Coachella recap

The people

The venue

Transportation

Traffic was light on the 10 going East in the morning and I picked up my friend Ted over in Redlands around 9 AM. We drove over to the Empire Polo Field in Indio and got there around 10 AM. It took a little over an hour to get into the parking lot and I parked near the exit so I could leave quickly when the show got over. We left after Kraftwerk finished up at 11:30 PM. Ted and I rushed out to the car so we could beat the swarm.

When we got to the car, there was already a line to leave but it wasn’t very long. However, it took us two hours to move literally 50 feet in the parking lot to the exit. Once you get out of the parking lot, you are not home free though. You have to get back onto the main road. There was a line two hours long just to get back on the freeway. However, Ted went exploring while I waited in line in the car. He found a roadblock that lead back to the main road. We simply moved the roadblock, which was just some cones and we were home free. Except we weren’t.

We got onto the 10 freeway only to encounter 10 miles of construction work. Caltrans works on the freeway in the wee hours of the morning, shutting down two of the three lanes going in the West direction. Apparently Golden Voice didn’t let Caltrans know that 40,000 people would be leaving from Indio on the 10 West during construction hours. Consequently, I got stuck in traffic with Ted for another two hours. We managed to get off on a roadblocked freeway exit — again, just blocked with cones for some unknown reason — and drove back to Redlands.

I finally made it back to my apartment in Westwood at 6 AM. That’s right, it took me over 6 hours to get back from the show. That is just ridiculous. Golden Voice needs to fix this in the future.

Section Quartet

This group opened the show playing very nice instrumental Radiohead and Queens of the Stone Age covers. I walked over to the main stage to catch a few of the songs and they were decent. I like the Christopher O’Riley Radiohead instrumental versions better but these weren’t bad.

DJ Icon

I have to be honest, when I saw DJ Icon listed as a performer, I thought it was a guy. I was wrong. When I walked into the rave tent, I saw a hot girl with a red bikini top behind the decks playing dance music. Needless to say, I stopped for a bit and listened to her set. Icon plays current dance hits like Kelis’s “Milkshake” while mixing in old favorites like Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock.” It was a decent set but it was too hot to dance.

Howie Day

I was about five people back from the stage for his set and I was really impressed. Howie and the band had technical difficulties at the beginning of the set so Howie played two songs by himself. While singing he mixed himself live onstage with the use of a footpedal machine. I have no idea how it works but he was able to loop his voice and sing over the top of it. It was very cool.

When the band came on, they still had problems with feedback from a guitar. The feedback persisted through about three songs and then they finally fixed the problem. Howie and the band sound as great live as they do recorded. I was really impressed. My favorite song of the set were “Perfect Time of Day.” One guy in the crowd yelled, “It’s the perfect time of Howie Day.” Indeed. “Brace Yourself” was also awesome live. All in all a very good set.

Kinky

This band hails from Mexico fusing rock and electronica with traditional Mexican flavor. One of the band members plays an accordion, which enhances the sound nicely. Kinky reminds me of a cross between « rinôçérôse » and Rage Against the Machine. The set was excellent, especially when they played “Más y más.” I love that song.

Hieroglyphics

I’ve been a fan of Hieroglyphics ever since Souls of Mischief dropped “’93 ’til Infinity” on the hip-hop scene. Their recent release Full Circle is excellent and I was hoping they would play a lot of tracks from it at the show. They didn’t, which disappointed me. However, they did play my all time favorite song of theirs, “Oakland Blackouts.” The set was solid, it just needed some of the new material. They did let Tajai spit one of his tracks from his new CD though.

Beck

I tried to see Beck but I couldn’t get a good spot because Golden Voice put him in the Gobi tent, which was really small. I just wanted to point out that they really blew it but not putting Beck on the main stage, even though he did decide to play last minute. This was my only big disappointment of the festival.

Death Cab for Cutie

Death Cab played material from Transatlanticism, one of my favorite CDs of the year. However, their performance sounded flat. They needed turn up the microphones a lot. Benjamin Gibbard I think sounds better on the CD than live but his voice is still very moving live. It was a good performance but I was hoping for a great one.

Sparta

I didn’t think Sparta had a very good performance. Their songs came out as garbled when they were playing and the lead singer kept kissing the Pixies ass in between songs. It got a little old. I think Beck should have played during this spot because they didn’t really belong on the main stage. Then again, I don’t know Sparta very well and might not have appreciated the performance since I don’t know their songs.

Pixies

What an amazing reunion show. I was totally blown away. The Pixies played all their hits, including “Where Is My Mind?” My other favorite song from the show was “Bone Machine.” It sounds great live. Simply, the Pixies stole the show even though Radiohead was the headlining band. It was a performance I will always remember.

Radiohead

Another solid performance from Radiohead. I’ve seen them three times now. They started the show with “There, There” instead of “2+2=5,” which surprised me. I actually like it better when they start with “2+2=5″ or “The National Anthem.” I like “There, There” when it is in the middle or end of a set. Many thanks to Jonny Greenwood for getting the band to play “Planet Telex.” That song is simply amazing live. I had never seen it live and I absolutely loved it. Radiohead also played “Creep,” which was a huge shock. They never play that anymore. It sounded great live — a true gem. There were only two setbacks I noticed in the show. The first was that the band chose to play “Exit Music,” which was a poor choice because the bass from the rave tent fllooded out the song. Also, Thom messed up the start of “Idioteque” but I don’t think very many people in the crowd noticed.

Kraftwerk

Along with the Pixies, Kraftwerk rocked Coachella. Their set was the most amazing show I have seen in my life. The sound quality in the rave tent was excellent and their live version of “The Man Machine” was quite possibly the best song I’ve seen live. They also played “Trans Europe Express,” which is the most influential song ever in the history of electronic music. Their live version of “Radioactivity” was breathtaking. The only downside to the set was that the tent was very, very crowded since at least 20,000 people were trying to get in to see the set. It was also very hot inside the tent but I was close enough to the side that it wasn’t a problem.