Día y Noche de Los Muertos returns to Hollywood Forever, creating a cathartic experience with Ed Maverick, Hermanos Gutiérrez & more

Día y Noche de Los Muertos 2022By Iván Fernández //

Día y Noche de Los Muertos featuring Ed Maverick, Hermanos Gutiérrez, Son Rompe Pera, Thee Sacred Souls //
Hollywood Forever Cemetery – Los Angeles
October 29th, 2022 //

Typically, there’d be cause for serious concern when thousands of people congregate in a cemetery on a Saturday. The last thing we need in our not-quite-post-pandemic world is a mass gathering of a demonic cult or an apocalyptic scenario previously only imagined by the likes of the creators of the “Doom” video game franchise.

However, when the reason turns out to be the 23rd annual Día y Noche de Los Muertos event at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in LA, the main concern is searching for a place to sit to eat between performances. The festival is one of the largest Day of the Dead-related events in the world outside of Mexico and Latin America. Attendees over the years have been regaled with impressive lineups of Mexican and Latin American artists along with the dozens of altars built by community members in honor of their departed loved ones.

For many years, the event at Hollywood Forever and the Día de los Muertos event at Self-Help Graphics on the other side of the county were the only large-scale celebrations of the cultural holiday in LA. In our post-“Coco” and “The Book of Life” world, they are national torchbearers for a region with the largest Latin American diaspora in the country.

The festival’s first edition in 1999 was a small affair featuring some live music, a couple of altars and roughly 300 people. At its peak about six to seven years ago, 40,000 people were dancing along near the memorial and burial sites of celebrities (one half of the original Ramones lineup, Johnny and Dee Dee, are laid to rest here along with Mel Blanc, Mickey Rooney, Burt Reynolds, Jonathan Gold, the DeMilles, the Chaplins, etc.) and non-celebs alike, some who were laid to rest in the late 19th century. Since 2021, the festival has pulled a Coachella of sorts and split into two separate events at the same location: a daytime cultural event dedicated to families and kids to learn about the history and specific cultural practices of Day of the Dead followed by a nighttime event featuring three stages of live music.

The 2022 edition welcomed over 20,000 people to the cemetery grounds for a day of music and remembrance. This year’s theme was dedicated to Mayahuel, the Aztec goddess of fertility and maguey (agave), the plant where pulque, mezcal and tequila are derived from. There’s a tragic backstory about the romance between Mayahuel and Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, that ends in her death. His tears fall on her grave and create the agave plant, “producing pulque and mezcal to forever lesson our miseries and lift our grief,” to quote the event’s press release.

Día y Noche de Los Muertos 2022 - Thee Sacred Souls


Thee Sacred Souls

There was certainly something of that in the air this year. Though it was still a fun celebration of life, perhaps the weight of these past two years has made people’s sentiments heavier. You could see it in the elaborate altars placed along the pathways from the cemetery to stages and art exhibits.

Everywhere you looked, there was an old portrait of a married couple as well as photos of an infant, boys, girls and teens whose lives were all tragically cut short. The beauty in the Day of the Dead event is how these portraits are also adorned with items that reflected the warmth of their lives, however short or long. Creating an altar takes time and an emotional effort by their builders that helps them confront their grief. There may not have been much pulque or mezcal on the grounds, but the miseries of recent times were certainly lessened through these public displays of grief and love.

The performers for the night also did a wonderful job of bringing people together and lessening their miseries while lifting their grief. The night began with San Diego’s Thee Sacred Souls. The trio of singer Josh Lane, drummer Alex Garcia and bassist Sal Samano have seen their star rise quickly over the past year-and-a-half thanks to a combination of Lane’s Marvin Gaye-esque vocal styles and their mesmerizing take on Chicano soul and R&B.

Día y Noche de Los Muertos 2022 - Son Rompe Pera


Son Rompe Pera

Thee Sacred Souls were joined onstage with a pair of backup singers, a guitarist and a pianist/organ player to fill out their sound. Though the trio has just one full-length album to its name so far, songs such as “Can I Call You Rose?”, “Weak For Your Love” and “Love Comes Easy” have become instantly recognizable by the band’s growing legion of fans. Tears flowed, kisses were planted and lovers hugged as the band gracefully swung from one love balled to the next.

Son Rompe Pera, on the other hand, were the exact opposite. If you’re ever curious as to what a combination of cumbia and marimba music from Mexico’s southeastern coast sounds like when fused with the ethos and energy of hardcore punk, then you must make it your mission to watch these guys live.

At the heart of Son Rompe Pera’s sound is not an accordion, a guitar or a drum, but the graceful xylophone! Never have I seen so many people lose their minds over watching a guy who looks like Edward Munson’s Mexican twin rocking out on a minutes-long xylophone solo. Never have I also seen a mosh pit start thanks to a xylophone solo, and even less have I ever encountered a mosh pit where a man felt comfortable enough to run circles in it with his very young daughter cheering him on while riding on his shoulders.

Día y Noche de Los Muertos 2022 - Hermanos Gutiérrez


Hermanos Gutiérrez

The Mexico City outfit from the town of Naucalpan is also an example of how to restructure your recorded music for a live setting. Songs such as “Calculadora” and “Tortuga del Arenal” have a danceable, yet mellow rhythm to it on the album. When played live though, the songs take on a faster rhythm, with the marimba and cumbia accents ceding ground to the group’s punk vibe.

This is where I question the order of the artists on the lineup. Hermanos Gutiérrez went up next and played beautifully. Brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez are two talented musicians who play guitar together, swapping between acoustic, electric and slide guitars during their shows. The Zurich-based duo’s instrumental music swept me away, carrying me into a mystical world soundtracked by their cinematic, western style.

Unfortunately, some in the crowd were still riding the high from Son Rompe Pera and jarred by the switch in energy and music, prompting me to wonder if it would have been better if Hermanos Gutiérrez performed before Son Rompe Pera. It’s a shame really, but it was wonderful to hear songs from their latest album El Bueno Y El Malo (The Good And The Bad), which they recorded with Dan Auerbach and released on The Black Keys frontman’s record label Easy Eye Sound, along with a few older cuts. There was something about listening to title track, “Tres Hermanos” and “Hermosa Drive” live in a cemetery that added to the experience and aura of the night’s festivities that no other performer had.

Día y Noche de Los Muertos 2022 - Ed Maverick


Ed Maverick

The evening’s headliner Ed Maverick was a smart choice to close things out. I knew the fest had taken a somber and introspective turn when the promoters announced him to lead the lineup. In fact, the “Sad Boy Supreme” of Chihuahua, Mexico, was stopping through LA on his first-ever world tour — and he did not disappoint.

Even from a distance, it’s easy to tell that his sad-boy schtick isn’t a performance but who he truly is. It also shouldn’t be a surprise considering he titled one of his albums Mix Pa’ Llorar en Tu Cuarto (A Mix to Cry in Your Bedroom). And yes, he performed his sad-boy anthems, but he and his band gave the songs an aura that matched the grief-lifting vibes of the night.

Maverick and his band adapted other songs from Mix and his 2021 LP Eduardo to give them a larger presence live. “Hola, ¿cómo estás?,” for example, filled the event like an anthem meant for a stadium as opposed to the recorded version’s floating, atmospheric vibes. Meanwhile, “Fuentes de Ortiz”, “Acurrucar” and “Quiero” became cathartic sing-alongs for thousands of fans in attendance.

Maverick didn’t have too much to say between songs and let his music do most of the talking. However, when he did speak to the crowd, he had to pause with a smile and wait for the lull between screaming and cheering fans to be heard. He ended the night with a lengthy guitar solo that cemented his newfound status as a rock star and new king of the sad boys.

Whatever grief guests carried with them into the event, they certainly left feeling weightless after a long, fun and most importantly, cathartic experience.

Ahead of their Red Rocks shows, My Morning Jacket are firing on all cylinders after rocking the Santa Barbara Bowl & Hollywood Forever

My Morning Jacket at Hollywood Forever CemeteryBy Josh Herwitt //

My Morning Jacket //
Santa Barbara Bowl & Hollywood Forever Cemetery – Santa Barbara & Los Angeles
August 16th & 17th, 2022 //

When My Morning Jacket made the “deeply painful” decision to cancel their three-night New Year’s run at the Mission Ballroom in Denver last year with the COVID-19 pandemic still wreaking havoc thanks to the rise of the omicron variant, it was a gut punch for the Louisville rockers and their most diehard fans, many of whom were traveling from out of state to see them.

But more than six weeks later, the five-piece would announce its 2022 tour encompassing 33 dates with most of the venues booked, not surprisingly, being at outdoor amphitheaters and/or open spaces with a lawn. Keeping everyone’s safety in mind has always been the band’s priority first and foremost, and with the spring and summer bringing us the warmest months of the year, there was no way MMJ were going to further risk experiencing any cancellations during what we’ve dubbed as “outdoor concert season.”

And yet even with all the precautions that had been taken by everyone, it still wasn’t enough to prevent more COVID misfortune when frontman Jim James tested positive in June, just a day before the band’s two hometown shows — its first in six years — were scheduled to take place. While the news had MMJ fans once again feeling bummed about the state of live music after the last two-plus years, James (lead vocals, guitar) and his bandmates in Tom Blankenship (bass), Patrick Hallahan (drums, percussion), Bo Koster (keyboards, percussion, backing vocals) and Carl Broemel (guitar, pedal steel guitar, saxophone, backing vocals) have certainly put that behind them now after taking more than a month off from touring during July and part of August.

Believe it or not, MMJ in many ways sound better than they ever have after witnessing two of their three performances in California, starting with a return to the Santa Barbara Bowl last Tuesday only 11 months after their last visit (read our show review here) and continuing the following night in LA among the many celebrities now deceased — even “Toto” from the “Wizard of Oz” — at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

James, for one, has always sounded great at the mic and with a guitar in his hands, but he’s also never looked more at ease onstage despite his recent bout with the virus, shedding the big pair of sunglasses he once donned (as you can see here) for the naked eye — a clear sign that MMJ’s primary songwriter isn’t hiding from us if he ever was trying to previously.

My Morning Jacket at Santa Barbara Bowl

Arriving in Santa Barbara two days after making a stop at Frost Amphitheater on the campus of Stanford University, the clock hit 7:30 p.m. and MMJ went to work, diving straight into their self-titled LP that came out last October with “Never in the Real World”. James and company didn’t wait long at all to turn up the volume, however, with “Lay Low” subsequently sending the crowd into a frenzy early on. The six-minute track off 2005’s seminal Z has always been a personal favorite of mine to hear live and would quickly set the tone for the rest of the evening.

For a band that has always put an emphasis on mixing up its setlists and will rarely perform songs in the same order though, it was a couple of cuts on its debut album The Tennessee Fire that were surprising to hear midway through its standard 2 1/2-hour set. In fact, it was the first time this year — and just the fifth over the last five years — that MMJ have played “I Will Be There When You Die” while the acoustic “If All Else Fails” has been heard on solely a handful of occasions so far in 2022.

While other highlights in Santa Barbara included an extended version of “Steam Engine” with Broemel trading his axe for the sax at one point and just the third time “I Never Could Get Enough” has made it onto a setlist, it was the Hollywood show that grabbed more of the MMJ fanbase’s attention. Of course, the heightened interest around it was somewhat understandable considering that it’s not every day you get to catch a concert inside a cemetery, let alone one where rock icons like Johnny Ramone and Chris Cornell are buried, but the setting was, at most, half the story on The Fairbanks Lawn as day eventually turned to night.

Breathing life into “What a Wonderful Man” and James’ own “State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.)” for only the second time this year and first since the jam-adjacent group’s three-day “One Big Holiday” destination event back in March, we had hoped that MMJ would be setting up for a special finish down the stretch and that’s exactly what they gifted us with a 17-minute “Dondante” that conjured up some major disco vibes. With the Z finale serving as one of several tunes MMJ has been known to stretch out when they perform live, it felt rather fitting to hear what James wrote after the passing of his late bandmate Aaron Todovich while being surrounded by a bunch of tombstones.

Even though MMJ had more music lined up for us before hitting the road for New Mexico, that was all many of us needed to hear to be satisfied. After waiting almost a decade for another “Dondante” in LA since their epic, three-night run at The Wiltern, everything else that ensued — from the one-two punch of “Wasted” and “Dancefloors” to a more abbreviated encore featuring “Wordless Chorus” and “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2” that ended things on a spooky note — was gravy. After all, this is an act that has always kept its fans on their toes, and as MMJ gear up this weekend for their most significant shows of the tour with two sold-out nights at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, there’s no telling what’s in store when James steps into what he has coined “the birth canal of the universe.” Call it whatever you want Mr. James because either way, we’ll be there for it when the lights go down and the first note is struck.

SANTA BARBARA BOWL

Setlist:
Never in the Real World
Lay Low
Compound Fracture
Least Expected
Mahgeetah
Feel You
Victory Dance
Gideon
Holdin On to Black Metal
I Will Be There When You Die
If All Else Fails
Tropics (Erase Traces)
Spring (Among the Living)
Steam Engine
I Never Could Get Enough
Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 1
Love Love Love
Complex
One Big Holiday

Encore:
In Color
Circuital
Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2
Wordless Chorus

HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY

Setlist:
Feel You
What a Wonderful Man
Off the Record
I Will Sing You Songs
Victory Dance
Evil Urges
Golden (dedicated to “Toto” from “The Wizard of Oz”)
I’m Amazed
Spring (Among the Living)
Complex
One Big Holiday
State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.) (Jim James song)
Love Love Love
Least Expected
Circuital
Dondante
Wasted
Dancefloors

Encore:
Wordless Chorus
Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2