Lenny Kravitz closes the first day of BeachLife with string of hits and a message of love
With a set that started with deep cuts before closing with some of the greatest hits in his long career, rocker Lenny Kravitz closed out day one of the South Bay’s biggest music festival, which brought thousands of people to Redondo Beach on Friday, May 2, the opening of the three-day event.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve been in SoCal. I would like to thank you for having me here to celebrate life,” he told the crowd during his headlining set at the BeachLife Festival.
Festival organizer Allen Sanford said in a previous interview that he had been trying to book Kravitz since the inception of the festival in 2019 and he finally got him on stage as the Friday headliner.
Kravitz is among more than 40 artists on the weekend lineup with music that ranges from rock to reggae to alternative to punk and other genres. Other weekend headliners include Long Beach legends Sublime on Saturday and Alanis Morrisette closing things out Sunday night.
Traditionally each BeachLife Festival day has its own tone set by the daily lineup and Friday is a day when rock bands rule the sand. But one of the highlights of the day came from old school hip-hop trio Digable Planets, who early on Friday afternoon stepped onto the main Lowtide Stage, which is surrounded by sand, which created a laid-back atmosphere that blended perfectly with the hip-hop group’s jazzy vibes.
Group members Butterfly, Ladybug and Doodlebug set the easy, chill tone of the day with songs like “It’s Good to be Here.”
“Who’s feeling good? Who’s glad to be here?” Butterfly asked the crowd, who responded with loud cheers.
The trio ended their set with their biggest hits “Nickel Bags,” and “Rebirth of Slick,” which had the crowd swaying to the beats.
But the performance of the day may have come from the festival’s smallest stage; the Speakeasy stage. This is where punk rockers unplug and play acoustic sets under a shack that holds maybe 100 people.
Jim Lindberg of the punk band Pennywise helps put the lineup together for the stage and on Friday afternoon he also performed a set. But, since he is a punk rocker, he didn’t really follow the rules and instead of going acoustic he plugged in for a full-on show that included fast-paced covers of songs like “Blister in the Sun,” originally recorded by the Violent Femmes, as well as a punk rock cover of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”
At one point a few people in front of the stage started jumping up and down to the song, which was the closest the Speakeasy stage has ever come to a mosh pit, and Lindberg loved it.
“We got a nice mosh pit going on here. Don’t tell Allen,” he said with a laugh, referring to the festival’s organizer.
“It’s punk rock so I had to break the rules,” he said after coming off the stage. “It was really cool to crank it up on the acoustic stage,” he added.
The coolest performance of the night however went to Kravitz, who appeared on stage behind a cloud of smoke in tight blue pants, a blue shirt and gold tank-top underneath shaking his long dreadlocks on stage before a crowd of thousands at the end of the night.
While the set started off with a bit of low energy as he played some of his lesser known songs, it eventually built momentum toward the end when Kravitz closed with hit after hit including songs like “It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over,” “American Woman,” and “Are You Gonna Go My Way.”
After stepping off the stage for a few minutes he came back for the encore and spoke about the need for people to get along and come together before breaking into one of his biggest hits, “Let Love Rule,” which ended the first day of the festival as the crowd sang along to the lyrics.