Coachella

[benos]

I'll be leaving Friday afternoon for Coachella. Whohoo!!! Two days of solid music, with Radiohead headl Anyone else going?

be

[tightloop]

guess I am older and way less in the know musically than I thought. WTH is Coachella?

[diehli]

http://www.coachella.com/main.html

[ErikW]

Pixies are my #2 favorite indie band (behind the Replacements). Kraftwerk oughta be cool. I haven't heard of 90% of those artists. I finally got a long-term custom member title from And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, which is one of the all-time great band names.

With all those artists I gotta wonder how long the sets of the headliners are. Radiohead, Pixies, Kraftwerk, the Cure, and the Flaming Lips all have big catalogs and could each do "an evening with" set. It would suck to get a half-hour of Radiohead and two songs from Pixies.

[benos]

So I checked out the Trail of the Dead, in your honor. They started out very good, but then kinda faded a little. But they left you with the feeling that "it might be cool to check out an album."

Basically, the event was a nightmare. I could go on (and on and on), but just to highlight a few - It was hot, stinking hot, and there was no escape. Even after you managed to get to sleep in the campsite, by 9:00 am you were busting out of the van cause it was just too hot to sleep any longer.

They wouldn't let you bring in any of your own water, even if it was in a sealed bottle. But of course you could buy water, in little 16 oz bottles for $2.00. But it was such a hassle to get it - go nowhere near where the band was, stand in line, that eventually you just preferred to dehydrate. And then it was impossible to keep consistent buzz going, because you could only drink in the beer areas, where you paid $6.00 for maybe a 14 oz Heineken, which of course were nowhere the stages were.

Some real genius must have scheduled the bands, because, as we worked our way to see Beck, we realize he's playing on more like a "side" stage, which was really more like a giant tent. Well of course just about every person at the event wanted to see Beck too, and why they didn't put him on a main stage you'll have to ask the scheduling genius, so you couldn't even see the stage must less him unless you were directly in line with the stage, because he was in a tent. So finally we decide to work our way around to the back, even if were a mile away, at least we could see something while listening to his acoustic set. Well guess what, you couldn't hear absolutely anything at all of Beck. Why? Because the genius scheduled him between two hip hop or rap bands, one on each side of him. So we couldn't even hear him, at all. That was so irritating. And I can't imagine he was too happy either. I could go on,

However, there were two good things - The Pixies and Radiohead. The Pixies played an awesome, hard set. It was unbelievable. When they were done you couldn't ask for any more. It was that good. Then Radiohead followed, and holy crap were they awesome. Those guys are doing something no one else is doing. They must be from another planet. I found myself in denial, for the second time, that actual human beings are playing this music. So in the end, I have no regrets about going to the show, because the Pixies and Radiohead made it worth it. But I'll definitely never go again, even if someone gave me tickets. Over the years I've just seen too many good shows at better venues. It was just too much.

It didn't take to realize that just surviving the day was gonna be the challenge. Then you didn't have any energy to party after the show. By the time we got to our campsite, we just wanted to go to sleep so we'd have some chance of surviving the next day. Then on Sunday, we just had to go to sleep because we had to get up early and drive back to Phoenix, in 100+ degrees with no A/C. But I was back on the job by 1:00, to help big Joni with today's orders.

And can you imagine - 3 days in 100+, all day long, camping, no showers. Whew, was I ready for a shower when I hit Tempe.

good night,

be