Decided last minute to go to Coachella yesterday. Here is a summary of what happened.First, we got there and the parking was actually very close. Easy to get to, parking lot watered down to avoid dust and friendly people working the lines. They also passed out free earplugs, had lots of food options and water was only $2/bottle.
First we saw a few songs by Friendly Fires. They sounded pretty tight, had good energy and were fun. Then hit the DJ tent and danced a little to Shepard Fairey (decent) and Busy P (better)
Then went over and saw Brian Jonestown Massacre. VERY solid. I'd never seen them live and was impressed. Great, bluesy early Rolling Stones type stuff. I was neither here nor there on them before, but seeing them live won me over. No meltdowns, tight songs, fun crowd.
Next up was YeahYeahYeahs. They were amazing. Karen O is a FULL ON ROCK STAR. Came out with gold dress and gold sparkly stuff with some turquoise tights and her signature bangs. They played a lot off this recent album (which could be the best album of the year. Seriously. It's Blitz) and were the band playing as the sun went down. It's so dramatic being out there in the heat and then having the sun slowly set behind the palm trees and the temperature dropping about 15 degrees almost instantly. Very physical experience. So yeah, they were GREAT.
Then came My Bloody Valentine. I loved it. They played tons of stuff off of Loveless, which was one of the defining albums of the early 90's. Lots of swirling guitars, softly mixed vocals and loud, tremolo guitar. The last song contained a 15 minute feedback section. It was literally the same chord played over and over with a constant, insane drumbeat the whole time. One of the loudest things I have ever heard in my life. It was literally just a giant wall of noise. A lot of people hated it (and they have a right to, it was literally punishing to the audience), but I was fascinated. It went past the point of interesting and it became communal with everyone looking around at each other trying to figure out what was going on. You couldn't talk cause you couldn't hear ANYTHING over the sound, but you all were going through the same thing. It finally ended and they went off stage. Pretty fascinating.
Then the closers... THE CURE!
First time I had seen them live and they were awesome. Robert Smith looked and sounded great. It was a simple 4 piece setup with 2 guitars, drum and bass. No keyboards, few sequencers, no frills. Just straight ahead rock n roll sort of. Different than I expected, but really lean and tight.
Lots of deep tracks from all kinds of albums. Disintegration, Kiss Me..., Pornography, etc etc.
Then they came back for their encore and Robert said that they were going to play until we went home. Then they played a couple encores with old stuff like The Kiss, Forest, etc. and then after Fire in Cairo, they cut the main PA system and all the video monitors. Luckily we were only about 4 rows back and the band kept playing just through their amps. So could still hear Simon's drums and bass and guitars. They were playing Boys Don't Cry so the crowd just filled in all the lyrics for Robert. Then they started into Jumping Someone Else's Train. They literally were not going to stop until we went home!
After that, they had to turn their amps off. I can understand Coachella wanting to wrap it up, but way to go Cure for playing until the last absolute minute. They tried to get us to sing along to another one without any vocals or amps, but nobody could hear anything at all, so they finally had to leave the stage. Freakin' Rock n Roll thing to do. They looked good, played really tight, grabbed from all over their catalog and played until "the man" said they couldnt play anymore and then STILL played some more.
Overall, a well run festival, great bands and I will go back next year for sure. Wow.
posted by devin at 10:05 AM
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