Sunset Strip Music Festival: The Freaks Come Out During the Day, Too

View more photos in Timothy Norris' "Sunset Strip Music Festival" slideshow.

God bless the Sunset Strip. Hipsters can pooh-pooh it all they want as they ride their purple-tired fixed-gear bikes through Silver Lake, but for a sheer what-the-fuh!? parade of humanity, nothing beats the Sunset Strip.

Timothy Norris

Axl Rose and a leathered-up James Lipton take in the festivities at the Sunset Strip Music Festival. (Just kidding, that's not them.)

Steeped in a rock & roll Truth (currently ignored by whiny Conversed indie kids) that your Inner Rockness (the spirit) is directly proportional to your Outer Rockness (your tight leather pants, dangling earrings and impossible hairdo), The Strip will always fly the proverbial freak flag. On Saturday, the city of West Hollywood shut down Sunset from Doheny to San Vicente, the Sunset Strip Business Association threw a big-ass party, and a wild flock of Los Angeles characters showed up to rock in the streets.

Timothy Norris

Sisely Treasure of Shiny Toy Guns

West Coast Sound correspondent Lizzie Azran, a senior at Calabasas High, noticed that the SSMF eyewear choices were uniquely Sunset Strip-ian: "L.A. is infested with Ray Bans at every intersection. But at the Sunset Strip, my Ray Bans and I were undoubtedly the minority. Between the metalheads, bros, punks, Goths and the occasional indies, the clashing styles were a little overwhelming."

Lizzie Azran

The parade of humanity, Sunset Strip style

Unlike the two other late summer L.A. rock festivals of note, Sunset Junction and the FYF Fest, both of which cater their rock offerings to the indie and hipster crowd, the Strip music festival offered more hard rock, rap rock and heavy rock -- as well as a dose of hip hop, emo and pop rock. In other words, the Silver Lake contingency was greatly outnumbered by the dudes who used to beat them up in high school.

Timothy Norris

Ozzy has an army, and they did some field exercises on the strip on Saturday night

But then, what did you expect with a line-up that featured Ozzy Osbourne, Korn, Pepper, Kottonmouth Kings, Shiny Toy Guns, LMFAO, Shwayze and a host of wannabe or soon-to-be rap rockers?