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Wonderfront festival concludes with a bang, thanks to The Roots, Beck and Steel Pulse

SAN DIEGOSAN DIEGO — Was the third time the charm for the Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival, which concluded its 2024 run Sunday at downtown San Diego’s Embarcadero Marina Park North with show-stopping performances by The Roots and Beck?

This was the third edition of the homegrown music marathon, which debuted in November 2019, then went dark in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic shutdown. Wonderfront returned in 2022, with a lineup that included Gwen Stefani and Zac Brown Band, then was dark again in the fall of 2023 to pivot from its late fall dates to Mother’s Day weekend this year.

Photo Gallery: Wonderfront 2024

Adding to the challenge, Wonderfront’s return this past weekend came as a record number of far more established festivals around the world have been canceled or permanently shelved. Even Coachella — the world’s most successful and lucrative music festival — saw attendance dip for the second consecutive year after more than a decade of repeated sell-outs.

Of course, building and sustaining momentum is a challenge for any recurring live-music event, let alone an annual festival held just three times in six years and now has a new owner, the La Jolla-based Events.com.

But this year’s streamlined iteration of Wonderfront, while not free of some logistical snafus, was a notable improvement over the 2022 edition. The festival alongside San Diego Bay — on multiple stages and a very large, multilevel boat — succeeded this time on both artistic and commercial terms.

A sold-out audience of 15,000 attended Friday, when the hip-hop and electronic dance music-focused lineup was topped by Kaytranada, JID and T-Pain, whose afternoon set drew an especially large crowd.

Saturday’s audience was nearly as large, with a crowd of 14,200 turning out to hear a lineup that included Weezer, Carly Rae Jepsen and the show-stealing Dominic Fike.

Sunday, which drew slightly more than 10,000 attendees, saw The Roots, Beck and Steel Pulse each score repeatedly — on the same day the San Diego Padres drew a full house to Petco Park for the team’s 4-0 victory over the Dodgers.

Formed in 1975 in Birmingham, England, the reggae band Steel Pulse was the most veteran act of the weekend. Founding member David Hinds expertly led the band’s latest iteration through a thoroughly engaging set that included such durable favorites as “Steppin’ Out” and “Your House.”

“For a lot of folks, Sunday was out best lineup of the weekend. But there are so many people who couldn’t make it on Mother’s Day,” Wonderfront Managing Partner Paul Thornton told the San Diego Union-Tribune Monday afternoon.

“So, for next year, we have to figure out how we can program that day to make it work better. But, wow, we got over 10,000 people Sunday on a weekend that the Padres had over 130,000 attend their games here.”

Tighter focus

Where the two previous editions of Wonderfront each day showcased artists representing an array of sometimes disparate styles, this year benefited from a more focused approach that generally emphasized a few specific genres each day.

The result was a welcome sense of cohesion, while still including an ample degree of variety. And the festival’s mix of established headliners with up-and-coming young artists — including Memphis rapper Healy on Friday, punk-rock, the jazz-adjacent Candian band BadBadNotGood and hip-hop and punk powerhouse Fike on Saturday, and English neo-soul singer Samm Henshaw on Sunday — provided a welcome opportunity to discover worthy new talents.

Of the veterans who performed Sunday, The Roots and Beck each soared.

Co-led by drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and rapper Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, The Roots have been the house band on TV’s Jimmy Fallon-hosted “The Tonight Show” since 2009. But The Roots have been a favorite of enlightened hip-hop fans since not long after forming in 1987.

At Wonderfront, the nine-man band started in high-gear and built from there. Its repertoire mixed such Roots’ staples as “What They Do” with Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie,” Donald Byrd’s “Change (Makes You Want to Hustle),” Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up,” and more. During Captain Kirk Douglas’ exctremely well-constructed guitar solo, he tipped his hat to — in order — Chris Isaac’s “Wicked Game,” Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things” and Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” in a way that flowed and made sense.

Equally impressive was the subsequent drum and percussion duet by Thompson and Stro Elliot, who deftly played a Maschine, a MIDI controller and digital drum machine with 16 pads.

It was a groove-happy master class in the art of creating musical propulsion. The Roots’ set was so fiery and meticulously constructed to achieve dynamic tension and release that the following sets by Southern blues-rocker Marcus King and indie-folk-rockers Mt. Joy, while well-played, were anticlimactic.

Happily, the headlining set by Beck provided a rousing conclusion to the 2024 edition of Wonderfront. From the powerful opening number, “Devils Haircut,” to the high-voltage conclusion of “Where It’s At,” he and his terrific four-man band deftly mixed rock, hip-hop, blues, psychedelia and more into a potent mix.

They also delivered Beck’s Prince-inspired, falsetto-fueled ballad, “Debra” — from his 1999 album, “Midnite Vultures” — at almost exactly the same time English vocal star Natasha Bedingfield received a rapturous response for her version of Prince’s “Purple Rain” on another Wonderfront stage.

Beck playfully added San Diego references to the lyrics of several of his songs. Commenting on Wonderfront’s location between San Diego Bay on one side and a marina on the other, he joked: “I can almost hear the yacht rock from here. Not coincidentally, a number of men in the audience were sporting sailor captain hats.

Looking ahead

Thornton, Wonderfront’s managing partner, predicted smooth sailing for the festival in 2025. And he spoke enthusiastically about the event’s third edition in six years.

“It’s been a journey, but we feel really good about where we are,” he said. “And, in Events.com, we have a great partner that cares more about the experience we provide to attendees than the bottom line.”

Thornton acknowledged the festival had some snags over the weekend, including long food, drink and Porta Potty lines. There was also an hour-long wait at the front gates Friday afternoon, when thousands of fans seemed to arrive concurrently for singer and rapper T-Pain’s performance.

That backup was prompted by the large number of festival-goers who apparently did not read the emails sent to each ticket-buyer listing items they were prohibited from bringing in with them.

“We just need to educate people better, which we will do for next year’s festival,” Thornton said.

Asked if adding more entrances might mitigate the flow of people onto the festival grounds, he noted that Embarcadero Marina Park is a narrow sliver of lad with water on three of its four sides.

“The more entrances you have, the more emergency exits you need,” Thornton said.

The first two editions of Wonderfront included ticketed stages at Seaport Village. By eliminating those stages this time, it was easier for attendees to get from stage to stage. And with a capacity of 15,000 per day, Wonderfront feels like a reasonably big event in a relatively intimate outdoor setting.

By building on what worked this year — and on what can be improved — the festival’s return in 2024 should be a welcome one.

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