Kevin Bronson on August 11th, 2013

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Far from trying to curate anything, or even connecting the present to the neighborhood’s rock ’n’ roll legacy, the Sunset Strip Music Festival last Saturday merely offered something for everybody. Fans responded with their pocketbooks and feet: The festival appeared more crowded that 2012’s Motley Crue-headlined party, although promoters put the attendance at the same figure as last year, 15,000.

• Photos by Carl Pocket [More galleries after the jump]

What did they get for their money?

There was the professional headlining set from future Stone Temple Pilots side project Linkin Park, one of those radio favorites with a long career of embodying nothing ”¦ A support set of crowd-pleasing bombast from AWOLNATION ”¦ Rap from somebody named Wale whose idea of crowd engagement was a call-and-response of the chorus “f*ck that b*tch” ”¦ Some Warped Tour-ready flannelcore (on the main stage!) from Finch ”¦ Whatever it is Street Drum Corps does ”¦ Slick Rick & Doug E. Fresh, sounding regrettably past their “use-by” date (though at least respectable, as opposed to Orgy) ”¦ A soundtrack to the douchiest fraternity party ever thanks to Asher Roth ”¦ And a host of side-stage bands who are long on prowess and energy but short on musical ideas.

The point is that this year’s SSMF, with a lineup your second cousin in Iowa who’s never heard of Pitchfork would love, could have been held at a parking lot in Fontana.

That the early-evening main-stage performance by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was as dynamite as it was almost qualified as a miracle. BRMC has been dispensing its druggy psychedelic blues for more than a decade now, and this year’s new album “Specter at the Feast” finds the trio kind of running in place. But at least it’s a good place, although by the end of their set you wondered if their taut performance might have been wasted on a crowd dominated by people waiting for AWOLNATION and Linkin Park. No way those people saw any irony in BRMC’s 2001 single “”Whatever Happened to My Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

If you wanted to find any artist who was moving the dial instead of pushing buttons, you had to be at the Viper Room’s Guitar Center Stage early in the afternoon for the set by long-underrated L.A. quartet Sabrosa Purr. It featured the band’s “original recipe” lineup – “extra crispy,” guitarist Jeff Mendel said afterward, noting the heat – of singer-guitarist Will Love, Mendel, bassist Angie Mattson and drummer Mahsa Zargaran. (Mendel and Mattson are involved in a major-label project that’s taking off and haven’t been available for many Sabrosa Purr exploits.)

Sabrosa Purr makes heavy music that straddles the metal, shoegazing and experimental worlds, with Love’s anguished vocals bawling for a place between his and Mendel’s dueling, shrieking guitars and the seemingly unflappable bottom end provided by Mattson and Zargaran. Even on a small portable stage in the afternoon heat, their set was mind-blowing, with Love venturing into the small crowd for a shredder standoff with Mendel. If SSMF were a battle of the bands, Sabrosa Purr won.

Later on the same stage, NYC’s the Last Internationale showcased its punk-influenced blues that, to the band’s credit, has strong political and social themes. (They just released “The Ballad of Trayvon Martin,” for instance.) Singer Delila Paz has a memorable quaver and a penchant for saying something with it, although the band lost the plot on this day with an overwrought cover of “The House of the Rising Sun,” which Paz dedicated “to the victims of FEMA, not just in New Orleans but all over the world.”

(If you were starved for commentary, Austin rapper Zeale, who has collaborated with AWOLNATION’s Aaron Bruno, did a winning job in his early-afternoon set as well.)

Elsewhere on the smaller stages, there were hits and misses. Young quintet Raheem Cohen displayed a diverse sound that’s best when they dial up some indie-funk. Andy Clockwise’s charm melted in the afternoon heat and backing tracks. Sad Robot’s blues-rock, very similar to Nico Vega and Queen Caveat, remains a work in progress. The Active Set’s ’80s flirtations induced sporadic outbreaks of dancing. Terraplane Sun’s pretend Southern psych-blues was tight, as usual. “Y’all.” Battle Tapes’ vocoded synth-pop was better than their guitar-based dance-rock. And the line was too darned long to get into the Roxy for Warren G, so we missed “Regulate” but we heard it was great.