Posted by Icky (24.24.168.81) on May 04, 2004 at 20:59:50:
Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival 2004 Update
(Or, ¡§I went back to Coachella, and my Festival was gone¡K¡¨)
Anyone who¡¦s been paying enough attention on this site long enough knows that every year my ol¡¦ lady & I make our annual pilgrimage down to the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival to get our fill of blazing, desert sunshine, chemically-induced euphoria and the best collection of what¡¦s offered in music of today. And I usually give my two cents as to what I thought of the whole shebang, so here it goes:
After sitting in crawling, Friday-rush-hour traffic for five hours (which should¡¦ve only taken TWO hours - ƒ¼), We met up with our friends in Desert Hot Springs, just North of Palm Springs. We were actually spending the weekend in Palm Springs, which is twenty miles North of Indio, where the Festival is held, but we were tired & they had a nice pool that we could party at & booze & stuff, so¡K
Saturday morning we met our friends for Brunch and then headed down to the show. After side-stepping the traffic lines with a little clever driving on my part (and in no small thanks to a map of Palm Springs & it¡¦s outlying areas) we parked in the farthest of the vast, grassy parking lots (which, after the weekend was out, turned into vast, dusty parking lots). We made the mile (I¡¦m not exaggerating) ¡Vlong hike to the venue, and with minimal security hassle, were inside the Empire Polo fields, home for the past six years to the Festival.
Oh, and did I mention that it was 105 degrees on Saturday?
Now, I had heard that the Saturday show had been sold out, which, if you had been to the show before, seemed like an impossibility, considering how gigantic the venue is. Upon walking into the field, I was immediately aware of the difference . I could tell almost instantly that there were WAY more people this year than in any year past. I have a few theories as to why this happened:
A. KROQ, a local L.A.-based ¡§Alternative¡¨ (Alternative to what ¡V GOOD music?) Radio Station, had been plugging the SHIT out of the show for the past three months.
B. The Pixies were playing together again after being broken up for what, ten years?
C. Radiohead, The Cure, Kraftwerk (also, after not playing like, forever) and The Flaming Lips were all on the bill.
D. Finally, I think this was the year, after many years of Coachella being this sort of quaint, little secret, hidden away in the Desert like some utopian jewel, for it to blow up; it had been talked about through word-of-mouth for years now, and it finally reached it¡¦s boiling point with the aforementioned points coming together.
O.K.. So, Highlights of the weekend:
Saturday
Radiohead.
I¡¦m sorry, They were amazing, as always. Pretty much one of the main reasons I went (I realized this weekend that I could very well see them play a show, every day, for the rest of my life, and that would be just fine), but there were other good points:
The (International) Noise Conspiracy (No relationship, I¡¦m told to the (International) House of Pancakes). Great band! Tight. Great Drummer! Yes, they were cooler with the girl Bassist, but still cool.
The Desert Sessions (for those not ¡§In the know¡¨ - a group of random musicians comprised basically of, but not limited to: The Queens of the Stone Age, Eleven, Masters of Reality, Mondo Generator, The Distillers, et al., that basically ¡§jam¡¨ on free-associated ideas that wander musically from Psycho-Metal to Earth Dirges to Space Jams ¡V most noteworthy song played ¡V Gary Glitter¡¦s ¡§Do you wanna touch me there?¡¨ as a closer) ,
The Pixies ¡V they sounded like a goddamned RECORD! Amazing, after all these years. Reiterating once again how awesome they were (are), and how much of an influence they had on ALL ¡§Alternative¡¨ music (Weezer, Nirvana, James Hall, etc.). Awesome. Long live the Pixies!
Radiohead ¡V Not to sound like a broken record, but Jeez! I love this band so much. Thom York reportedly had a throat infection so bad he had to cancel a date in Australia ( Ha! That¡¦ll teach you fucks for not letting Yanks move there! My plan is working PERFECTLY! Mmwa HA HA HA!!! ) that it was rumored he might¡¦ve cancelled Coachella. I couldn¡¦t tell. He sounded amazing. Great light show. If any of you (Miranda) haven¡¦t seen these guys live yet, please don¡¦t let another show go by. DAN-dun-dun-dun-DAN-dun-dun-dun-dun DAN-dun-dun-dun-DAN-dun-dun-dun-dun¡K
After Radiohead¡¦s set was done, we tried in vain to see Kraftverk¡¦s set, to no avail; the giant ten that they were playing in, besides being sweltering, was also packed full of people so much so, that you couldn¡¦t even get near it. I tried peeking in, and all I saw was four lime-green men with bald heads I tiny, little computer stands in front of a giant video screen playing Tron-like computer-generated images. I watched for about five minutes when I looked back to my girlfriend who shook her head, wearily, ¡§No.¡¨
We walked past the tent where Electric Six were playing (Goddamned Scheduling overlaps!) ¡V I really wanted to see them as weird as they are, but opted instead to try & beat the rush & get outta Dodge, so to speak.
It took us an hour to get out of Dodge. We were stuck behind a Chrysler, a Chevy and a Dodge. And a lot of other cars, too.
On the way back, stopped into a Jack in the Box to get some sustenance along with everyone else from the Festival who apparently had the same idea.
Went to bed around two in the morning. Trashed. Wrecked. Knackered, even.
Sunday
107 degrees, but who¡¦s counting. ¡§Water?¡¨
Too Many DJ¡¦s ¡V Tried to endure these guy¡¦s set but lost interest about 1/3 of the way into their set. I have a couple volumes of these guys¡¦ mixes, which are genius, but live? ¡V not so much. The moments between Pop-song-recognition were too long, filled with generic, typical ¡§BOOM-tss, BOOM-tss¡¨ ¡V trance grooves that put me to sleep and make me mad at the same time. That coupled with the near-Tropics-like temperature inside ALL of the tents ( Ever hear of AIR CONDITIONING, guys? ) made it just about unbearable.
Will somebody please tell me why anybody would want to see Air play live? It¡¦s like watching live Muzak. It¡¦s more boring than watching flies fuck. And more pretentious.
Basement Jaxx ¡V WHERE¡¦S ¡V YOUR ¡V FUCKIN¡¦ ¡V HEAD ¡V AT?! I realized how out of shape I am when I got about half way through Basement Jaxx¡¦s set and they launched into that song, causing everyone to jump up & down & chant the title. OOF!!! They had a full band this time (drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, computer, gadgets, etc.) plus five or six Black female vocalists (including the Bellray¡¦s Lisa Kekaula belting out the single ¡§Good luck¡¨ and U.K. rapper Dizzy rascal on ¡§Lucky Star¡¨), as well as three live gorillas on stage for ¡§Where¡¦s your head at?¡¨ Their set sent me home from the festival a happy, well-rocked man.
We left as The Cure was going on stage. I dunno, after seeing them live back in the Eighties (when they were still cool), there¡¦s something really creepy & sad about seeing a man, almost in his Fifties, wearing lipstick, eye makeup and hair sprayed hair in a rat¡¦s nest. And fat. We paused, almost in reverence, in the parking lot, just outside the gates, as we heard them launch into ¡§A night like this¡¨. (¡§sigh¡¨.) O.K., let¡¦s go home.
Lowlights
Well, the weekend was so crowded, over-sold and unforgivingly hot, that walking, watching a band, moving, standing still, whatever ¡V made you feel as if you might possibly burst into flame at any given notice. People were dropping like flies. Not enough shade, water or food for all of the five-times-bigger-than-normal crowd. Everything I had loved and praised this Festival for was completely gone. The being able to watch a band, relatively close-up with plenty of space to breath ¡V gone. Being able to make your way across the entire Polo Field easily from one stage to the next - gone. The V.I.P. tent, which thankfully in the past (due to my Girlfriend¡¦s ¡§Industry¡¨ connections) was somewhat of an Oasis of calm retreat, shade, coolness and drink - was now a teaming mass of nobodies & lookieloos, trying to get a glimpse of whatever Celebrities happened to make the trek down to Indio to be seen at what is apparently now the ¡§Hip¡¨ concert in So.Cal (this due largely in part from the fact that there were packages available to certain industry people who normally wouldn¡¦t get in, which included V.I.P. wristbands) ¡V now making the area into just another, crowded beer tent. This basically caused our clan to establish a patch of shade and unobstructed point of vantage from which to watch the bands, which we guarded with our lives. Every so often, a band we wanted to see would cause us to relinquish our precious patch of grass, in hopes that when we returned, we could find another.
I realize it all sounds whiny, but¡¦cha gotta understand ¡V it was unbelievably cool and ¡§Laid-Back¡¨ (it¡¦s a sordid term , but that¡¦s how it¡¦s used) in the past. I know we¡¦ve been spoiled and probably shouldn¡¦t have expected it to last forever. I was even thinking last year that it seemed to be getting more & more crowded each year ¡V I guess I just thought it might level out. I was obviously wrong. My friends & I were all protesting the whole thing on Saturday ¡V pissed off that I couldn¡¦t, as I had in the past, march right up front for Radiohead, or the Pixies, or whomever and enjoy myself ¡V instead I was banished to the sidelines to see one of my favorite bands from a half-mile away. What was the point? This, after all, was the reason I had boycotted all Festivals, since I went through what I imagine to be very similar to the Bataan death march, the 1983 ¡§US Festival¡¨. I vowed never again to force myself to go through that Gulag-like torture ¡V unbearable heat, overbearing crowds, dust, Port-o-toilets that kicked off your gag reflex from a mile away, the whole lot. I remember my Girlfriend talking me into going to the first Coachella Festival in ¡¦99. I needed a lot of talking into, believe me! But that¡¦s the thing, it wasn¡¦t. THAT¡¦S why I¡¦m kinda disappointed about this year. Am I going next year?
We¡¦ll see.