10 best moments from the Life is Beautiful festival

The third installment of Life Is Beautiful was indeed pretty beautiful. The festival footprint was rather-friendly stages in close enough proximity that it didn't feel like you were hiking a country mile to make it to see each act, which were all scheduled, by the way, in a manner that didn't present much conflict. Granted, there were a few tough choices — missing Major Lazer to see Stevie Wonder, for instance, or passing on Chance the Rapper to catch Duran Duran — but all in all, we got to see everything we wanted to see.

There were plenty of memorable moments from the weekend, including when we ran into Life Is Beautiful's Rehan Choudhry on Friday afternoon, just as the festival was getting started. While the crowds were still streaming in and steam was almost visible on the sidewalk, we spotted him strolling through the parking lot at the Downtown Stage with his pal Kurt Melien from Live Nation.

After extending a brief but warm greeting, Rehan was off to stake out a prime place to catch AWOLNATION's set. It was refreshing to see the festival founder flowing through the festival grounds like the rest of us, a fellow fan with a big smile — clad in a Life Is Beautiful t-shirt of course. Here are some of our other favorite highlights and observations from Life Is Beautiful.

LIFE IS ... ER, WONDERFUL

On the first night of Life Is Beautiful, Stevie Wonder delivered the most dazzling set of the festival. Behind him in bold letters and hovering overhead on the peak of the stage, the festival's logo burned brightly, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, reinforcing a sentiment likely shared by everybody within earshot of the idol-worthy icon's mesmerizing vocals. Serving up stirring rendition after stirring rendition, Wonder more than lived up to his name, literally almost nothing untouched from his heritage of hits. Sounding every bit as excellent live as he is on record, Wonder satisfied with sensational renderings of "My Cherie Amour," "Signed Sealed Delivered I'm Yours," "I Wish," "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," as well as "Do I Do" and "Superstitious," which were presented as extended jams. And while Wonder would be wondrous with or without the accompaniment of other musicians, it most definitely didn't hurt that he was backed by a band of brilliant players.

VIVA LAS VEGAS!

Life Is Beautiful might as well be called Las Vegas Is Beautiful, as the festival ultimately served as a satisfying showcase for the entire city. While the marquee acts attracted fans downtown, while there they were exposed to all facets of the scene, from the burgeoning local acts beginning to bubble up to the surface at Container Park, to the emerging next level acts such as Shamir (more on him below), who shined brightly during his homecoming gig, along with Big Talk, the Killers offshoot led by Ronnie Vannuci, and EDM producer MIIC and Parade of Lights, back in town after dates with AWOLNATION, to the coronation of Brandon Flowers of the Killers and the ever effusive Imagine Dragons, who couldn't have been more admirably gracious (more on that below).

IMAGINARY FRIENDS

Unlike some other breakout bands from other cities who've risen to prominence and never

looked back, Imagine Dragons clearly hasn't forgotten its roots. Frontman Dan Reynolds took time to personally acknowledge and thank all of the people and places that carried them to their professional peak, a lengthy list that he delivered like an academy award speech over the course of the set. Reynolds presented props to everyone, from his parents to a friend who took the band's pictures for free back when the Dragons' career aspirations were still imaginary, from O'Sheas, Mandalay Bay and Caesars Palace, where the act played covers seven years ago when it was first starting out, to the Weekly and RJ, who devoted coverage to the band when it was on its way up. Early on in his career, Reynolds noted how a critic once opined that Reynolds tends to express too much gratitude on stage. That didn't stop him then and it sure hasn't stopped him now. The dude's grateful and he's convinced that he and his bandmates didn't get this far without some support.

A KILLERS SET FROM BRANDON FLOWERS

Although they literally just played a week ago at the iHeartRadio Music Festival across town at the MGM Grand Garden arena, since that was technically a radio fly-in event, it’s a safe bet that most of the Life Is Beautiful attendees weren’t on hand to witness that particular set. Since it had been a while since the Killers had performed in Las Vegas, fans were clearly eager to treat their ears on anything related to the hometown heroes, judging from the favorable response to Big Talk on the Huntridge Stage and the turnout for a mainstage solo set from frontman Brandon Flowers. Imagine, then, how stunned everybody in crowd was when Flowers lifted a fabric draping a keyboard stand, revealing the iconic “k” representing his band, as the outfit’s logo flashed on the screen behind him. As soon as this registered with the crowd, fans went crazy, even more so when Flowers bandmates appeared and they launched into a short impromptu set that kicked off with “Mr. Brightside.”

HIGH VOICE, HIGHLIGHTS

Shamir Bailey, a Las Vegas native, reportedly hadn't played in Las Vegas yet, and so his predusk performance at Life Is Beautiful on Friday night at the Ambassador stage served as the hometown debut for the critically lauded 20-year-old singer. This was reflected in his inexhaustible exuberance and his effusive banter, noting that he had penned one song in his underwear sitting on his mother's North Las Vegas couch. The slender songwriter made the most of his homecoming gig with a rousing set that had the crowd bouncing up and down with him, matching his boundless energy. Backed by a three-piece band -- the sparse configuration was sans guitar or bass and consisted merely of a keyboardist, drummer and backing vocalist -- Shamir shined brightly throughout the set, his helium-pitched croon propelling his propulsive brand of pop, a premium blend of deep '70s era funk and disco house, at times evoking a young Phillip Bailey sitting in with Cameo. Keep an eye out for this talented Las Vegan, whose star will no doubt continue to rise.

THE DURAN DURAN Q&A AND OTHER ODDITIES

Toyota was set up in a tent on the corner of 7th and Ogden, and like most corporate sponsored promotional efforts, the area was staffed by a cast of smiling faces shilling for the carmaker, handing out various tchotchkes. Yawn, right? Alas, though, the space also saw a couple get married by the emcee, ordained by the Universal Life Church, and hosted a few intimate performances by some of the festival acts, like New Politics and Night Terrors of 1927. It was also the site for an entertaining Q&A with members of Duran Duran on Saturday night, which had the guys fielding some curious queries -- like whether anyone has ever witnessed Nick Rhodes in his sweats eating Cheetos or whether the band had given any thought to collaborating with Robert Palmer, who actually passed away a number of years ago -- which produced the most quotable moment of the festival. When asked how the newfound interest feels now as opposed to the acclaim the band enjoyed in its heyday, one of the guys said, "I don't think we appreciated anything the first time around. We were entitled little bitches."

SMALL COVERAGE AREA

The unexpected and always gratifying part of the festival format is the cameos and covers opportunities they present. With regard to the latter, probably the most entertaining cover came courtesy of Imagine Dragons, who busted out a lively rendition of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the Proclaimers, as a nod to their salad days as a cover band on the Strip. The other couple of covers we caught kind of don't count as covers -- Snoop Dogg turned in a few bars from the remix of "P.I.M.P." by 50 Cent that he appears on, Duran Duran offered up their version of Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five's "White Lines," and Ab-Soul teased a couple of tidbits of "Jump Around" by House of Pain -- but they were noteworthy nonetheless.

IRONY, INTENTIONAL OR OTHERWISE

Life Is Beautiful was riddled with ironic moments, both on and off stage. The best scene featured two semi NWA-related spottings. First, we witnessed a gentleman high-fiving a police officer on his way out of seeing Meg Myers (who offered some irony of her own), followed by another fella who passed by a few minutes later wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the faces of Gordon Sumner, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, known, of course, collectively as the Police, over the words "F--- NWA." Myers, meanwhile, drew a highly favorable response to a song titled "I Really Want You to Hate Me." Oh, can't forget Slug from Atmosphere asking all the beautiful people in the crowd (at Life Is Beautiful) to be quiet during "God Loves Ugly" to thunderous applause. Finally, on the northeast corner of 7th and Stewart, in the heart of Life Is Beautiful, we spied a signpost pointing to the Downtown Beautification office, the homebase of a similarly named initiative which assigns traffic scofflaws to clean up the city streets -- near errant pieces of litter.

THE TROUBADOUR STAGE

When Life Is Beautiful organizers enlisted the folks at Insomniac to help with their event, they were hoping to tap into the promoter's keen dance music sensibilities in pinpointing talent, as well as injecting the festival with some of Electric Daisy Carnival's flair. Mission most definitely accomplished. Described as downsized version of the Circuit Ground stage at EDC, the Troubadour Stage was a beacon for bass worshippers that felt like it was beamed directly from the speedway during the blissful part of the summer for EDM fans. And the talent tapped proved to be worthy of the staging, particularly Jauz, who offered a preview of what will surely be a headlining set at EDC at some point.

COME EARLY, STAY LATE

While arriving early each day and staying until the end can be utterly exhausting for even the most seasoned and avid music fan -- we're talking three ten hour days of non-stop music, and for a lot of people, imbibing -- it's even more so in triple digit heat. Fortunately, the reward is great music. Those who arrived early were treated to standout performances from a steady stream of emerging acts such as Shamir, Leikeli47, Ab-Soul, Chance the Rapper, Lindsey Stirling, Big Data, Royal Blood, Future Islands, Meg Myers and Jauz, stellar sets from well established acts like Atmosphere, Snoop Dogg, Duran Duran and memorable sets by the mainstage closers that were moving, emotional and inspiring.

Read more from Dave Herrera at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at dherrera@reviewjournal.com.