Life Is A Beach At Beachlife 2024
If you missed out on this year’s Beachlife festival, reading this article might “Sting” a little bit because it was a stellar experience from start to unexpected finish. The festival may have been cut short due to high winds but that didn’t stop the first 2.5 days of incredible acts and attendees with their toes in the sand for band after band. My favorite part about this festival was that they had two main stages that were alternating set times the whole weekend. This meant that everybody in attendance could see every single big act and there was no issues with colliding sound leakage, stressful dual-directional pushes of the crowd, nor schedule conflicts.
There was a whole bevy of impressive and legendary acts playing across the three days of Beachlife but one surprising part was that some of the most popular acts were in the beginning and the middle of the afternoon. Sugar Ray, Seal, and St. Paul & The Broken Bones were all earlier in the day but pulled very dense crowds full of positive vibes and sing along moments. Seal and St. Paul even took time from their sets to walk through the crowd singing. The crowd at Beachlife was notably more mature than many festivals I have been to recently but that ended up being one of the best parts. Almost everybody that I encountered during the weekend was extremely friendly and respectful of personal space, I don’t believe I got pushed once the whole time.
City and Colour took the crown on day 1, with their soft and soothing sounds really leading well into sunset. Day 2, I have to give it to Santigold with an honorable mention for Devo (mostly because of their hilarious intro video they played). As stated, Sugar Ray and St. Paul really commanded their sets during day 3 but the highlight for me was ZZ Top coming out with a 20+ string guitar and shredding it like no other. You may notice that I am leaving out all three headliners (Sting, Incubus, My Morning Jacket) and there is a reason for that. When that sun finally passed the horizon on each day, attendees became highly aware of the ocean breeze and progressively increasing wind speeds. My Morning Jacket was prevented from playing due to high winds but I definitely was not fully able to enjoy the sets post-sunset due to the rapid shift in temperature.
Aside from the music, there were a lot of amenities and special areas for VIP attendees. At certain times, it seemed like almost half the crowd had some form of VIP access but the areas still didn’t end up swarmed and impassable. These VIP areas were a great place to converse with attendees, and I was sure to get a whole lot of grief from some of the older generations when I made comments about being sore or “feeling old”. One very special family grabbed my attention throughout the festival and they became my home base whenever I wanted to take a break from doing media. Never met them before in my life and we were making plans to hang out in the future by the end of the festival. This energy is extremely emblematic of how the vibe of the Beachlife Festival was from start to finish.
I want to say thank you to all the attendees who I captured over the weekend and thank you to all the acts and organizers for the festival. I certainly will be back, maybe next time with a back-up sweater though… See you all at Beachlife 2025!
Check out all of the photos linked HERE!