By Zack Gill
Staff Writer
Seventh annual music festival F Yeah Fest, held September 4 at Los Angeles State Historic Park, despite organizational failures across the board, provided hours of great music for only 30 dollars.
The festival featured sets from 37 bands across three outdoor stages. The day of music kicked off at noon and ended at eleven-thirty at night. An estimated twenty thousand people plus were in attendance to see headliners Panda Bear and The Rapture, among others.
F Yeah Fest provided dozens of great sets. Many Los Angeles buzz bands performed, such as self-proclaimed tropical punks Abe Vigoda and lo-fi pop group Best Coast. Abe Vigoda’s set provided audience members with challenging, yet undeniably catchy, dissonant punk music. “Best Coast” provided its increasing fanbase (even with an early set time, the crowd was among the largest of the day) with sunny pop, caked in reverb.
Hundreds of fans cleared out at the end of Best Coast’s set, missing the best set of the entire festival. Although the crowd for New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus wasn’t large, it was the sort that knew every single word to every song. The crowd was treated to several loud, punk epics from the band, everyone proving grander than the last.
Spain’s electronic-rock group Delorean greatly angered their audience after coming on thirty minutes late but more than made up for it by providing the festival’s most dance-friendly set. Combining electronic equipment with live instruments, Delorean defused the tension in the crowd and ended the festival on a high note.
As people staggered out at midnight after headliners Panda Bear and The Rapture (as well as Delorean, whose set was delayed 30 minutes), the crowd seemed quite satisfied.
Despite general enthusiasm for the event, the day was not without failures.
Los Angeles State Historic Park has the potential to be among the best outdoor venues in Los Angeles. It’s just the right size, with three stages placed strategically throughout the park. The walk between each was only five to ten minutes, and one could not hear music coming from other stages.
As nice as the park is, about a third of the park is not landscaped. While two stages are in the middle of enormous grass fields, the third is on a pile of dirt. During a show, with hundreds of people dancing, a dust cloud is formed, suffocating the audience and guaranteeing an unpleasant time.
Within the park, there is only a single drinking fountain to be found. Vendors located conveniently throughout the festival sold bottled water for the outrageous price of four dollars. Festival-goers were also promised a dozen food trucks. Only four were present.
Although lines to get into the festival were not nearly as bad as those at Coachella, the popular Indio music festival, this was only because F Yeah Fest is a one day festival with fifty thousand less people. The system of picking up tickets through will call was very inefficient, taking people nearly 90 minutes to pick up their tickets.
Despite its problems, F Yeah Fest proved to be an affordable, exciting day of music in Downtown Los Angeles. Nothing about F Yeah Fest 2011 is known, but it is safe to assume it will occur.
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