BY SCOTT DUDELSON

Since the first Street Scene festival with Los Lobos and The Blasters in 1984, San Diego's little local festival has grown into one of the Southern California's most anticipated annual music events.  Held in Downtown San Diego's modern East Village (a few blocks away from Petco Park, the Padres stadium), the two-day festival features five stages and 55 performers scattered around six blocks of city storefronts and parking lots. The layout of the stages just about ensures that no stage is more than a 4 minute walk from each other, making it super easy to bounce from band to band. Although this year's key headliner, The Beastie Boys, had to cancel their appearance due to Adam's illness, the two nights were stacked with an assortment of interesting and eclectic acts.

[Pictured above: Fergie. Pictured below, top to bottom: Devendra Banhart, Band of Horses, Conor Oberst, Girl Talk, Mastodon, Modest Mouse, Shooter Jennings]

Day one featured two polar opposite headliners - Black Eyed Peas & Modest Mouse, and a wildly diverse group of support bands that included Cake, Nortec Collective, Calexico, Matt & Kim and Devendra Banhart. Banhart, seated most of the set due to a broken rib, kicked off his early day-show by letting the 2000 or so assembled know that he and his band came into San Diego with the purpose of sonically impregnating them. It was a bold beginning that led into 45 minutes of Banhart and his 5 piece band (which included Little Joy guitarist Rodrigo Amarante) playing a batch of laid back psychedelic folk tunes that surprisingly resonates loudly in mind melting heat. Devendra, along with Band of Horses and Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (w/special guest Jenny Lewis) represented the more mellow(ish) side of Day 1, while Shooter Jennings (performing some ballsy rock tunes from his forthcoming record), Mastodon, Cage the Elephant and Dungeon represented the harder edge.   Modest Mouse, sans Johnny Marr, rocked hard as usual, while Black Eyed Peas were primarily interesting because Fergie is so damn sexy.  The biggest and most energetic crowds were seen at the day's two DJ events - Girl Talk and Chromeo, both of whom noted the sad passing of DJ AM earlier in the day in between their frenzy of remixes.

M.I.A was the ostensible headliner on Day 2, but she was stacked up against Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and anyone who missed the Sharon Jones set (which was about 10,200 of the 11,000 or so in attendance) missed out on the festival's most exciting performance. Introduced by the Dap King's as the women with the magnetic ‘je ne se qua,' Jones channeled old-school Tina Turner and put on a soul revue that had the crowd, her band mates, and me in the photo pit dancing.    The Dead Weather, with Jack White on drums and Alison Mosshart, ripped through their set of fuzzy blues to a very enthusiastic crowd, while the lone two hip hop acts in the festival - Public Enemy and Busta Rhymes, both irked their respective audiences (and the crowd as a whole) by starting their performances 30 minutes late and throwing off times for every other scheduled performance.  On a positive note, both Busta and Public Enemy sounded and performed great, with Public Enemy performing much of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back  Day 2 was also rounded out by a host of excellent indie and upcoming acts including The Faint, Of Montreal, Ra Ra Riot, Ozomatli, Gram Rabbit, and No Age.

 The attendance of this 2009 event no doubt suffered due to The Beastie's cancellation (and a generally shitty economy, of course), but other than the disgusting lack of hand sanitizer or water source near the portable toilets, and the shifty raising of water prices mid-fest (105 degree heat), this year's Street Scene festival was as musically solid as they come.

Photos credit: Scott Dudelson]