It’s hot, dusty, dry and generally inhospitable. It’s not quite the middle of nowhere, but the overwhelming heat of the midday sun makes it seem impossible to get anywhere. It’s expensive, exhausting and exceptionally loud, and yet every year it draws a crowd thousands strong, often selling out.
It’s the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival, marking the beginning of the year’s festival season and dehydrating dedicated music lovers from around the world.
Located on the expansive lawn of Indio, Calif.’s Empire Polo Fields, the festival attracts fans of all styles of music, with five live stages starting from just after noon until midnight to satisfy even the most voracious musical appetites.
This year Coachella took the experience one step further, adding an extra day of performances, making the festival more similar to the summer’s three-day Bonnaroo festival.
Coachella is an eye- and ear-opening experience, so much so that festival attendees might walk through the exit gate on the final night struggling to remember the answer to, “Who’d you like best?” Given a moment to regroup, however, it would be hard for even the most cynical hipster to say she didn’t have a good time.
This year, like the two before, I made the trip to Southern California to see what Coachella had to offer, this time charged with bringing back a story worth reading about. What follows is that story, alternately titled “Thomas Hears a ‘Holla!’”
My trip began on Wednesday night, when I drove to Portland to spend the night before our flight to Ontario, Calif. After scrambling to get everything packed between classes, the time came when my traveling companions, Meg and Michaela, picked me up. I hopped into the back seat and nestled up against the thumping car speaker. I called it preparation for the weekend to come.
After our overnight stay in Portland we were well-rested, well-fed and well-ready to be on our way to the site of our weekend. We made our way to the airport, where we parted ways to board our three separate flights. This traveling arrangement complicated the pick-up and drop-off a little, but afforded me the chance to sink back into my headphones and to meet the first of the memorable faces on my journey.
Her name was Joy, and she had the window seat in my row on the connection from Salt Lake City to Ontario. I usually have trouble striking up conversation with the strangers I sit next to in transit, but Joy began by chiding me about my position in the middle seat between two women, and from that point on we were “single serving friends,” to use Chuck Palahniuk’s apt terminology.
She told me about her children (One of her sons is the face of Gucci, formerly of Ben Sherman. Another just bought a plane.), Utah’s outdoor offerings (We flew over what she said was one of the largest open copper mines in the country. She also spoke highly of the hiking and skiing the area offers.), and her experience growing up in Rhodesia, better known nowadays as Zimbabwe.
After this brief but pleasant encounter I found my friends, now joined by a third, Justin, the man who made the whole trip possible. He rolled up to the airport with a trunk full of camping gear, our tickets in his fanny pack, sunglasses on and sun roof down. After marveling at his matched tie-dye shirt and shoes, I got in the car and we were off, first to his place at Pitzer College, and eventually to our campsite on the Polo Fields.
But, in my experience at least, no Coachella trip is complete without some difficulty on the drive there. This year’s obstacles began with the driver’s side rear window on Justin’s car. It refused to roll down, a problem in a place as hot as this. After a little fiddling and a little more force the window came down – permanently. We scratched our heads, asked a mechanic, and, upon hearing his diagnosis, bought duct tape.
After refueling the car and refilling our stomachs, we got on Interstate 10 and headed for Indio. Meg’s seat behind the driver turned out to come with a little too much wind for her taste, thanks to the faulty window. Curled up with her hood to the rush of cool air, she didn’t complain until we got lost on the streets of Indio. This was certainly a Coachella trip.
After a brief stop at the Indio ampm, the place to be for screeching tires and the odor of burned rubber at 2 a.m., we righted ourselves and were flying kites in the campground parking lot in no time.
The lot was full of happy faces, all excited for the three full days ahead of them, and our party fit in perfectly. After trading a cigarette for a few minutes holding a kite, we loaded ourselves up like burros descending into the Grand Canyon, minus the fat tourists, and made our way into the campground.
After the inevitable struggle setting up our tents, we slumbered peacefully until the sun rose over the first day of Coachella, bringing with it a sweaty awakening – a taste of things to come.
We did not yet have our schedules, but decided to mosey into the event site around 1:30 p.m. on the inkling that Flosstradamus was set to perform, the first act of the day. The two-man DJ crew was a good start to festival season, lacing together dance tracks at first, then playing instrumentals for Kid Sister, a female MC who is actually one of the DJs’ younger sister.
After their set we had time to eat some overpriced food and take a break from the sun under one of the numerous white shade canopies before moving to the second must-see of the day, Digitalism.
The electro duo put on a more exciting performance than many of the electronic acts at this year’s festival thanks to its use of electronic instruments instead of DJ tools. Digitalism was loud and dirty, and it made people move.
The day continued with The Jesus and Mary Chain, who sounded as relevant as ever, even playing twenty-year-old songs. Hearing “Just Like Honey” live was almost too much to handle.
Following The Jesus and Mary Chain on the main stage was Interpol, as dark and moody as ever, and as slow. I sat on the grass and tried to recover, eventually standing up for some song or other from “Turn on the Bright Lights.” It might seem irresponsible of me to forget exactly which song – I believe it was “Obstacle 1” – but shortly after I stood up I was distracted by a man with a camera and lost track of the performers on stage.
It turned out this man with a camera wanted a picture of the shirt I was wearing, a shirt my friend and I happened to print ourselves, and eventually gave me his contact info to get in touch about selling the shirt in a reputable store in New York and Los Angeles. Coachella can make for a memorable weekend, and not just because of the music.
Following such a flattering and unexpected encounter, Justin and I made our way toward the Outdoor Theatre stage, to take in DJ Shadow, who we hoped would provide a clinic on cutting.
Unfortunately, Shadow didn’t get underway until long after his scheduled start, and we ended up missing what we heard was a visually amazing performance by Björk for an uninspiring DJ set.
I sat down and soon fell asleep on the grass, waking up just long enough to make the trek back to the tent, where I soon crawled into my sleeping bag and went back to sleep. The first day of Coachella was over. We slept soundly, hoping the best was yet to come tomorrow.
The desert heat woke us up before we were ready to stir once again, but this time we had a lot to look forward to, with some of the artists that made the tickets worth buying set to perform, and fresh off a solid first day.
We hung around the campsite until just before Hot Chip began, and the band’s performance was one of the highlights of the festival, providing just a taste of the dance party to come. The set would only have disappointed Hot Chip fans who prefer the band’s softer side, because the members altered some of these songs to be more day-time appropriate and dance-friendly.
Next up was the section of the festival I most wante
d to see: five separate sets, one stage, approximately seven hours of the year’s finest dance music. MSTRKRFT, Busy P and DJ Mehdi, Justice, LCD Soundsystem, and the Rapture, were due on the dance tent’s stage in order. I could barely contain myself.
MSTRKRFT brought its handclap-rich house to a packed tent, and absolutely killed. Two mustachioed DJs chain-smoking behind a black MacBook doesn’t sound like the most exciting stage show, but the music made up for a visually ordinary set. They closed with an unreleased remix of Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.”
Ed Banger Records’ Busy P and DJ Mehdi put together a good, not great, set in front of a big, not huge crowd. By the time the French DJs exited the stage, the crowd had grown and condensed in preparation for their high profile label mates, and as stage techs wheeled Justice’s stage set out, the tent was abuzz with talk of the sheer magnitude of what we were about to witness.
The set was perfect Justice. Perched behind a pulpit of blinking electronics, cradling Justice’s signature light-up cross, and framed by two batteries of Marshall loudspeakers, the duo performed without a word, choosing to communicate with the crowd with kick, snare and static. The message came through loud and clear: We are Justice, we are loud and we promise you can’t help but dance.
We took a brief break from the music, choosing to eat prior to LCD Soundsystem, who, from what I saw, put on an excellent show that saw James Murphy joined by his live band. The Rapture followed, sounding slightly low-energy compared to the Ed Banger boys.
I slept that night even sweatier than the night before and, having earned that filth dancing, I didn’t mind.
The final day of Coachella found us disappointed that it would all end soon, but determined to make our last day at the Polo Fields a good one. Mika was first up, followed by Tapes ‘n Tapes and a short glimpse of an unenergetic Grizzly Bear.
The highlight of the afternoon came with Soulwax Nite Versions. They were the loudest act I saw, and I couldn’t help but try to talk with my neighbors about how amazing some of the noise they made sounded at that volume.
Just after Soulwax I ran to see CSS, in large part because of the onstage antics of its frontwoman Lovefoxxx. She did not disappoint, but CSS’s performance was outmatched for energy by UK new rave act the Klaxons, who played loud, fast and probably inebriated.
Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays left the crowd nothing to guess about, as he provided a prime example of how a drunken musician ought to carry himself. In between classic Happy Mondays material he cursed at his band and made self-deprecating comments about the performance. All this attitude detracted from the music, but when they got around to “Step On,” everything dropped away, and the band sounded perfect.
The night, and the festival, was winding down, and as the majority of the crowd flocked to see Rage Against the Machine reunited, I made my way into the small gathering of people waiting to see Baltimore’s Spank Rock. They must have been conscious of competing with Rage, dishing out 55 minutes of flashy, fun dance party, complete with fly girls and djembe drummers.
The festival concluded with the same energy as it began, and while I was sad to see it go, I was happy with who I’d seen it and how I’d spent my time, strangely sure that the musicians I so loved loved me back, if only for the weekend.
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