Have fun, everyone. For the first time since 2003, I won't be there. Maybe I'll see you in 2012.
This is the WORST lineup I've seen in years. It's the only truly BAD lineup I've ever seen, I think. Goldenvoice is just trying to see how much money they can gross. And it's gross.
Glassjaw is one of the first bands to be confirmed for Coachella 2011. I can hear why. It's not like they had anything else going on that weekend. Or ever.
I don't know where these guys come from, or where they've been, but I feel the same way about the White Castle wrappers I sometimes find in the street. I'm a little curious, but I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.
These guys are nothing new, nothing original. At best, I'll be walking by them playing in the Gobi tent at like fucking noon on Friday when no one's there but their families and lesser-known skanks.
Happy new year. Yeah, so you bastards had the "integrity" to have some pseudonym'd fuck called "Bill Fold" call me and tell me, "Yeah, we really want to work with you, we really want your YouTube username, just tell us what you want."
So of course I offered something totally out of bounds because Goldenvoice is a bunch of assholes who like to make money and care about music only as a means to that end.
Well, after several months passed, I got the equivalent of a TSA pat-down without so much as a herpes-laiden smooch. They stole my username without even so much as asking if I'd care to be reasonable.
Well fuck 'em. The Coachella page looks like shit, and of course, they've got a link to MY YouTube account, which they raped me for.
I'm honestly not as bitter as I should be. When this happened, I decided that it was Goldenvoice, not Coachella, who screwed me. And I stand by that. Coachella is an amazing thing. But let us never forget:
GOLDENVOICE IS A FUCKING CORPORATION AND THEY WILL VIVISECT YOUR FIRSTBORN CHILD IF IT MAKES THEM AN EXTRA DOLLAR.
And beyond that, there's no countdown on the homepage, so I can't even tell you how many days it is until the festival. (And NO, smartass, I don't care to count. That's what Web pages devoted to major festivals are for.
All this aside, I've been realizing lately that this will be my tenth Coachella, and unless they do something really amazing (read: BOWIE, BOARDS OF CANADA, EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL, LAMB, TOM WAITS) I may be done with it.
So come on, you bastards, you can roll over the little guy, show me you still care about all the little people out here who are just waiting to see that one band they've never had the chance to see. Don't give us another fucking Red Hot Chili Peppers year. We need something big.
A few months ago, Goldenvoice, the ass-faced corporation (read: necessary evil) that promotes Coachella contacted me. Why? Because years go, I setup my username on YouTube as "Coachella." I'd never pretended to be the festival, it was just designed as my way to pay tribute to my favorite gathering of music and art.
So Bill Fold contacted me, and told me they wanted to take over the name. He realized I was a huge fan of the festival, and told me to make them an offer. I said I'd get back to him.
So of course, I called my friend George, an intellectual property lawyer. George told me that there was really no precedent for this, and that it would cost them at least five figures to write up an initial complaint. Based on this information, I asked for what I thought was fair (30 g's, legal fees, and me plus three to all Goldenvoice events forever). This was about three months ago.
So today, I tried to log into my account, only to find it had been suspended. When I went to my old account at www.youtube.com/coachella it was all theirs. They'd successfully fucked me out of my account, all my videos are gone, and there's pretty much nothing I can do about it.
Well, almost nothing.
My new username on YouTube (until it's taken away from me) is "goldenvoicesucks" and I made sure I was the first person to post on their little account.
Fight the power, even if it's with a garden hose against a gaggle of flaming assholes.
Before they dropped off the face of the Earth at the turn of the century, Mediaassassin's Little Helper and I flew all the way to Chicago solely for the purpose of catching their live act. And what a show it was. It was at The Abbey, and we meandered from the floor to the balcony and back as the 11+ piece orchestra wove dirge after dirge against a backdrop of multiple film loops playing behind them, some simultaneously.
It was probably the most expensive ticket for a show I've ever bought, and it was totally worth it. Despite the plane, hotel, rental car, and towing charges for parking in the wrong place after the show, it was all fine in the end.
Now this post-everything collective of musical alchemists is back, and they're playing in Hollywood this coming February. We will be there. And if you can handle the sheer ripping emotion that a show like this will bestow upon you, you should too.
It was all instrumental that night at The Abbey back in 2003, until the very end of the show when Efrim stood in front of the single microphone. The crowd fell silent.
"Right now, somewhere in Iraq, there's a kid holding a gun, he's got a house full of fucking furniture that he bought on credit. And right now, there's a woman in Iraq, she can't go outside her house to buy food because the bombs won't stop dropping. This song is for the two of them."
Usually, Sunday at Coachella is the day we wait for, the day we look forward to the most. Since the festival went from two to three days back in 2007, Friday has always been the weakest day, Saturday kicks it in, and Sunday is amazing. This has been the formula Goldenvoice has made work for the last three years.
This year, they flipped the script. And not in a good way. Sure, there were several acts I was looking forward to on Sunday, but when held up against Friday and Saturday, it paled in comparison. You could see it just looking at the lineup - there were huge spans of time near the end where there was only one pony in the race (the headliners, Gorillaz).
Sure, some of this was because of the volcano and the disrupted travel from Europe and the UK. Delphic and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, both of whom I wish I could have seen, both had to cancel. Neither Yann Tiersen nor Gary Numan could make the trip, either. We prepared ourselves for Sunday being an absolute loss, hoping for some minor miracle.
Spoiler alert: It wasn't a total wash. We started off watching The Middle East on the Outdoor Theatre, a band I'd researched before the festival. They're make extremely mellow, subtle music, reminicent of Sufjan Stevens and Iron and Wine. Usually this is a recipe for disaster at an ADHD-fest like Coachella, but it worked because they were the first band on of the day. I know I'm going to make some enemies when I say this, but that goddamn Do Lab has got to go. I'm not saying get rid of it, because it's a really good idea. However, during the band's more poetic moments, you could clearly hear the THUMP THUMP THUMP from the Do Lab. Castrate that motherfucker or at least move it far enough away that it won't mess up any of the acts WE PAID TO SEE.
Perhaps they could put it between the first and second security checkpoints, another stupid addition this year. I mean, it was great that they allowed ins and outs (how could they refuse when they're branding us with wristbands for the whole weekend?), but come on, people, two security checkpoints? At least the search wasn't too personal this year, as I could walk just fine after we got past them.
Next up was the dreaded downtime we had due to the aforementioned Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. If you know me, you know I've spent some time over there, and speak quite a bit of Icelandic. As an educational service, I'll now show you phoenetically how to prononce "Eyjafjallajokull":
fuh-KING vol-KAY-no
We headed off to Babasónicos on the main stage. As you might have guessed, they're a Spanish-speaking band, specifically from Argentina. While they weren't quite as engaging as last year's entry from that part of the world that also starts with a "B" (Bajofondo), they were quite good, and extremely diverse. Some of their stuff sounded really dark, some of it more traditional, but none of it sucked, which was refreshing. It's actually really cool to see a show where you don't understand a single word. Well, one word. "Pendejo." I like songs I can sing along to, too.
Next, we headed back to the Outdoor to get ready for Deerhunter. We caught about the last two songs from Owen Pallet. Again, very hard to define, but easy to describe. There were two guys on stage, a violinist (who I assume is O.P.) and a percussionist / pianist. The guy with the piano got something looped and then went back to the drums, while Owen proceeded to bow-beat the hell out of the strings of his violin. He also used it as a percussion instrument.
Next up, Deerhunter. There were some real award-winning assholes behind me for this show, but I did learn from them that the one guy in Deerhunter was Bradford Cox of Atlas Sound. If you've never seen the cover the Atlas Sound album Logos, you won't know what I'm talking about, but if you have, I can tell you, his midsection isn't photoshopped. He was wearing a jacket and said, "My doctor says I have to keep this jacket on so I don't go to the hospital." If you looked closely, you could see that there was almost nothing inside of his jacket, almost not even him. Cox apparently has Marfan syndrome, which is probably partially what drove him to be the creative tour-de-force he is today. I can't say I was blown away by Deerhunter, but as a band on the Kranky label, I bet I'll like them more on repeated listens.
Back to the main stage for Yo La Tengo we went. We got a pretty good spot, I don't think a lot of people knew who they are, they're sort of indie darlings, always the bridesmaid type of a band. And yet, they're usually really highly critically-acclaimed. I don't know if they just don't get no college radio airplay or if they just don't get no respect, but the crowd that did see them was treated to a pretty fantastic show, complete with psychedelic noise-guitar solos, all three band members singing, and even dancing at one point to You Can Have It All.
"We met Sly Stone backstage," Ira began, "and he asked us if we wouldn't mind dancing to the music. Normally, we never would, but..." All three members sang along to a prerecorded track, and Ira and James danced a little synchronized dance.
Next up was Jonsi on the Outdoor Theatre. Jonsi is the lead singer for Icelandic band Sigur Rós. I'm a big fan of SR, but for some reason, I didn't have high hopes for Jonsi. I actually kinda thought he wasn't going to show up, as the massive cloud of buzzkilling volcanic ash originated from his homeland.
I have no idea why I ever underestimated this man. I can tell you right now, this was the tear-up moment of the day for me. His voice is so pure, so clean and so controlled, you could practically hear a pin drop as he exulted this last song, which some angel captured and posted to YouTube:
Blissed out, we floated through the crowd over to the Gobi tent, where Sly Stone was supposed to be performing at 7:00. If you don't know anything about Sly Stone, you only need to know three things:
1. He's a funk legend. 2. He's infamous for blowing off gigs 3. To say he's a drug addict is like saying the antichrist is mean.
We're in a packed tent, chanting, "We want Sly! We want Sly!" as they ran through a meticulous soundcheck. At 7:05, we were informed that the show had been pushed to "a little later." The crowd booed, and I think everyone had a short "I knew it" conversation with a total stranger.
Being no stranger to workarounds and second choices, we headed straight back to the Outdo' to catch Phoenix. This was actually pretty cool, because we were both wishing we could have seen Phoenix. This band has several albums, and I'd never heard of them before they had a song in a car commercial recently. Once I heard that, I couldn't get them out of my head.
Apparently they're pretty popular, because we couldn't get anywhere near them. When they played their hit song 1901, I bet you could hear it over the thumping kick drum in the Sahara tent, nearly all the way across the field.
We waded through the crowd and the darkness to catch Orbital, a pioneering electronic act from the 1990's. I've always been taught to respect Orbital, and I even have some of their stuff, but I really didn't know what we were in store for. In a word, Orbital reminded me that I love good breakbeat music. They turned in a great set of chunky, shake-your-ass dance music, right up until the very end. Well, almost the very end. The last song they played was a remix of Belinda Carlile's Heaven Is A Place On Earth?! WTF!?!? They lost the ENTIRE CROWD! The only other thing I've ever seen similar to that is when Satoshi Tomiie trainwrecked three separate times at the Mayan.
We got into position for Thom Yorke's Atoms For Peace, a band featuring former Simpsons guest star Flea and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. Thom announced that they'd be playing every song from his solo album, The Eraser, and some other songs. While there were some great moments, and some of the songs sounded fantastic, the whole thing felt like a workaround. Like Thom Yorke said, OK, I've got this great STUDIO album, how can I translate that to a live environment?
Let me tell you, Flea detracted from it more than added to it. There were so many people who showed up expecting to see Flea as he usually is, jumping around like a goddamn jackrabbit, mugging and bugging out his eyes. There were some definite highlights, Black Swan sounded great live, and Harrowdown Hill was phenomenal. After the main set, Thom came out and did Airbag, just Thom and an acoustic guitar. After the most appreciative cheers of the night, he walked straight over to the piano and did Everything In Its Right Place, again just him and the instrument.
He brought back the rest of the band to play a few more songs, mostly songs they'd written to perform live. It was quite a difference, as these songs were specifically written with an eye to live performance, and Thom wasn't the only one in the room when they were written. Don't get me wrong, I love Thom Yorke, but his one flaw is he can't play every instrument live simultaneously.
After they finished, an announcement was made, "Ladies and gentlemen, completely unaffected by travel restrictions, Sly Stone will be performing at 10:45 in the Mojave tent."
We had written Sly off. We were all set to see Gorillaz on the main stage. We figured he just blew off Coachella, but something inside of us had to know. We made a decision, and while I stick by it, it was the worst decision I've made at any Coachella in nine years.
We arrived at the tent. It was pretty empty. We looked around, there were maybe a tenth of the people who waited for him at 7:00, when he didn't show up the first time. The soundcheck was epic, a bad sign, we knew. We waited. 10:45 came and went, then 11:00 and then 11:10. Finally, at 11:15, after the backup singers warmed up the crowd, Sly finally made it onto the stage. He was wearing some sort of wig and top hat that made him look like something out of Alice In Wonderland.
He dropped into a chair, told the band to stop playing, and began to inform us of all his legal problems, in a diatribe that lasted easily five minutes. The band kept trying to steer him to start playing, but he wanted to give us a preview of his "new material." He had the keyboard player dial through a series of patterns, stopping him after about 15 seconds of each one. "No, stop!! STOP!! Play the next one!!" he'd shout.
After about five minutes of berating the band, they finally got him to sing part of a verse of Stand. I thought it was ironic because the bastard couldn't. After a few more failed attempts, I turned to a guy in front of me and said, "Well, at least we all shared a moment." This was going nowhere.
Conner turned to me and said, "You realize this isn't going to get any better, right?" In our hearts, I think we all wanted it to get better, wanted Sly to get better, to snap out of the funk (no pun intended) he was in and just tear it up. But much closer to the surface, we knew that it just wasn't going to happen.
At 11:30 PM on Sunday, April 18, 2010, we called it. Coachella 2010 was dead.
Between the two of us, Conner and I have seen easily over 1,000 shows. We agreed that not only was this a gross oversight on Goldenvoice's part, but this was the worst moment in our concertgoing careers. Nothing else even came close. This was a shit-landslide victory. Congrats, Sly. You single-handedly took that wonderful feeling we get when leaving Coachella and wiped your junkie ass with it.
All we could do was drive home, anything but speechless on how we'd essentially been screwed out of our afterglow feeling. Thank god we had a cooler full of beer to help take our minds off of the travesty to which we'd just been subjected.
And so, rather than a pop, Coachella 2010 ended like the air being slowly, painfully and tortuously squeezed out of a balloon.
We're not beat. We're down, but in the end, we refused to let this deter us from looking forward to next year.
Yes, Coachella 2010 sold out this year. As far as I know, it's a first. They've had individual days sell out before (Rage Against the Machine, Prince, Pixies days' all sold out) but to my knowledge, the entire festival has never turned people away with such a bottom line. No ticket? Any other year it's "No problem," someone's always trying to get rid of a ticket.
Any other year.
Saturday started with our usual turf nap in the Sahara tent, alternately staring at the schedule and the ceiling. It's an easy life when you're in the shade, well-fed and -hydrated, and the day and the festival are both young. Still, we wondered, was it already a third over?
John Waters, the movie director, performed a monologue in Mojave at 1:00. I foolishly suggested we check it out, and in some ways I'm sorry I did. John Waters was hilarious, no question, but he is to hilarious what The Office is to comedy in a way, you're extremely uncomfortable, but you can't stop watching. At least The Office is safe for TV. I'm not even sure I can tell you what he was talking about here, and I'm fucking filthy.
OK, I'll tell you a few things (these aren't the worst by a long shot). He spoke of Divine, the transvestite actor in many of his movies. He talked about the infamous scene in Pink Flamingos (I won't describe it here, this is a family show, kids). Then he stated, "Even Divine had limits. When we met Richard Simmons, [Divine] told me he felt homophobic!" His greatest quote, "I used to teach in prisons, and most of my students were murders. I showed them Pink Flamingos, and they told me, 'You are fucked up!'" Some of the topics he covered (with all the modesty of a grandmother showing pictures of her offspring's spawn) were very specific gay subcultures ("Don't tell your parents you're a BEAR! That's just cruel!"), thoughts about celebrity necrophilia, and taboos that shouldn't be taboo. He was hilarious, but I felt like I was going to puke, so we moved on. WARNING: Do not watch this.
Next up, we checked out British band Porcupine Tree. I have a few good friends who really recommended their early stuff, but I checked out stuff from their latest, called The Incident. This is mostly what they played, and it's pretty hard stuff, folks. It sounds like Tool taken down a half a notch, with fantastic harmonies and keyboards like Pink Floyd. Apparently their new album is a double, and the first disc is one 50+ minute song. They put on a great show, and I overheard someone say, "If I see nothing else, at least I got to see Porcupine Tree and Fever Ray."
Of course, right after that we were told that yes, Frightened Rabbit didn't make it. Question to Goldenvoice: Did you explore the possibility of beaming these bands in from the other side of the volcano ash plume? There's this thing called The Innernets now, and if you've got more money than god (like you do, GV, come on), you can get it pretty much anywhere. Alls I'm sayin' is, if you didn't at least explore the possibility, that's strike two on you this year (see my review of Sunday's closing act for strike one with a bullet).
Buzzed over to catch the last song from Portugal. the Man. I think these guys are the first band to ever play Coachella from Alaska, but I could be wrong. They needed to take a break after they finished so they could mop up all the minds they melted in the Gobi tent, but it was well worth it. For only catching one song, this band is one that I'll definitely be checking out in the future.
We had some time on our hands, so we couldn't pass up a chance to see Jason Bentley live. Jason has hosted Metropolis on KCRW for years, but I'm not sure if it's still running or not. He spun some amazing housey stuff, including a remix of Radiohead's Everything In Its Right Place, and Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys. I'll check him out every chance I get, but I really wish I could figure out if he's still got a weekly electronic music radio show.
Next, we headed off to the Outdoor Theatre to dig ourselves in for quite some time. The Temper Trap took the stage at 4:00 and just owned the crowd. Apparently they're from Melbourne, Australia, which makes sense because someone was flying a gigantic Australian flag. But then again, someone was also flying a big Canadian flag and a big UK flag as well, so we had no idea where they were from. I guess the tip-off would have been when the singer, Dougie Mandagi, grabbed a hat and yelled, "You know what this says? It says Australia! This one's for Australia!!" I'm not sure how to describe them, other than sweet falsetto vocals and airy, ethereal guitars. A very interesting, unique and overall catchy combination, and they're fantastic live.
photo by M. Conner
Next up, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. I really liked what I heard from them before the festival, and they didn't disappoint me. They reminded me a tiny bit of Arcade Fire, with their many members and family-like feel to performance. But E.S's major chords are as plentiful as Arcade Fire's minor chords. ES&TMZ make extremely upbeat music that's a lot of fun to listen to, and you get the sense that they get at least as much pleasure out of performing it. Four members of the group, including Edward Sharpe, crowdsurfed during their performance. I wondered if this was them saying, We don't know when we'll be able to do this again, and we have the chance, so let's just go for it! They've got a bit of a doo-wop feel to them, despite the fact that Conner stated, "I didn't like it. I just don't like high school drama club music."
photo by M. Conner
Next up were The XX. I wasn't sure about them the first time I heard them, because I was led to believe that they were electronic, which isn't at all true. Well, it's a little bit true. They do have a percussionist who uses pretty much all samples to do the percussion, but he plays it live, with his fingers. The rest of the instrumentation is pretty standard rock band, and they did what they did well. I actually liked their live version of Crystallized better than the one on the album. It will be interesting to see what they do next.
photo by M. Conner
We jockeyed for even better position for the next act up on the Outdoor Theater, Hot Chip. I'm not sure why my expectations were so low. Maybe it's because when we last saw them in the Sahara tent, it was great, but we were pretty far back. This time around, they were on the second-largest stage, and we were right in front of the soundboard. I'm not going to over-analyze it too much, because they were mindblowing. These guys had the entire crowd moving almost involuntarily, their stuff is just so infectious, and they deliver it live with a punch that doesn't come through on their studio stuff. "It's great to see some of these electronic bands we used to see in Sahara (e.g., LCD Soundsystem) out on the main stages," Conner opined. I agreed. Hot Chip didn't ask if you wanted to dance, didn't care. In the end, you moved.
MGMT were up next, but we had needs to fulfill, so we did. Sadly, this had to happen as we were in line to get a killer spot. Even more sadly, those needs we filled didn't include eating food. Anyway, we got back into a spot where we could make a quick exit when it was time to get into position for Muse on the main stage. We caught the first five or six songs, which focused more on material from their new album, Congratulations. They did play 4th Dimensional Transition from Oracular Spectacular, and the last song we caught was Electric Feel, also from that album. I've heard their new record is much different than OS, and I'm willing to give it a try, but I wasn't totally blown away by the new stuff. Then again, I think it's hard for a band you know to bowl you over with new material live, even if it is, um, spectacular.
We broke away and weaved through the crowd to witness Muse. Muse is one of those bands that's absolutely bigger than Christ in most countries, but the US of A has yet to really embrace them. I really wondered if Muse could headline a festival like Coachella, despite the fact they have sold out a stadium as gigantic as Wembley (capacity? like 70,000) across the pond.
Again, low expectations weren't just shattered, they were DISINTEGRATED. These three guys are just exceptionally tight, talented, and they look like they're having a blast. Plus, their stage show was worthy of a Coachella headliner. They were playful, too, breaking into instrumental teasers from AC/DC, and even ripping the familiar intro to Bleach-era Nirvana track, School. Despite the fact that their video effects (which were fuh-nom-uh-null) cut out about 2/3 of the way into their set, they proved that they were the type of band that plays to that size of a crowd, all over the world, every night. I'm estimating about 15,000 of my fellow Coachellans were jumping up and down when they opened with Uprising, when they closed with Knights of Cydonia, and when a gigantic shower of sparks fell in the middle of the stage, between singer Matthew Bellamy at the front of the stage, and Christopher Wolstenholme (bass) and Dominic Howard (drums) at the back.
After Muse (which sure as hell didn't seem like it could have POSSIBLY been 90 minutes long), we headed over to Devo. I was really hoping we'd get a chance to check out at least a few tracks from Flying Lotus, but time moves in one direction, and it sucks more at Coachella than anywhere else in the universe. And yet, a choice had to be made. We stand by it.
Devo were great. I know they opened a lot of doors, and I know the guy who originally signed them probably got fired and deserves a lot of credit for bringing Devo to the world. They put on a great show with a fun video backdrop, and never took themselves too seriously. In short, they stayed true to form that night as they have throughout their careers. They did what they did, as no one else can do it, and did it well. The crowd lost their minds when they played Whip It (of course), and it sounded like the vast majority of the crowd knew the answer to
Q: Are We Not Men?
(for those of you who are curious, A: We Are DEVO!)
Overall, it was a blast, but I couldn't call it a highlight. Sorry to all the DEVOtees out there, and sorry to all of you who hate puns ;)
One thing I didn't mention about Friday before was the fact that getting out of the parking lot was like pulling shark teeth. Painful, time-consuming and stupid (much like Sunday closer, read on if the link is live). While it took us 20 minutes to get out of the lot Saturday night (thanks to Conner's redneck-in-the-Indy-500-like driving skills) and then 40 minutes to get fully free of the clusterfuck of traffic, Saturday night took only half of that. People in the lot were even generally good, letting in one car at every inlet. Luckily, we were able to bypass many inlets because of our fanatical devotion to get to the lot shortly after it opened, and therefore, get out shortly after returning to the car.
