It was a lovely Labor Day weekend in LaLa Land as I met my youngest son at the annual FYF Fest at the Historic Downtown Park in Los Angeles.  This is a two day festival with some of the best Indie bands from all over the planet.  I was excited about spending some time with Cody, listening to some great music, and finding something vegan to eat.  I scored on all fronts in a wonderful way.

On Saturday as the festival opened up I had a little break before the first band that I wanted to hear was going to play and so I went looking for some lunch.  I found it at The Green Truck, a food truck from Southern California that specializes in organic and local foods.  It is not a vegan truck but it has some vegan offerings and I went for The Mother Trucker Vegan Burger, which was made out of quinoa, kale, and lots of other good stuff on an artisan bun with a pink (blended with tomatoes) vegenaise sauce.  Oh my this was really great and a fine way to start things off.

I was so excited to see that Babycakes NYC  had a booth at the festival. Babycakes is a vegan bakery from NYC that also has a few stores out in the L.A. area.  They were selling brownies and chocolate chip cookie sandwiches with frosting in the middle.  I will admit I had one each day.  They were amazing!  I was so glad to see the lines in front of their booth each day as they were sharing the vegan love in a big way and let me tell you the crowd was loving it.  There were definitely hundreds and probably thousands of bridges of kindness being built throughout the weekend there.

PETA had a booth at the festival and it was great to see their presence and talk with some of the workers.  They handed out a lot of literature to people and for the most part people seemed really receptive to the message.  On Sunday I found my way to one of the food vendors that was selling vegan wraps.  I could see that it was a spinach wrap that was filled with rice, black beans, and corn but I was rightfully pleased when I bit into it and realized it also had a cucumber and fruit salsa inside as well.  That was very enjoyable as well.  Later in the day I noticed that there were a couple of new food trucks present and I went to see what was in the works for dinner.  The India Jones truck from SoCal had a vegan coconut curry plate with basmati rice and broccoli, carrots, and broccoli.  Yes, it needed to be consumed by me and I happily obliged.  Loved it.

Now…a little about the music.  It was hard to see everyone because bands were sometimes playing at the same time on three stages across the park.  On Saturday afternoon there were back to back rocking sets from King Tuff and Red Kross. Awesome.  I caught some of the electronic fun of John Maus (no relation to Dead).  It was treat to see The Vaselines (rumored to have been Kurt Cobain’s favorite band) who have been doing their thing for decades now.  The Chromatics were way cool.  Purity Ring was one of the most innovative groups I have seen and it was amazing what this duo from Canada was able to do and thrill the crowd.  The evening ended with an amazing experience of sound and lights from M83 from France.  What a great day.  Sunday did not disappoint either.  Another beautiful day of weather and one of the afternoon highlights was Nick Waterhouse, SoCal band with a hip retro sound that was driving the crowd wild.  Another great find was Father John Misty (not his real name) the former drummer of Fleet Foxes who has a tremendous voice and refreshing stage presence.  The evening and festival concluded with three different performances that I was able to catch from Twin Shadow, The Desaparecidos, and Beirut. Wow, wow, wow.   Between the weather, great crowds of people, the food, and the music…it was a weekend to remember.  I already told my son I am down again for next year.

Purity Ring

M83

Desaparecidos

Beirut