9 posts tagged “coachella”

Coachella 2008

Coachella announced their line-up today and I kind of don't care about seeing anyone on there in 110º F heat. I'd see some of them in other environments, but when you brought Rage, Gogol, The Roots, Amy, Lily, Lupe, The Coup, Peaches etc. last year you can't really expect me to get all excited when you have Jack Johnson headlining on Friday.

Jack Johnson.

Really?

Guess that saves me upwards of $400.

Huh.

In my previous post I mentioned how my friends and I got a prime position for The Roots set during Coachella. As luck would have it, someone thought we were amusing enough that he took a picture of us when The Roots were covering "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" and posted it to the Coachella fan gallery.

Let's see how far I can get before the urge to pass out takes over me and I fall face-first onto this keyboard.

Friday: Silversun Pickups, Amy Winehouse, Arctic Monkeys, Peaches, Julieta Venegas, Peeping Tom, El-P, Gogol Bordello

Saturday: (after spending over an hour huddled in the shade of a giant leaf-tent because it was 107˚) !!! (AKA: chk chk chk), Ghostface Killah, Girl Talk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mike Relm, The Good, the Bad and The Queen, Tiesto

Sunday: Mika, Lupe Fiasco, The Coup, Explosions in the Sky, The Roots, Klaxons, Lily Allen, Manu Chao, Rage Against The Machine

Total Amount of Hours at Coachella: 28
Total Performances Viewed: 24
Total Travel Time: ~19 hours

Gogol Bordello: One of the craziest shows I've been to, hands down. Funniest thing from the crowd? The fact that everyone started singing with a fake accent when they started playing. HI-LAIR. But, seriously, though how can you not love a band that has a guy that could be your grandpa on an electric violin or what looks like a soccer dad on the accordian? I LOVE these guys!

Girl Talk: Since he's basically a guy on a laptop (He had the words "I AM NOT A DJ" projected on to a screen behind him.), he always gets people on stage to dance around to get the crowd hype. Honestly, I don't know what the rest of the crowd was doing or really cared since I was too damn busy dancing my ass off and scaring all the kids with my vast knowledge of mainstream Hip Hop lyrics. This is why I'm hot!

The Roots: My friends and I were able to stand on one of the sets of barriers that was placed mid-field, so we had a perfect view over half the crowd to the stage. Since The Roots tour extensively and had been in California less than three months prior, they stuck to the crowd favorites like Hip Hop 101 (This is why I'm hot!), The Seed (2.0), Love of My Life, etc. ?uestlove, Kirk Douglas, and Tuba Gooding Jr. also did their Bob Dylan cover and Black Thought had his James Brown moment. Since my friends and I were in plain view of half the crowd I figure we either annoyed or amused the shit out of thousands of people with our antics during the set. Hey, it's not my fault these people don't know how to "Snap Yo Fingers." The amount of people that were there to see them perform was pretty amazing.

Rage Against The Machine: I was way in the back for this one because I had just come from seeing Lily Allen and I didn't want to experience the force of thousands of people that were going to go buckwild nearer to the stage. I think the people that were in the very front were literally camped out all day in the desert heat just waiting through all the acts till Rage came on. Talk about hardcore.

The set-list:
Testify, Bulls on Parade, People of the Sun, Bombtrack, Bullet in the Head, Know Your Enemy, Down Rodeo, Guerilla Radio, Renegades of Funk, Calm Like a Bomb, Sleep Now in the Fire, Wake Up, Freedom, Killing in the Name

The energy for this show was amazing. Usually when you're way in the back everyone's kind of chill, but there were people throwing their heads around and screaming out lyrics from where I was. It probably helped that there were probably over 60,000 people there, of course. The entire 90 minutes were just... WOW. As in, I'm still kind of in a daze over it all, WOW. Also as in, "Holy shit, I'm hella excited I'm going to see them again at Rock The Bells in August." WOW. Honestly, I can't even tell you how ridiculously dope seeing them live was. I was never an RATM fan when they were together before (too busy listening to Hip Hop, yo), so seeing them live has turned me into a bigger fan than I ever was before.

Anyway, I'm hella tired and I have to go to work tomorrow. I have much more to say, but I'll save it for another post. I'll end with this though: I LOVE COACHELLA (even if it's in the middle of a god-forsaken desert holyshitwasithot)!  

Man, my feet hurt. Today's performances included Lupe Fiasco (wearing a Hysteric Glamour shirt. I'm a dork.), The Coup (5 Million Ways to Kill a C.E.O.), The Roots (I love them. I really do.) and I'm taking a break before going to see Lily Allen and then... and then... and then...

Rage Against the Machine!

There are something close to 5 billion people here (okay, more like 160,000ish) and it's going to be bananas when Rage comes on tonight. Why did I just buy a $50 Coachella sweatshirt that's zipper pull looks like a guitar pick? Oh, I'm a sucker, that's why.

CSS is playing on some flat-panel TVs in this tent, I kinda wish I had gone to see them.

Yesterday, Girl Talk played "Tell Me When To Go." Can I tell you that me and Lan literally scared some girls around us when we started gettin' stupid. Bay Area represent! Yee!

Anyway, heading home tomorrow. My shoes and arms are all kind of browner, I'm much broker and I feel like I could possibly sleep for a week straight.

But, fuck man, I love Coachella.

I'm currently chillin' (literally as this tent has air conditioning) at Coachella in a tent set up for nerds like me that can't get away from their email. Other than the ridiculous desert temperatures (try 102 degrees at noon today), Coachella is freakin' off the bra straps/hook/chain/etc.

Yesterday highlights included:
// seeing Dan the Automator's new (?) project Peeping Toms with a female beatboxer by the name of Butterscotch

// Peaches climbing halfway up the scaffolding on the outdoor stage in what looked like her underwear (she was introduced on stage by Ron Jeremy)

// El-P, because he's dope

I did Short Attention Span Theater yesterday by bouncing around a lot of different sets that were going on simultaneously, at one point I caught Julieta Venegas, Arctic Monkeys (I think I have new crush on their lead singer?) and Peaches within the span of an hour while just bouncing around.

But, really, the best thing from yesterday? GOGOL mothereffin' BORDELLO.

Somehow I managed to get right in front, squished against the barrier, for their set. Between one of their back-up singers/dancers crowd surfing on her drum, to the lead singer jumping into the crowd, to the crazy Cirque du Soleil-ish backup dancers and the old guy on the electric violin... oh man, it was freakin DOPE. My shirt came out rust-stained because of getting rammed into the barrier, but I'll live. (I was half hoping I'd get a big ol' bruise across my boobs that I could name "Gogol" and "Bordello," but I guess I don't bruise that easily.)

I tried to buy a "Start Wearing Purple" purple t-shirt today but was denied when all they had was XL's! Sadness.

Today is Ghostface Killah, !!!, Girl Talk and Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's freakin' hot up in here. I think I should get off this thing and go wander the field and see what other bands I'll end up liking after this weekend.

P.S. Amy Winehouse is saucy and wears some ridiculous hair extensions. But she's still saucy!

We just got back from the rental place and got ourselves upgraded (Partner let me upgrade you... Beyoncé) to a shiny white Mustang. When we got in the car, the first thing I did was turn on the radio and it was bumpin'! OH BOY.

I can't see over the damn hood when I'm sitting shot gun and it kinda makes me nervous when I'll eventually have to take my turn at the wheel, but oh-freakin'-boy.

And we're already running late (Lan's packing behind me). I'm hungry.

YEE! Coachella! Holler!

Harvesting the Rice Crop

I just finished unpacking from last weekend only to start packing for this weekend.

COACHELLA, here I come!

Driving tomorrow night to the wilds of Southern California with my homeslice Lan-diggs in tow. We're planning on playing nothing but Coachella artists on the way down and I'm bringing three ridiculous rice picker hats for me, Lan and our friend Sarah to rock so we can protect ourselves from the desert sun. So if you see three girls wandering around with those on, you know its us.

Expected highs are between 96-100 degrees. Holy-freakin'-moly.

Checking out the schedule reveals that I'm going to be missing Arctic Monkeys in favor of Amy Winehouse (d'oh!) and Bjork in favor of Gogol Bordello (double d'oh!). Ah well, you win some, you lose some. Start wearing purple in rehab, my friends!

I fully expect myself to be brain dead, tired off my ass, but on a natural high when I get back to work on Tuesday.

While wasting my time on the Yelp talk boards, I ran across this (bolded artists are the ones I'm interested in/going HOLYSHITWOW over):

Coachella 2007

Coachella's line-up for 2007
Air • Amy Winehouse • Amos Lee • Anathallo • Andrew Bird • The Arcade Fire • Arctic Monkeys • Avett Brothers • Benny Benassi • Bjork • Black Keys • Blonde Redhead • Bojones • Brazilian Girls • Brother Ali • Busdriver • Circa Survive • Coco Rosie • Comedians of Comedy • Cornelius • The Coup • The Cribs • Crowded House • CSS • Damien Rice • Decemberists •  Digitalism • DJ Heather • DJ Shadow • El-P • Erol Alkan • Evil Nine • Explosions in the Sky • Fair to Midland • Faithless • The Feeling • Felix Da Housecat • The Fields • Fountains of Wayne • The Frames • Fratellis •  Ghostface Killah • Gillian Welch • Girl Talk • Gogol Bordello • Gotan Project • Grizzly Bear • Happy Mondays • Hot Chip • Jacks Mannequin • Jarvis Cocker • Jose Gonzales • Julieta Venegas • Junior Boys • Justice • Kaiser Chiefs • Kings of Leon • Klaxons • Kokono No. 1 • The Kooks • LCD Soundsystem • Lily Allen • Lupe Fiasco • Manu Chao • Mika • Mike Relm • MSTRKRFT • New Pornographers • Nickel Creek • Nightwatchman • Noisettes • Of Montreal • Ozomatli • Paul Van Dyk • Peaches • Peeping Tom • Peter, Bjorn & John • Pharaohe Monche • Placebo • Pop Levi • Rage Against The Machine • Red Hot Chili Peppers • Regina Spektor • Richie Hawtin • Rodrigo Y Gabriella • Roky Erickson and the Explosives • The Roots • Rufus Wainwright • Satellite Party • Silversun Pickups • Sonic Youth • Soulwax • Spank Rock • Sparklehorse • Stephen Marley feat Jr. Gong • Tapes 'n Tapes • The Good, The Bad and The Queen • The Rapture • Tiesto • Tilly and the Wall • Tokyo Police Club • Travis • VNV Nation • We Are Scientists • Willie Nelson • Yeva

Did I mention RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE?!? And its official now.

So... uhh... I already booked a hotel room for the entire weekend (April 27-29). If any of you guys have any recommendations of any other artists on that list I should make myself aware of... holler at me!