Back from vacation, more on that later, but thought I'd write up my time at Coachella this year.
Coachella Music Festival:
I went this year and here's my take. It's awesome. Let's first leave out the bands. The site is the Polo Fields in Indio near Palm Springs. The place is like the size of 6 football fields. Maybe bigger. About 120,000 people could probably fit in there. It's Huge.
Sounds awful huh? Long lines for everything, the crowds everywhere, non stop elbows for hours and hours. Here's what makes it so cool, the fine folks at Goldenvoice sell out each day at around 50,000. Still a lot of people, but the place is so huge there is lots of room for everyone. The lines for bathrooms and food and everything were pretty short. It was awesome. In fact here is a word you may have never thought of when it comes to giant outdoor music festivals.
Relaxing.
I had a great time.
Part of it was that I wasn't working it for a radio station. No backstage pass, no broadcasting, no nothing, I was just a regular joe schmoe, my favorite thing to be. Being backstage the sound sucks, because the PA is all pointed at the crowd, you rarely get to see the band, and don't get to hangout with them. You get a free apple or bottle of water but that is about it. You get to hang out with security guards and other people like yourself. You miss "the show".
So all those BFD's I went to for Live 105 were cool and fun, but I used to have to ask friends about what band did what and who was good and who sucked. I spent most of the time wearing 1 or 2 sets of headphones talking to a board operator back at the station getting cues and setting up song sets and commercial breaks. Sometimes I'd look up and see a band sitting down to do an interview, I would open my notebook and find a bio and speed read it and do a quick 5 minute interview, play a song and that was it x 10 all day.
At Coachella I was just wandering around under a beautiful desert sky (I didn't go until early in the evening it was around 110 degrees during the day!) checking out the many stages and tents, no big crowds at any one place, everybody mellow and having fun. The fact that they limit the tickets to 50K (!) or so and have it at such a huge place and make everything easy to do (there were so many ticket takers at the entrance there was NO LINE to get in!) made my Coachella 2004 experience the best big show I have ever been to.
OK now a quick review of the bands on a 1 to 10 scale:
Pixies: 8
Good, and sloppy music, with cool lyrics. I love their songs, so glad they are back together. After their show you could buy a CD of the Coachella show for 25 bucks. I did and got a voucher, they said to come back in an hour and pick up a double cd of the show I just saw.
They seemed to get along just fine on stage. Kim Deal is a big girl now.
Radiohead: 6
I just watched a little of them to be fair. People loved them, but I wanted to walk around and see some other stuff. If you were a big Radiohead fan they did an awesome show.
Mindless Self Indulgence: 9
Who? I had no idea about this band until I wandered around during the Radiohead set. Crazy on stage. Like Queen meets the Cramps meets Red Hot Chili Peppers. I loved the live set. Saw about 45 minutes of them. A new favorite band of mine. They say they will have a new CD out this year.
Mark Farina: 8
Mark is a club DJ who put together a good set in the big tent before Kraftwerk came on. I love club music. It reminds me of nights at The Edge in Palo Alto, and The Palladium in San Francisco. Always a fun crowd dancing to creative sets put together by the house DJ's. We did a lot of promotions with The Palladium for Live 105. It was an 18 and up club so the crowd was young and it was always a fun upbeat crowd. It is kind of funny that back in those days the really hip 21 and up clubs were full of gloomy uber hipsters trying to out cool each other. The 18 and up kids at The Palladium were always having fun. Mark's set at Coachella was fun.
Kraftwerk: 10
All the shows I've ever been to (that's alot, I'm getting old) and this was the best and most unique show I have ever seen. I don't even know how to describe it. So read this review. Yes worth a 10. Amazing and beautiful show by Kraftwerk.
Air: 8
Jazzy, groovy, um French! They did a great set Sunday under a beautiful desert sky. They pull off their sound with live singers and instruments. It worked well.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: 2
I really wanted to like these guys. When they do their Stooges sounding songs they're great. I like that stuff. But their guitar strings kept breaking. They did a few songs acoustic (sucked) and plugged in just to break down again. They had about 45 minutes and spent much of it trying to get instruments to work. I'll see them again.
Flaming Lips: 5
I never "got" the Flaming Lips. Those that did seemed to like their show.
Mogwai: 8
A great live show. Hard to describe. Here is an Amazon reviewer describing the band:
"Moody, bombastic, brooding, loping, thunderous, austere, chaotic: heap on the adjectives as the young boys in Mogwai worm their way through a mostly instrumental set of guitar-heavy songscapes tinted with obscure samples and an occasional mumbled voice. Mogwai can transcend the distance between a loopy and delicate melody and a deafening and crashing crescendo in the space of a breath. Come On Die Young is a stunning, utterly original achievement."
Yea like that.
Danger Mouse: no review
Just heard a little of his set. Honestly not many were paying attention to it. Neither was I.
The Cure: 9
I love The Cure. Early pop, the long swirling jams, whatever. I'm not neutral. They are supposed to announce a tour this year with Mogwai.
Yep I missed A LOT of bands I wanted to see (The Killers, Death Cab For Cutie, The Stills, Howie Day, Stereolab, Jr. Sr., Cursive, Beck, Crystal Method, Paul Van Dyke, and on and on) but the daytime temps were well above 100. I didn't get there until the sun had gone down behind the big mountains west of Palm Springs.
all the bands and when they played
I'll be back in 2005.
Had a great time.
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