Under the looming eyes of the Plaza and Golden Nugget hotels, Life Is Beautiful returned for the second night of its “Big Beautiful Block Party,” and this night was all about the tracks: music tracks and train tracks. The festival grounds sit adjacent to an active rail line, giving several train conductors a drive-by view of the side-by-side stages. On multiple occasions throughout the two-day festival, freight trains ploddingly rolled by during sets, prompting conductors to honk their horns and spark revelrous applause from the crowd.
In some ways, the train cars are the perfect metaphor for this scaled-down version of the Las Vegas-based festival because we're all along for the ride.
The festival once took over 18 downtown Las Vegas city blocks, but the 2024 adaptation is more manageable and even linguistic. In between sets, inspirational quotes flashed across the screens, such as “You Are Beautiful,” “You Are Powerful” and “You Are Dazzling.” Quotes from the late Tony Hsieh, the festival's visionary, also appeared on signage throughout, keeping a noticeable link to the previous 10 Beautiful installments. “Celebrate being a little weird and incredibly bold,” one message attributed to Hsieh said. Another read, “There is beauty to be found all around you.”
Still, at the heart of the block party was the music, and Saturday saw the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Jungle and Peggy Gou all take the stage.
LCD Soundsystem Shows Range, Not Age
In what was arguably the most anticipated set of the two-day festival, LCD Soundsystem didn't disappoint. The electronic rock band, who's set for a 12-show residency in New York, came out swinging with 2007's smash “Get Innocuous.” They went 12 more rounds with their hybrid of dance, rock and percussion. In what became a theme over two days, singer James Murphy mentioned the heat. “We're very happy to be here. It's very hot. I don't know why you came here,” he said as the mercury stubbornly sat at 95 degrees at 10:30 pm.
During the group's 22-year lifespan, LCD has flawlessly broken the norms of what electronic music is “supposed to be,” and they showed range, transitioning from the rock-heavy “You Wanted a Hit” to the beat-oriented “Tribulations” while disco ball spun overhead. Perhaps no one has bigger beat drops, which often acted like a shot in the arm for the crowd hanging on every note during the 90-minute set. Despite Murphy's T-shirt bearing the words “memorial service,” LCD Soundsystem's days are hardly numbered.
Welcome To The Jungle
A familiar face returned to the Life Is Beautiful stage on Saturday in the form of Jungle. The trio (including Lydia Kitto, the new official member) came out strong, opening with 2014's “Busy Earnin,” a song about neglecting life from being a workaholic. Jungle then worked hard and upped the energy, getting the crowd buzzing (so did the horn-honking freight train that rolled by during the set.)
“Back On 74,” which went viral earlier this year, proved to be a true crowd pleaser, as it was hard to find anyone standing still. Singer Tom McFarland addressed the now-sweaty crowd, asking, “How you guys doing? Are you hot? Imagine being from England. This is fucked up.”
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Although Jungle mainly stuck with their hits throughout the hour-long set, they managed to sneak in “Let's Go Back,” their latest single. The track's title couldn't be more apropos, as Jungle returned to the Vegas-based festival for the first time in six years, serving as the penultimate act in 2018. Like the band did then, Jungle's funky, jivey sound fit in well, particularly after the acid-jazz sound of Thundercat. In their 2023 song, Jungle claims it's “Us Against The World.” That couldn't be further from the truth.
The Big Beautiful Hiccup
This is why we can't have nice things. The tech Gods reared their ugly heads just before Toro y Moi's DJ set. “We are experiencing a technical issue,” a voice said over the speakers 30 minutes after the godfather of the “chillwave” sound, a micro-culture known for mixing psychedelic music and electronic pop, was supposed to begin.
As the next 15 minutes passed, flummoxed festival techs hovered over monitors and turntables stage left. Meanwhile, Toro's microphones, keyboards and drum kit sat desperately unattended on center stage, and blue lights cast an ominous shadow. Eventually, Toro came out, telling the crowd his equipment was “fried” from sitting in the sun. Rather than cash in his chips, he grabbed a guitar and performed an impromptu acoustic set of four songs that spanned his career: “Tuesday,” “Undercurrent,” “Heaven” and “Sandhill.”
“This feels very nostalgic,” he said, noting it was his first time playing guitar solo for a crowd. “Let's see what I got. I really apologize for the switch-up on y'all.” Strumming the guitar and searching for a song, he added, “I feel like Ed Sheeran.” Somehow, the set, albeit just 12 minutes long, was a bit majestic — just a man and his guitar. Upon finishing his very short acoustic set, Toro promised to return but insisted he'd play any club in Vegas to make up for the absent DJ set. “Vegas, I owe you,” he wrote on Instagram afterwards.
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Peggy Gou Stay Up Late
While much of Saturday's acts skewed toward an older demographic, millennials and Gen Z waited patiently for Peggy Gou, who had a decidedly younger clientele waiting for her late-night set, which ended at 1:30 am Although Gou is known to sing — as she does on “(It Goes Like) Nanana,” her biggest commercial success — her focus on Saturday centered on spinning and dropping old school deep beats, including Inner City's 1988 song “Good Life,” likely a song her crowd had never heard.
As other artists experienced, a freight train cruised by 20 minutes into her set, but she remained unfazed at the conductor's horn. The South Korean DJ often threw her hands in the air, danced to music and didn't shy away from including songs in her native tongue. The crowd didn't seem to care. Music was her language.
Thundercat Gets Risqué
There might not be a more well-rounded artist than Thundercat. The Los Angeles native interspersed jazz, EDM and R&B into his set on Saturday. His soulful voice, however, ratcheted up significantly when projecting to the crowd, something he's more than qualified to do as a former member of the Suicidal Tendencies. “Are you guys ready to party?” he screamed.
The bassist commanded the stage with prolonged jam sessions. Consistently joking with the crowd, he mentioned that he once married in Las Vegas. “They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That shit definitely stayed in Vegas,” he said. He turned risqué before singing Overseas, a song about doing the deed at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. “Let's talk about some Vegas ass shit. Anyone part of the mile-high club? This goes out to you,” he said before going into the 2020 tune.
In a cheeky segue, which wasn't lost on some, he immediately transitioned into tunes about “pussycats,” including “The Orange Cat's Special Time Outdoors,” the first time he's ever played it live (he performed the song on the children's show “Yo Gabba Gabbaland” on Apple TV+.) “You thought I was singing about girls? Nope,” he deadpanned. Meow!
