Each year brings with it an onslaught of music festivals, each with a unique lineup, backdrop and mission. But none are quite like the Detour music festival.
This Saturday, Oct. 4, downtown Los Angeles will be home once more to the annual festival.
While boasting a solid lineup this year with the inclusion of such powerhouse bands as The Mars Volta and Gogol Bordello, the festival also retains a sense of discovery ““ about music, yes, but also about the city.
The concert’s location, City Hall, signals the ever-growing downtown “renaissance”: the resurgence of loft living and commerce to the once-distraught city center.
But what some call gentrification is really an attempt to rekindle commerce, living and culture in a historically culturally rich district of Los Angeles, an area studded with the city’s oldest streets and oldest houses, the birthplace of the French dip sandwich, and Dodger Stadium, one of baseball’s oldest stadiums.
This year’s lineup also radiates diversity, something keenly integral to Los Angeles. Acid-salsa groups such as The Mars Volta share the stage with video-enhanced DJs like Peanut Butter Wolf, neo-soul-train-ers Hercules and Love Affair, and the backcountry potpourri outfit Gogol Bordello.
And isn’t it just like Los Angeles to have a festival where musical boundaries are blurred, where a mass of seemingly unrelated bands and music convene in front of a crowd of people who should seemingly not be in the same place at the same time?
This is exactly what Los Angeles is ““ a place where everything seemingly is out of place, but at the same time, fits so perfectly.
This festival, which stretches beyond the music it embodies, continues the renaissance of downtown Los Angeles.
With things like the Staples Center and Nokia Theatre, the Detour festival, a grocery store (finally!), jazz clubs, and the increasing desire for loft space, downtown is growing from its once-decrepit self into something quintessentially Los Angeles.
It’s a place where the melting pot lore of yore really is manifest, where the city’s past grows into its present and future, where a music festival like Detour can thrive.