Rock is dead……at least rock in the classic sense. This is not to say that it’s no longer entertaining, or occasionally creative, but it’s in a finite stasis; as Sufjan Stevens accurately describes it, it’s “a museum piece at this point.”

After all these years, it’s funny that those unfamiliar to LA still associate the Strip with the city’s music scene over Silverlake, downtown or even North Hollywood. The days of Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen rocking out the Whiskey are gone, and 20 years later, in place of those bands….are often bands that sound like Guns & Roses or Van Halen. It’s no coincidence that the Key Club’s Monday Night Metal Skool, featuring hair-rock tribute band Steel Panther, has the biggest draw the Strip sees all week; the scene’s past shines brighter than its present could ever fathom. This explains the crowd in attendance as soon as I hit the festival entrance: aging, die-(really)hard punks who’d probably thrown eggs at Darby Crash decades ago, mixed with middle-aged ex-Poison roadies, mixed with current teenage outcasts who’d grown up with stories of rock’s golden age the way some kids grew up with ghost stories.

Kottonmouth Kings, hot off playing The Gathering of the Juggalos(!), were the first act I walked by, and seemed to have robbed every Hot Topic within a ten mile radius of their pot leaf handkerchiefs, 420 t-shirts and scary, Slipknot-esque masks. I can’t say I slowed down, so forgive me for missing the specifics of what they were rock-rapping about, but it may have had something to do with weed and bitches. Not sure it was in that order.

Meanwhile, on the main stage (set up on the western edge of the strip), the mayor of West Hollywood threw up devil horns & asked the crowd if they were ready to “rock out,” all the while looking like she was about to play a round of golf. Seemed oddly appropriate. Hawaiian reggae-rock band Pepper stumbled onstage directly after, shirtless and looking slightly worse for wear. Lead singer Keleo Wassman announced the whole band was wasted, before launching into the kind of Sublime-esque vocals every frat guy with a guitar has attempted, and probably one-upped at the last kegger.

As if life couldn’t get any worse at this point, I walked by the food stands to discover that my nemesis, Spicy Pie, had set up shop for the day. Yes, Angelinos: whether it be at Coachella, Sunset Junction, or even here, the army of young, glass-eyed, church youth group-esque workers will be there to taunt you with their delicious looking pizza, priced at SIX FUCKING DOLLARS A SLICE; forcing “I Heart Spicy Pie” stickers into your hands and screaming “hot pizzzzzaaaaa!!!!!” as you cross their stand; bullying you into buying their wares the way a Scientologist demands you take advantage of their “Free Stress Test.” On second thought……there may be a connection here…..

Anyway, feeling at the height of my indie-rock snobishness, I wandered over to Shiny Toy Guns, and……okay, so I wanted to write about how they totally changed my mood and shocked me into having a great time, but I’m not gonna lie; Shiny Toy Guns has been a guilty pleasure of mine for some time, and while they represent the kind of non-progressive rock I was just bitching about, there’s something unabashedly earnest about everything they do. So needless to say, I had a good time during their relatively short set.

New vocalist Sisley Treasure (who at one point came thisclose to being the next Pussycat Doll….tough to imagine) worked a fairly ambivalent crowd into a fine frenzy, involving even the bored Hustler store employees pushing water & sodas nearby. Tracks like “Ghost Town” and “Le Disco,” which rely heavily on tricky electronic effects were pulled off pretty damn well, and despite some constant technical difficulties, the band tore through their set with a vengeance. “Ricochet” was sadly left off the setlist, but I’d gotten the synth-happy fun I’d come for, and if anything, at least the spectre of Spicy Pie was temporarily forgotten.

I caught a solid 20 min of Korn’s set, back at the main stage. Not much to say, as I’m not sure what the cross-over appeal between Korn and GSL’s audience is. But I guess what they do they do well, and Saturday proved that while their time may be over, in the hearts and minds of some of their fans, Woodstock ‘99 will live forever.

From Shiny Toy Guns’ outdoor set I traveled into the Roxy, where a stranger at the urinal gleefully informed me “yo man, I’m faded…..this girl just sucked my dick! She’s coming back to the hotel room with me & my boy! It’s gonna be a party, bro. Whoever wants to come…” Since the conversation seemed to be leaning towards something usually proposed about half a mile south on Santa Monica Blvd, I kindly excused myself……hurray for Hollywood.

Enough with the wackiness, though. At 6:30, Nico Vega took the Roxy’s stage, and exceeded every praise my friends had prepared me with. Listen to all the mp3s that you want, but no studio work does their live performance justice. As a recording group, they’re good, but as a live band, they’re simply one of the best in the country right now, period. Lead singer Aja Volkman stormed the crowd, dancing on amps and throwing herself against walls, all the while howling like a one-woman Sleater-Kinney. Part of me was in awe, part of me was rocking out like a 12 year old girl, and part of me wanted to call an exorcist for the woman. By the time she screamed “stand tall for the beast of America; lay down like a naked dead body!” on the stunning anthem, “Beast,” I was in love.

Rich Koeler was no slouch on guitar, either, matching Volkman in intensity. Drummer Dan Epand closed the show with the most intense drum solo I’ve ever seen in my life, and by the time the curtain fell, I realized that rock wasn’t so much dead here as it was undead: cite whatever lack of innovation you will about a band like Nico Vega, but it’s literally impossible not to be moved by their music when it’s slapping you in the face. And in terms of the undead: amidst a day of zombified rock featuring performers going through the motions, there were a few vampires in the midst as well.  These acts may not titilate the skinny jeans/plaid shirt set in Echo Park on the basis of experimentation, but they nonetheless play like they’re fighting for survival; and in 2009, when the music industry is producing fewer and fewer success stories, and again, a nostalgia act is the biggest thing the Sunset Strip has to offer, they pretty much are. So is it crazy to think that the desperate, counter-culture drive that fueled rock to begin with, is somehow still going stronger than ever, buried under the radar?

The rest of the night was a mixed bag, with 70s dance throwback Earl Greyhound suitably rocking the Key Club (though I was still in shock from Nico Vega, so it was impossible to get a decent read on them), followed by Endless Hallway, a young band best described as a mix between Puddle of Mudd and Panic! At The Disco, which promptly drove me back out onto the street. On the way to get coffee, I walked by LMFAO performing “I’m in LA, Bitch”….so I guess I can cross that off my bucket list.

Ozzy Osbourne took the main stage promptly at 8, turning the crowd into a rude, drunken mess, with strangers literally shoving each other aside to get good views. Ironic, considering Mr. Osbourne himself looked and sounded to be in great health, tearing through the evening’s ultimate shot of nostalgia, and taking a hose to a few unlucky fans. The Roxy was the place to be for the rest of the night, as the eclectic, and unabashedly cornball Iglu & Hartly delivered a very short set full of giddy fun, followed by more up-with-people psuedo-rap from The Knux, and finally a solid hour of Girl Talk-style DJ-ing from the very talented Super Mash Bros.

Come 2 AM, I had surrendered to the fun of it all and stored my indie cynicism in the overhead bin. You can argue all you want about the relevance of West Hollywood’s music scene these days, but for at least one day, it was a hell of a lot of fun, despite the presence of some of the acts mentioned above (not to mention Spicy Pie). It was brilliantly run by the powers that be, with only Ozzy’s performance feeling like an angry bottleneck of people, and all in all, the crowd was shockingly mellow. And, of course, I had my face rocked off by Nico Vega, who proved that traditional rock still packs a mighty big blow when the right band has control of the mic. The Strip may indeed be a museum these days, but it’s a damn fun museum to visit, and occasionally, it still touches something immortal.

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