Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival

My Mecca
Nobody died. According to the reports, nine people had to be hospitalized for heat exhaustion throughout the course of the day, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t all stuck in the desert shelling out $2 for bottles of water. But let me back up a bit.
The day began with ridiculously high temperatures and even higher expectations. After waiting for a small eternity in traffic, I caught the tail end of …Trail of the Dead’s set, but was too busy taking in the sheer enormity of my surroundings: kinetic art, fashion victims and an estimated 50,000 people commingled in a vain attempt to ignore the heat. The atmosphere was decidedly less communal than I had anticipated, as was the amount of public intoxication, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t catch a whiff of an L or two during MF Doom’s stellar set. With a main stage, a side stage and three tents strategically spaced apart, the only issue that arose was that of which band was most worthy of my attention. Death Cab for Cutie? The Black Keys? Beck? Most of these bands played before sunset, and thus were confined to background music, although the sound system was an aural delight - I could sit under a shady tent and observe most bands from a comfortable distance.
It’s a journalistic cliché to try and emphasize the seminal role that the Pixies played in independent rock, but suffice to say they put forth a flawless set. As the sun began to set, the climate became much more inviting and was perfectly suited for the bruised, barbed wire guitar leads of Joey Santiago. This was a reunion conceived of enthusiasm and not nostalgia, made manifest by their visible enjoyment in playing with each other again.
Toward the end of the night, the glowing centerpiece and reason for my pilgrimage, Radiohead, took the stage. It almost feels dishonest to try and describe how moved I was by their set, or describe what songs they played, or their inventive on-stage tinkering with music that is already as close to perfection as it gets. So I’ll stop there. The Pixies and Radiohead stole the show for me, and Kraftwerk was a brilliant parody of post-modernism, if such a thing exists; otherwise they’re as close as it gets to “Sprockets” incarnate.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. In the paper the next day Goldenvoice promoter Paul Tollett called the event “a magical experience,” and for once I think I can agree with a promoter. Here’s to a job well done.
- Raphael di Donato

Nowhere is Now Here
Triple-digit heat, six-figure weekend attendance, no shirt posse, $2 bottled water, hour wait just to get into the polo fields each day, another two hours to get out each night, heat stroke, $7 burritos, a nine-hour drive each way, tickets that cost a half month’s rent and one guy walking around both days in a lime green banana catcher Speedo completes the list of negative things about my weekend in Indio. Not bad considering the list of positives; I mean, most of that shit happens in Chico on Labor Day.
Despite the minimum half-hour wait for nearly everything inside the festival, I never saw anyone become agitated. When Beck caused a major traffic jam in the east corner of the field and concertgoers were tripping over one another, I saw people apologize and be immediately forgiven. In front of the other 10-plus members of Broken Social Scene, Emily Haines’ melting alto on “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” transformed thousands of sweaty faces into stupid shit-eatin’ grins. The Gobi Tent stage was packed 20 minutes before showtime to see Ian McKaye’s new band The Evens, and the humidity soared with so many sweating bodies in one enclosed place with little ventilation; nobody complained because Ian dominated that stage for 45 minutes with help from special guest Flea on the trumpet. The crowd’s patience was rewarded each night as both Radiohead and The Cure did extended sets in appreciation to the fans.
On my long drive home Sunday night, I saw traffic jams, people honking their horns, people hassling police hassling people, yellow ribbons tied to trees with signs saying “Bring the Troops Home,” and a huge number of engineers standing around heavy machinery out in the marshlands of Suisun Bay trying to figure out how their steel pipe that had been sitting in a salt-water marsh for years without maintenance collapsed, spewing upwards of one million gallons of diesel fuel into the bay. And in spite of what is happening in the world, or maybe because of it, festivals such as Coachella are important.
- Chris Bender

Great, Kinda
I jumped at the chance to go, but the reality of Coachella was a bit disappointing. While it did come through with a ridiculous number of great bands, it was mixed with inconvenience and frustration.
Upon arriving at the festival, the first thing to strike me was the sheer number of people. Approximately 50,000 people attended each of the festival’s two days. For the most part this wasn't too much of a problem, thanks to the five stages all playing everything from britpop to hip-hop and all varieties of DJs, which kept people spread out in the vast area of the festival. Of course, this all changed when one of the bigger name artists took the stage. At one point during the first day, Beck was scheduled to play in one of the smaller tents. I started heading toward the tent a bit before he was supposed to start, hoping to find a good spot. However, it didn't take me long realize everyone else had pretty much the same idea and that it was going to be just about impossible to even get near the tent, let alone inside of it. I decided to turn around and head toward another stage, which was a bit like swimming against a strong current as people continued to swarm toward Beck.
It didn't take me long to realize that there was no way I was going to come close to seeing even a quarter of the bands that were there. The schedule had approximately 80 hours of music happening over a 24-hour period, plus a film festival, arts and other activities. The most frustrating moment was having to miss quite a bit of The Cure to see Le Tigre play. I'm still wondering what kind of a genius decided to put both those bands on at the same time.
By the end of the festival, I - sweaty and exhausted from trying to take in as much of it as I could - was left wondering if it was all worth it. Not only was I physically and emotionally spent, but overpriced food and water (not to mention the hefty ticket price) had also taken a toll on my bank account. Even though I didn't get to see all the bands I wanted to, I did see a lot of really great music and generally had a good experience. The Cure, Radiohead and Le Tigre were amazing, but that goes almost without saying. Muse and Bright Eyes both surprised me with great performances and there are more bands than I have space to name that were great. If next year’s Coachella has as good a lineup as this year’s, it will be difficult to decide whether it’s worth the money and the hassle. On the other hand, this year’s Lollapalooza is shaping up to be pretty good and hopefully much less expensive.
- Chris Schreiber

The Absolute Shittiest Things about the Festival of the Year
There is nothing more loathsome than financial exploitation perpetuated by the wealthy at the expense of a captive populace, held under coercion with no regard for their health or livelihood. No this isn't about the WTO.
Coachella was a great place to be a music lover, but a miserable place to be a human being. Misery came mostly from that bitch Mother Nature, but promoters Goldenvoice didn't do a thing to help their constituents, who brought in $7.5 million in ticket sales. Instead they milked their desperate captives for every cent left.
The two-day festival peaked at 103 degrees. Shamefully, Goldenvoice kept out all outside bottled water at the request of the on-site bottled water vendors. No outside water on a 103-degree day in the arid desert? At an event that encourages bringing children by admitting ages five and under for free? And to continue the water ban on Sunday despite the fact the same vendors who requested it ran out of water to sell on Saturday? Bullshit.
We were some of the several thousand festival goers who camped on two polo fields adjacent to the event. Twelve hours of bands and DJs? No problem, when we need a break we'll just go to our tent and break off a sandwich, right? Wrong. Any dive bar will stamp your hand to go hump in the alley behind the 7-11, but no ins and outs at Coachella. Once they had your hungry heat-stroked ass bouncing around from water line to food line to first aid line (yes, there were lines there too) they weren’t about to let go. I figured they would encourage us to buy food there, but entrapment? Bastards.
So the campers were split into two campgrounds, and there were several thousand waiting on Friday night before the festival to get into each area. I don’t know if it was Goldenvoice or the local fuzz, but someone had a hard-on to search every person, any time they passed the gates. Understandable, but you'd think they'd hire more than four mall-cops to carry out the task. Three hours in line. The rest of the local police force spent their time weaving through tents on go-karts looking for illicit Olympia and Beam. If I may - assclowns.
I love the cell phone. It is handy for finding your friends among 50,000 people. Goldenvoice knows the cell phone and offered a service that text messaged concertgoers with fun tidbits like set times, weather updates, traffic and other obvious shit. I don't know if they decided the middle of the desert had the communications infrastructure of a small city, or if they just neglected to install more cellular service for the event, but some dick-hole dropped the ball. Constantly text-messaging as many as 50,000 people, while those people are already calling each other a lot, networks get tied up quite a bit faster. Bunch of lost, sweaty, thirsty people trapped inside a polo field walking around with their phone in the air, dialing and re-dialing, wondering why all the circuits are busy.
Leaving the festival Sunday night we passed exhausted youth panhandling for gas money home. Sorry kids, I'm saving my change for concert DVDs and enough Penta to get me through 2005.
- Andrew Blackadder
- Photos by Chris Schreiber

Bookmark:

Comments down for maintenance.