A&E

[Life Is Beautiful 2014]

Life Is Beautiful: First impressions

Image
Photo: Corlene Byrd

I’m normally late to the party, but when the doors to Life Is Beautiful opened on Friday, I had been inside the festival gates for an hour, taking in the scenery, roaming the empty footprint (before it got overrun with happy revelers) and trying to avoid getting sideswiped by all those carts zipping through the streets. Turns out, there’s a reason why they don’t let people in before things are, you know, ready.

The gates open at 1 p.m., so at 12:50 I head to the main entrance to catch a glimpse of what the crowd looks like. It isn’t huge, but there are some extremely dedicated festivalgoers queued up behind a giant security guard, like Tania Rivera, 26, the first person in line. She and her group of friends have been here since 10 a.m., and they drove 14 hours from Washington for their first Life Is Beautiful experience—just to see The Weeknd. “He’s the best, we just love him. His voice, his music, he’s just talented,” says Jocelyn Rodriguez, 20.

As in 2013, snippets of inspirational speeches are being played overhead as the clock ticks toward 1: JFK's “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and Dory the fish from Finding Nemo, singing, “Just keep swimming!”

Life Is Beautiful: Day 1

At 1:03 a security guard opens the gate and walks people in single-file toward the entrance. As soon as those first wristband tags scan, the LIBers bolt toward the Downtown stage—the one Kanye West will be on in nine and a half hours. I follow them to see who, exactly, is willing to bake in the sun all day to see Mr. West up close and personal. “Who else is playing?” asks Rohan Mathew, 17, who got in line at noon. “I’m just here for Kanye.”

And what about all the negative backlash that LIB got for booking Yeezus in the first place? “That’s just stupid,” says Manny Arellano, 22. “They’re just listening to what the media has to say about Kanye. That’s totally bogus. He’s the only f*cking person out there with his own personal opinion. I’m gonna plant my feet here for 10 f*ckin’ hours.”

At 1:45 I head over to the Container Park to catch celebrity chef and Fleur restaurateur Hubert Keller. The park is a perfect place to rest your feet (it’s open all weekend), watch a food demonstration by an all-star culinary expert and find some cute trinkets or temporary gold tattoos. Zoe Silverman and Adam Pallin of the electro duo ASTR join Keller onstage, and today they’ve decided to demo how to make paella. The savory, smoky aroma of chicken, pork ribs, squid and onions grilling is absolutely divine, but I’m starving, so I run over to catch the first band of the day before embarking on my own culinary journey.

Over at the Western Stage, Logan Lanning and Bobby Lucy of GoldBoot are the first to start. “We’re gonna kick it off!” says Lanning, and the full, stadium-sized sound that comes out of the two-piece is impressive. Lanning’s vocals feel improved and polished, and with the addition of some pre-recorded synth and brass tracks, the guys fill the set with disco-laden songs from 2013’s The Electric Eccentric. GoldBoot replaced fellow local band American Cream just one day before the fest, so the synth-hook-heavy “Timing Is Everything” feels very appropriate.

Share
Photo of Leslie Ventura

Leslie Ventura

Get more Leslie Ventura
Top of Story