eric. How much do you want for a print of the Perry Farrell one? I may want to give it as a holiday gift to some friends from college.

Great photo essay, Eric and Ed! I’m just curious on your opinions on what was good and bad about the festival, and what acts you liked. I had a blast (although it started slow in daytime, as night came, the energy went up).

You want to know the best part about Detour LA - hardly noticed any traffic impacts.

This year’s Detour Festival made for a fun afternoon and evening hanging out with friends. The layout was different and far more spread out this year, completely encircling City Hall and stretching as far north as Temple Street, making the Triforium available to be a brilliant background for the groups performing on the City Hall East stage. By moving the main entrance gate north of Second Street, the festival avoided many of the traffic and building access hassles for folks living in the Higgins Building that occurred last year. The only drawback was that St. Vibiana’s was outside the festival grounds and went unutilized.(Last year they had DJs set up their turntables on the high altar and couples were making out in the old confessionals. Sacreligious and inspiring at the same time.) The maintenance and clean up crews supplied by Chrysalis did a great job although I heard a number of people complain that the portable toilets were “not as clean as at Coachella”. As for the bands, its all subjective. Personally, Detour 2007 was going to have a hard time topping last year’s show that was highlighted by memorable sets from Queens of the Stone Age, Beck and Redd Kross. I did enjoy seeing the Noisettes, Kinky and Turbonegro. I had seen Bloc Party once before and I remain underwhelmed after catching the last half hour or so of their set. Walking home from the show, it was a buzz to see hundreds of people on the sidewalks, out for a night in the Historic Core, club kids queueing up to be allowed entrance into the Edison and taxis trolling for tolls on the streets. It was the kind of urban energy many of us hope will be regularly manifested in night time Los Angeles.

p.s. Festivals are great one day in the year experiences, but venues regularly presenting live entertainment are what make a night life district. Two thumbs up to Steve Needleman for his renewed efforts to make the Orpheum Theater a premier site for bands visiting Los Angeles. Since 2001, he has made halting attempts to present live music and there have been some remarkable shows like Bright Eyes playing a concert there a few years back. P.J. Harvey’s show sold out fast and on Sunday night the Black Crowes concert just plain rawked. Please keep up the efforts to revive the Orpheum as a live music venue as they are greatly appreciated.

We greatly enjoyed Justice, Moving Units, Shout Out Louds… and the crowd, which was a lot of fun.

That top shot with Perry Farrell and the Triforium is especially nice; I wish I could have gotten some better photos, but my camera was broken during the night’s headlong rush into unexpected fun.

I never got that shirt that jim so sweetly suggested, but I did walk through the L.A. Times area to get into Detour, then invited myself into what I learned was a private party inside City Hall, then wandered over to the wall over the vendors and what I am sure was Bloc Party (the singer of which was kind enough to warn us to “be careful on that balcony up there!) while I watched the Triforium do its best after all these years of darkness despite all the noise meant to stimulate its pulsating lines of light.