Review | ‘Ohana’ Means Family Fun with Freddie’s Crew

The Ohana Festival is a three day music fest at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point, so room service. Also, lots of music.

Lots of everything. When I was a kid, my sister and I would build a town out of blocks, and then populate it with squeaky rubber mice (yes, we played with cat toys). My favorite mouse was a chubby little sword fighter with a debonair mustache, who we named Touché. In the shop we built for Touché, he would sell three things: ice cream, because ice cream; velvet squares, because they were pleasing to the touch; and race cars, because we had Hot Wheels.

This was our idea of a killer business model — ice cream, velvet and race cars sold by Touché. This perfectly describes the Ohana Festival.

When you hear Ohana Festival at the beach, you think Beach Boys and Piña Coladas, right? Nope. The Ohana Festival was Pearl Jam, Sting, Alanis Morissette, the Turnpike Troubadours, and Devo. Devo? There was rock, grunge, punk, country, Irish folk, new wave, industrial, pop, ska and everything else. There was an area called the Cove, where environmentalists, researchers, and professional surfers (“Storytellers”) advocated for the ocean and for the planet. There was plenty of food, beer, and cocktails. There was an art gallery. There was an art gallery? There was an art gallery.

If an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards typed for infinity, would they produce this setup for the Ohana Festival?

No. No, they would not.

The Ohana Festival is irreproducible, even by monkeys. This lineup requires the front man for Pearl Jam.

Before I go on, a note about Pearl Jam fans. They’re whack. This is one of those reviews where if I get anything wrong, then the Independent will get 72 letters letting me know that wasn’t a double cream DiMarzio humbucker, but a Lindy Fralin Soapbar P90 neck pickup. Idiot. 

In front of us at the hotel check-in were a couple who had just arrived from India after traveling for 25 hours, and were now headed to the festival. At some point during the show, when a fan was asked how many Pearl Jam concerts she had missed that year — not attended, but missed — this perfectly normal looking woman held up a few fingers. There is no standard look for Pearl Jam fans, but the closest I could come up with is the fake German word eldergrüngeninswägen. These people are rabid, which is fun.

The Ohana Festival is the Franken-dreamchild of one man, Freddie Vedder. From here on out, I shall refer to him as “Touché.” Touché was a great host, clearly happy to be there, visibly thrilled to cone vomit his eclectic mind all over one of our state parks. He opened the festival (which we missed, because some people from India in front of us would not stop chatting up the front desk agent), his band Pearl Jam played opening and closing nights, he joined in on songs with a handful of other bands, he made some geometric wave prints hanging in the art gallery, and I saw him with a broom at the end of each night.

Excellent festival, Touché. Turns out I like a lot of the same stuff you do. Big picture, I especially appreciated that there were only two stages, and they were side by side. This wasn’t one of those festivals where you had to plan everything out and then still make that wrenching Sophie’s choice between Alanis Morissette and Devo (Devo?). The music just kept moving back and forth between stages, so you never had to miss a thing.

This also means it was one of the more intimate festivals, with what the interwebs seem to think is about 14,500 people. I was standing fifty feet away sometimes, and other times I was parking my old ass in the bleachers on the sand in the back — which still felt equivalent to the back of the Santa Barbara Bowl.

I didn’t make it to the Cove that much to hear the various Storytellers share, but I did feel some virtue by proxy, and appreciated that Touché gave them a platform. That said, there was a moment when I walked to the bathroom from Maren Morris singing the pop hit “RSVP” and then past some guy talking about dead bear cubs. It’s the thought that counts.

In no particular order, other than this is the order they played in, here are some of the bands I liked.

flipturn. I was standing in line for a beer when I heard Bonnie Raitt start to sing, and she sounded great. I made my way up to near the front of the stage, and it turned out to be an awesome little redheaded dude in the band flipturn. I loved this band’s energy — the drummer seemed to have done the appropriate amount of coke — they sounded great, and I would highly recommend seeing them live.

However, as a professional music critic on his third review, I do feel like I would be remiss not to point out that the font they used for their band name backdrop looked downloaded from DaFont. Get it together, kids.

Crowded House. Did anyone else know that Crowded House kept making albums after the ones that I bought? Well, they did — and they still sound good. I’m a huge fan of Split Enz (True Colours was one of those perfect albums, other than that weird instrumental thing), and so when Touché joined them for a cover of “I Got You,” I was all in.

Devo. Devo? New wave merry pranksters who aren’t dead yet, they started their set with a campy video making fun of the music business. They had more costume changes than Diana Ross did at the Bowl last year, including jackets printed with “Reverse Evolution,” and their red energy dome hats. There was a photo in the art gallery of Pearl Jam dressed up as Devo (Devo?) from a concert 15 years ago, so clearly Touché is a fan. When they played “Whip It” perversely early in their set, I started to remember our high school dance moves where you would try to detect it, check your watch to make sure it’s not too late, and twirl your hand around to whip it. Whip it good.

Glen Hansard. He co-wrote the music for and co-starred in the movie Once, now also a stage musical. My wife likes to try to figure out what happens to characters after the movie ends, and now she doesn’t have to. It all worked out! His band turned out great! Playing hard Irish folk rock at music festivals is exactly what his character would be doing, and it may have been one of my favorite performances. He and Touché performed a ridiculously beautiful “Tender Mercies” from the Flag Day soundtrack. 

Sting. What the hell is wrong with Sting? Doesn’t he know that you’re not supposed to perform every single song that the audience wants you to sing, from “Message in a Bottle” to “Roxanne” to “Every Breath you Take?” Half his set was Police songs, and half his set was Sting songs, and I (and the rest of the Mesa-dad-looking crowd for day two) knew every one of them. His voice sounded great, he had no tantrums, and he looked like a tantric sex god. He should be embarrassed to show his face at the next rock star club meeting, the agreeable bastard.

IDLES. An English punk band from Bristol. I’ve never so much as hit anyone in a play battle, but as soon as they started playing I wanted to fight someone. That’s just good punk.

Alanis Morissette. I love her music, and she sounded great. You know that hippy who is always dancing in front of the stage at concerts in the park, who spins around until they’re so dizzy they fall down, and then joyfully and slightly awkwardly skip around? Those were her moves. She sounded great.

Pearl Jam. I love Touché’s velvet fog voice, and so I sometimes forget how amazing the whole band is. They were all very happy to be there, and the crowd loved them for it. They played big sets both the first and last nights, and only repeated on “Alive,” “Wreckage,” and “Rockin’ in the Free World.” They performed two never before played songs — Touché called them White Whales – “Whale Song” and “Gremmie out of Control.”

They also hewed closest to the theme and the location, playing as many songs about water as they could. If we are to believe Lilo, Ohana means family, and this is probably where the festival name made the most sense. Olivia Vedder sang with Glen Hansard, and Harper Vedder made her debut with her father on the final night. Even his mother was there, and came out to clap and tambourine along with everyone else who joined in on the final song, all one big happy family. Touché did a killer job — I hope his mom took them all out for ice cream and velvet squares after the show.