Reflections on Coachella 2004: It Was Really Really Hot Out There

What, was he there to complain about how the Pixies were still being led around by their nose rings?

Nice description of the show! On the whole I think I'm actually glad I didn't go but even so, I'm still jealous. :-)

the rundown on nytimes was less than impressive.

The Rapture were cool, too. I was only there for Saturday.

At the Pixies show in Pomona the night before, I did see Jack Black and someone who looked an awful lot like Albini in the crowd; guess it was indeed him. (At an In-N-Out in West Covina later that night, Jared Leto was there. Teenage girl: "Ohmigod! What are you DOING here?" Leto: "Um... We're driving to Coachella.")

The only celebrity I saw at Coachella itself was Maebe from "Arrested Development" (yay!).

my favorite bit of insight from the times rundown (and normally, i kinda like pareles):

"Kim Deal's bass tugged at the songs from below."

that insight really brought me there.

Radiohead was Radiohead. This was the first time I heard the HTTT songs and they sounded great! Especially Myxamytosis (sp?). I though Thom Yorke struggled at times with his voice, though.

I like the little I heard of Junior Senior, but I try to stay away from the saunas...uh, I mean tents during the day. Death Cab for Cutie also caught my attention. I was also impressed with the Rapture. It was somewhat cool by the time they went on and they defintely kept the crowd moving. When I heard Sparta, they were going off about Bush, the war, etc. I saw a few people flip them off.

I missed Beck. Oh well. The Kraftwerk tent was too crowded by the time I wandered over there. And the little bit I caught left me unimpressed. Same with Kool Keith. Plus, by then, I was really tired and just wanted to lay down somewhere.

Overall, as usual, I missed more music than I saw (I was only there on Sat.) I would have liked to have caught Stereolab, the Evens and Dios, but I was probably waiting in line for water at that time. I saw Phantom Planet perform "the OC" song, though!!

Lowlight: Exiting the freakin' parking lot!!! I think I waited at least 2 hours to get out of there!! The Empire Polo people or City of Indio or whomever needs to create more exits!!!

Well, yeah, he was really sick...

I had never seen the Rapture, and I was struck by how fun and, well, "unpretentious" they were... I was expecting some fearsome hipster types (cf. the Moving Units' look/'tude), but they were the total opposite - just bouncy kids in jeans.

Jared Leto did look like a hippie at In-N-Out. I forgot about that band of his, 30 Seconds to Mars (who I kind of like). I should have given him a bear hug: "Yo, dude, when't your next record out!!"

OK, here are some tidbits:

"Total surprise. Total delight." Hilburn on Beck.

"Interest in the pop auteur was so high that [a jillion] fans packed [some tent.]"

"Considering {Radiohead] could easily sell 50,000 tickets on its own in southern Californi, the willingness to play Coachella was a both a sign of its own integrity [and evidence that the band should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize]...and evidence of Coachella's devotion to sidestepping rock flavors of the month in favor of bands that offer something unique [and that are good for you, like vitamins and the notebooks of John-Paul Sartre]."

"Bill Graham would have been proud."

"Day one of the weekend gathering once again provided the rock connoisseur with a rich line-up of rising new bands ... [all good for you, like vitamins or smoking dope with Thomas Pynchon.]"

"The Rapture drew an excited crowd of believers with its broad mix of rock sounds...although [it still can't write songs]..."

"Junior Senior's set was packed with listeners and full of energy..."

So use http://www.bugmenot.com/ to get a password then.

ARAGAHFDSAHAFAHFDAHFAGAGAH.

I mean, I assume you don't have to create a parody of Hilburn saying that about Beck, since he'll always say that and SAID THE SAME FUCKING THING ABOUT BECK AT THE FIRST COACHELLA FESTIVAL FIVE YEARS AGO.

Ahem.

Hah-hah, Ned. It did literally beg for reprinting.

No wonder they're doing so many festivals.

The Lips were great but only did FOUR songs - LESS TALK MORE ROCK.

Air were fantastic, especially given their dusk timeslot.

etc. etc.

I don't doubt that LCD Soundsystem were the best - I predicted that when I first saw the bill. They are easily one of the top four or five best live acts that I've ever witnessed.

Did they perform "Yeah"?

Wayne didn't perform the whole show in that bubble - that was just his first prop before they started playing.

Robert Hilburn used almost half of his Coachella re-cap to write about the Beck performance.

I was just thinking that he couldn't have been in there for too long because there can't possibly be enough air, and even if there was, it'd make singing a lot more difficult.

Still, that's just amazingly cool. I love the idea. I wasn't remotely jealous about this festival, but that is something that I really wish I could've witnessed.

Pixies were near-perfect (smiling Kim and her cigarette are still etched in my head), Kraftwerk was deeply entertaining, Q and not U were great and rose above all the other post-punk-rock sound that I saw. Missed Ratpure. Heard Erase Errata set was grand but they stopped early for some reason and I arrived too late.

Lots of catchy rock music a la Sahara Hotnights, stellastarr, LCD, nothing mind-blowing but all decent, from what I caught.

Trail of the Dead were truly awful in both sound and mood. What a dull, potty-mouthed brat. I was just passing by and I couldn't get away fast enough.

Death Cab sounded exhausted. Bland.

The overall sound in the Gobi tent sucked. Mojave tent was a deathtrap for fainting-types. I helped open the sides to let in air but it just drew in more bodies and crushed more people in the front. Forgive me, moms and dads of squished kids.

Le Tigre were far more fun than the crowd let on, who only bounced to Deceptacon.

The Cure played only hits, which we predicted so we didn't bother to go. Nothing from Pornography, Bloodletting, etc apparently. Instead, "Lovecats". bleh

Bright Eyes was about as fun as witnessing a cat getting flayed.

Missed Broken Social Scene and Belle and Sebastian, annoyingly. If anyone saw them, please describe.

lost, fascination street, a night like this, the end of the world, lovesong, push, inbetween days, pictures of you, lullaby, [unknown new song], charlotte sometimes, just like heaven, from the edge of the deep green sea, one hundred years, the promise,
E1: close to me, the lovecats, why can't i be you, boys don't cry, play for today, a forest

I've never seen The Cure, and I really wouldn't go out of my way to see them live, but if I were to see them, that's almost exactly the show I'd like to see. "Friday I'm In Love" and "Mint Car" are the only bit hits missing!

HE WAS AWESOME. Or, well, I'd heard he was shitty live, and he was far from shitty, so he exceeded my expectations mightily. Anyway he was clearly a bit nervous, and it was really cute how giddy he got when he won the crowd over.

Cure was boring. Pixies were good. LCD Soundsystem (or the fifteen minutes I caught) great.

The Killers have a great bass player.

Wayne Coyne is such an inspirational speaker-type. The hamster ball was like a big team-building exercise. Not to mention getting the whole crowd to sing Happy Birthday.

I guess the highest praise I have for CC 2004 was that no one was disappointing, and most were as good as I dared hope.

Pardon me, I have to defenestrate myself now.

The Cure set is almost exactly what I expected. Ergo, no point in going.

He does that at every single gig. Though, having said that the giant hamster ball photo looks amazing. It's amazing what he comes up with every yeat to beat the features of a Flaming Lips gig of the year before. blood, balloons that burst with glitter, dancing animals, hamster ball, what next? maybe we'll all be on treadmills to power a Flaming Lips gig.

And everyone's comments up there just made me more annoyed that I missed LCD Soundsystem when they played the UK.

And yes, Dizzee was verrrrry cute and won everyone's heart, even the non hip-hop crowd I was with.

I am very very heatstroked right now.

Also enormously enjoyed Pixies, Radiohead, !!!.

singer in !!! strikes me as a bit of a scatterbrained atheist: tho entertaining he doesn't contribute much to the sound of the band and his words look more/less haphazard...swears too often that he doesn't give a f. he's stealing eminem's trope w/o any of em's sincerity.

lcd soundsystem, tho, wow! & dizzee too, especially when he was by himself on front of the stage and then down with the crowd (during fix up?), was stunning.

(btw does anyone know if it's legal for concert security to confiscate unopened water bottles, given that there were some pretty lengthy lines at the first aid tent inside?)

LCD Soundsystem is heaven. "Yeah" closed the set, but he talked about a cover of "Jump Into The Fire" that they were going to do if they would have had time. Talk about a perfect cover version that I'll never get to hear.

Junior Senior = bliss, even if you couldn't hear Fred Schneider at all.

Dizzee Rascal threw down some nice acapellas, and the crowd that stayed was really into it.

I may be the only one to sing the praises of Electric Six, who take shtick to an undreamed level; lead singer Dick Valentine thanked Radiohead for opening up for them, he flashed his wallet and did push-ups for no apparent reason, he slung his coat over each shoulder in a JC Penny's male model style, and he threw in a couple of acapella verses of "The Rose" into the break in "Improper Dancing." Now that's what I call committment to the bit.

The 2 Many DJ's set kicked ass, jumping from Green Velvet to the Cult to Inner City and all over; I just wish I could have withstood the barrage of body odor and pot smoke to stay longer.

The Cure was the biggest disappointment, with obvious song choices, crappy sound, and phoned-in vocals from Mr. Smith, with the exception of the new songs which he sung the hell out of, not that it helped.

I'd never seen Radiohead before, but they were the cream of the fest: professional yet loose, with killer songs to spare.

Belle & Sebastian were a huge surprise -- kinda expected a snooze -- with a full engaging tone and strings, glorious strings.

And I loved the !!! set, although it did provide evidence of the deleterious effects of marijuana on overall performance. Yet it was somehow endearing.

I know I saw some other good sets -- The Sleepy Jackson immediately comes to mind -- but that's my initial impression, in unelaborated glory.

And after spending four hours stuck in traffic on Saturday, Sunday was a breeze. Sure seemed like more than 50,000 people to me.

Check out a review from The Decadent West.