Detour: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Festival Fighting

Yesterday was LA's much anticipated "Detour Festival". Again I hate the use of the word "festival", but I'll allow it here as there was a Ferris wheel on the premises. I learned from Coachella and ACL that getting to all the desired artists would be impossible so we had to have a plan of attack.

• 4:50-5:30City Hall East: The Noisettes (from the Beer Garden) - They sounded really good. I think the short set did them justice. I have their CD and its a bit much after awhile but they did well in a short set environment.
  

• 5:30-6:20 City Hall South: The Shout Out Louds - I was most excited for this band as I love their debut album "Howl Howl Gaff Gaff".

As it turns out the blond keyboardist, Bebban Stenborg, sang the female vocal at Coachella 2007 for Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks". She's dreamy. I said so in my Coachella blog when she was a mystery to me. The lead singer was a bit of a douche but he did do a cool ass medley from their track "Please Please Please" into The Clash's "Train in Vain" and then back to "Please Please Please". Very cool.

• 6:20-7:00 City Hall East: Kinky (from the Beer Garden) - They're my Manu Chao of the day. Eerily similar to my Coachella experience. Both were Mexican, both were new to me, and both kicked ass. I'll buy their album from www.secondspin.com soon.
  

• 7:30-8:15 City Hall West: The Raveonettes - Good, not great. I think they're more of a studio sound. So far its been the United Nations of lineups. Sweden, Mexico, and Denmark.

Where's The Boss when you need him!

• 8:30-9:00pm Beer Garden - They're all out of Bud Light. I had to order a Kirin. It's official, America is getting dominated by their international brethren. Interesting enough the fries were listed as "freedom fries" at the food court.

• 9:10-10:00pm City Hall South: Justice - French! Who knew our tastes were so worldly. This set raised the roof, tore the roof off and did whatever else a band can do to a roof. I use the term "band"* loosely as it was two french dudes dj'ing. Picture Daft Punk w/o the futuristic helmets. Better yet maybe envision a french version of the Chemical Brothers. The crowd had a huge boner for them. I had to say they were pretty awesome but I can't get down with the kookiness of remixing Gillette's "Short Dick Man". It's an awful awful song, regardless if you try to make it cool again by being recasting it w/ french hipsters.
  

Funny side note: my roommate in college used to rock out to this song along with countless bad hits such as**: Ina Kamoze's "Here Comes The Hotstepper" & Shaggy's "Boombastic". He did however introduce me to Doug E Fresh & Slick Rick's "The Show" and Audio Two's "Top Billin" so it wasn't all bad. I do wonder what songs are currently on his iphone. I'm sure I don't want to know.

• 10:00-11:30pm City Hall east: Bloc Party - Awesome. Again. I suppose I should have gone to see Turbonegro as I just saw Bloc Party but that wasn't in the cards. I just can't pass up the Bloc. Also no one i was with had seen them before so it was a no-brainer.
  

For all you scoring at home that's a shut out for America. 8-0 if we add the kirin beer and what you're about to read. A Del blog, or a Del day for that matter, would not be complete with out some sort of ridiculous story or awkward incident . Lucky for you this day was no exception.

While chilling in the beer garden during Kinky there was a bit of an "incident". Some rather large dude was taking up a great deal of space at the picnic table we were sharing. No big deal as 1/2 of us were on our feet rockin out to some mexican funk and some cheap beer. My friend Lucy showed up to the scene late and made a b line straight for the lion's den. Bad move. Apparently this guy's name was on the table because he grabbed her by the arm and said "Someone is sitting there!". She of course responded how any person would by saying"Get your hands off of me!". There was a bit more of a dialogue that was peppered with the word bitch and then I came on to the scene. I turned around oblivious to what occurred and reacted in typical Del fashion. I said "WHOA WHOA WHOA, what's going on here?" The rest of the dialogue went like this

Del: Hey, let her arm go. No one needs to sit there...
Cholo Steroids: Do you want to fight? Let's go right now? (takes off his jacket)
Del (amused, confused, and nervous all at once): UH, are you serious?
Cholo Steroids: As serious as a heart attack!
Del: (trying not to laugh at the lame ass comeback. Laughter would have been a game on signal for this maniac) We're all good over here at this table. Lets go Luce
Cholo Steroids: That's right bitch.
( I pretended he was talking about Lucy with that last "bitch" remark, but down deep I knew that wasn't the case.)

Fact: this guy would have eaten me alive and my three man "posse" was in varying degrees of drunk indifference. There were far too many cute hipster girls present for them to be on high alert. I couldn't blame them. I would have been on my own. He mean mugged for the rest of our time in the beer garden. I was certain his bark was worse than his bite..but I also didn't want to find out. No outcome would have been good. Kicked out of the show, arrested, bloodied and bruised. All terrible options. Good times.

My only regret, besides not sucker punching the cholo (and then running for my life***): Missing Teddybears. If their set was anywhere as awesome as this one track than I'll be quite annoyed with myself. Damn my lack of Teddybear knowledge and my addiction to beer gardens. They wear friggin giant TeddyBear heads while on stage too! Damn it why didn't anyone bring this band to my attention sooner.


ED NOTES:

*Band: Justice is as much as a band in my mind as my band "Handsy" is a band. I'm the drummer btw. We don't have our first gig till January 08 (at the West side #1 live band venue: The Loop"). Strictly a cover band. More news to follow.

**Such as: It's impossible to use these two words together now thanks to Ms Teen South Carolina.


***Running for my life: We were penned in. It was a drunk Internment camp. I wasn't going to get very far.