Almost Famous|Andaz West Hollywood — The Riot House, Playing Itself

When Stillwater reaches Los Angeles, the film checks them into the Riot House, and for once it does not have to pretend. The hotel at 8401 Sunset Boulevard is the building that touring bands actually gave that name in the early 1970s — the Continental Hyatt House, where the balconies over the Strip earned their reputation honestly and more than one road manager settled the damage bill on the way out.

It is the Andaz West Hollywood now, renovated and considerably calmer, but the shape has not changed. A plain white slab standing above the curve of Sunset, every room facing the street behind its own narrow balcony. That stacked row of balconies is the whole point. The camera keeps returning to them because they are where the private business of a band becomes visible from the sidewalk below.

William's Los Angeles is written from inside those rooms: corridors, room-service carts, doors that open onto other people's arguments, a fifteen-year-old taking notes on people who have forgotten he is a reporter.

You can stand on the public sidewalk across Sunset and take the elevation in exactly as the camera does, no reservation required. The bar and the rooftop are open if you want to go up. What is worth noticing from street level is how ordinary the building is — a mid-rise hotel on a busy road, carrying a whole decade of rock mythology on the strength of its balconies.