If your idea of a good festival weekend involves guitars, band stories and a few familiar names doing something unexpected, Orange County has a strong hand this October. Peter Frampton and Hollywood Vampires are bookending the Newport Beach Film Festival‘s music-documentary programming. A short drive south, Coast Film & Music Festival is preparing for Rainbow Body’s first gig, followed by Ben Harper and Amos Lee.
There’s a useful thread connecting the two festivals: musicians finding reasons to keep playing together. For Frampton, that means confronting physical limitations. For the Vampires and Rainbow Body, it means discovering what happens when established players form a new band.
Frampton’s story goes beyond the stadium years
Frampton, directed by his longtime bandleader Rob Arthur and produced by Dan Catullo, opened Newport Film Festival on October 15.
Its story reaches from the enormous success of Frampton Comes Alive!, career setbacks and the inclusion body myositis diagnosis that now threatens his ability to play guitar.
Arthur’s relationship with his subject gives the project an unusually intimate perspective. Reviewing the film after its Nashville screening, Neil Pond called it “a sprawling, emotionally rich salute”.
Interviews with Ringo Starr, Sheryl Crow, Cameron Crowe and others put that career in context. Upcoming screenings include Naples on October 24–25 and Rehoboth Beach on November 4.
Watch the official Frampton trailer on YouTube.
Hollywood Vampires bring the closing-night noise
Catullo moves into the director’s chair for Unleashed Spirits: The Rise of the Hollywood Vampires, Newport’s special-event closing-night documentary. Its West Coast premiere is scheduled for Thursday, October 22, at 8:30 p.m. at the Lido Theater.
Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp, Joe Perry and Tommy Henriksen are the central players. The film follows the band’s evolution from early rehearsals and recording sessions to huge live audiences, tracing its name back to Cooper’s 1970s drinking circle. The appeal is seeing those famous personalities negotiate the ordinary business of being bandmates.
Film Threat‘s Michael Talbot-Haynes awarded it 9/10, writing, “Catullo is a master at making the audience give a fuck.” For a taste of the music behind the story, revisit the Vampires’ cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” recorded at Berlin’s Hansa Studios. Depp takes the lead vocal, and the official video has passed nine million views.
Hollywood Vampires — “Heroes,” from Rise (2019).
Rainbow Body take their first songs to the stage
Friday, October 23, brings a different kind of premiere at Laguna Beach’s Irvine Bowl. Rainbow Body play their first show on the day their self-titled debut arrives digitally. The lineup joins Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Goose’s Rick Mitarotonda, Eric Krasno of Soulive and Lettuce, Ross James of the Terrapin Family Band, and Adam MacDougall of Chris Robinson Brotherhood and Circles Around the Sun.
Written in Topanga Canyon and recorded at Flóki Studios in northern Iceland, the eight-song album includes guests Nicki Bluhm and Oteil Burbridge. Lead single “Strange Memory” runs six and a half minutes; Atwood Magazine‘s Mitch Mosk calls it “bluesy, bold, and gloriously groove-heavy”, highlighting its guitar interplay and psychedelic textures.
Listen on Spotify · Watch Rainbow Body’s official “Strange Memory” video
“It’ll be so illuminating and satisfying to bring this material to life on a stage,” Taylor Goldsmith says in the supplied announcement. Bluhm joins Friday’s show, with Ignacio Maria Gomez opening.
Ben Harper headlines Saturday, October 24; Amos Lee closes Sunday, October 25. Donavon Frankenreiter, G. Love and Lily Meola appear both nights. Between the documentaries and that outdoor bill, there’s plenty here for anyone who likes following a band’s story as closely as its records. Coast’s website has concert tickets, festival passes and the current schedule.