Sunset Junction, Los Angeles
USA Sept. 22. 2004

First let me explain the setting, Sunset Junction is an annual street fair in the heart of Los Angeles. For $10.00 you get to see lots of bands on several different stages set up on various corners of the street, lot’s of food vendors and games of chance with people moving from one stage to the next as the mood strikes them. It is a very loose atmosphere with much more the feeling of a party than a proper gig and that is how all the bands seem to take their sets.

Love hit the stage just after 6 pm flanked by palm trees and an amazing Los Angeles Sunset in the sky behind them. Arthur seemed in a really good mood and said several times how much fun it was for him to play for his “hometown”. Love played a short 50-minute set. The band was very tight and Arthur was in good voice and seemed to be having a lot of fun.

All the favorites were touched upon including 7&7, Alone Again, Red Telephone, and a really smoking extended version of Signed DC. The band had one horn player with them to play the parts from Forever Changes. All the bands were under really tight time constraints because of curfew. And about half way through Clark and Hillsdale Arthur stopped the band (much to their surprise) and commanded them to go into Singing Cowboy, which is how they ended the set. I’m sure they went over their allotted time to play but the audience loved it and they went down very very well with the crowd. As I mentioned Sunset junction is really more a party than a gig so it’s hard to keep the audience in one place…. Even though they may have not come to see Love almost nobody left when LOVE was on stage and they got a tremendous round of applause from the crowd.

The only negative to the show for me was that the PA system was really, really, inadequate for an outdoor gig. It just wasn’t loud enough to push the music outdoors. But the band struggled through it and there was probably a sound level restriction limit because; believe it of not, Sunset Blvd. is in residential neighborhood.

Oh yeah I almost forgot. For the first time in the many, many times I’ve seen LOVE Arthur took off his hat and bandanna and opened up his shirt (hey it gets hot in L.A.)
And yes he is bald (no news there) but man did he look COOL with his sunglasses and shaved head on stage. Absolutely rockin’.
I hope he does a photo shoot like that cause it was a very hip look. There is no way that guy can really be in his late fifties. Many people were taking photos so hopefully someone will post some.

James Christopher