Coachella- take 2: 2011 rocked my socks right off.
I'm so deeply unhappy to be back in edmonton that I'm having a hard time expressing it other than glaring out the window. I'm trying to set the snow on fire with my mind, so far unsuccessfully. I'll keep you posted.
This year was amazing. I had a fantastic time, everything I disliked about the last trip was fixed right up. We stayed at a freakishly gorgeous hotel that is pretty much for wealthy golfers who seemed mildly baffled by the influx of hipster twenty somethings. ( This is the hotel. Holy shit, right? http://www.desertspringsresort.com/ ) We took the shuttle to the festival. 35 minutes and we were there, no lines at the entrance. No terrible lines ANYWHERE.
We had no major problems at any point, though a wasp did start building a nest on our balcony on the last day and it attempted to dive bomb anyone who went out there. Also, when we left they had to de-ice the plane, so we were a little late getting out of the frozen north, but that was all okay because after that we were in Palm Desert. And then came the festival. There was good, there was bad and there was amazing.
Let's get one thing out of the way: many people like bands that I hate. I know that. I watched tens of thousands enjoy these shows I'm about to rip apart. You can get all "well people like them!" or you can just take this as one person's opinion. So I'll start with the bad, then move to the stuff I loved.
The Bad:
Alright, so I didn't interrupt Kanye or anything, but I didn't let him finish. Critics are lapping up his performance and praising it with lofty statements like "one of the best hip hop sets of all time at coachella". I know that I'm not a huge fan of music like that, but Jay-Z last year was pretty awesome. Kanye this year really gave me the feeling that I was watching a boring performance that was hiding behind an expensive spectacle. Lots of fireworks, lots of crazy sets, and yet, there were people pouring out of the festival before he finished. I know this because I watched them leave. Way more people than left Gorillaz last year, or Jay-Z. The Jay-Z crowd stayed put. We finally left early too, it wasn't worth sticking around for. There were bands who put on amazingly crazy shows that felt so much less like bullshit. A lot of fancy effects, but in the end, he was just a pretty bad rapper who has amazing beats but it wasn't enough.
Mumford and Sons. My god, they are so boring. Why are they so popular? I feel like if they just threw on mumford and sons we would no longer need anesthetic during surgery. Seriously. I fell asleep on the grass.
Kings of Leon. At one point they said "We're tired of playing the new stuff, we'll play some old stuff" and I yelled "thank fucking christ!" without really thinking about it, but holy their new stuff is brutal. Just boring and overproduced crap. They look and sound like an everyband and they used to be cool and kind of weird. This was probably the saddest show because I used to love those guys. Aha Shake Heartbreak was such a kickass album. This Come Around Sundown bullshit is just upsetting.
Cee-Lo Green. Showed up half an hour late, had twenty minutes to play and spent about five badmouthing the festival and his time-slot. Not a good move, Cee-Lo. He tried to play over his time limit and they just shut the sound down on him. Which was kind of too bad, because once he actually played it was pretty good, but seriously, he had months to plan to be there on time. And failed.
Jimmy Eat World. Good god, we weren't even there. We could just hear them sucking from afar. Not far enough!
A general complaint, repeated by many people? Lots of the stages/artists were running late this year. That was irritating because it usually made the conflicting times even worse. We missed more of The Kills than we had to.
They still need to shut the do-lab up, and they inexplicably set up some kind of satellite location, called the Oasis Dome by the food court so that it was like being in a noisy "shit sandwich"-Owen. Goddamn. Shut up, do-lab.
The Good:
New Pants. They're from China, it was the first time they've played in the states and they were freaking great! They were super enjoyable, and since they were the first act we caught that's important. You don't want to start with garbage. I wasn't even expecting them to be as good as they were, their youtube videos had filled me with some doubt.
CSS. Their show was awesome, and they seemed super glad and grateful to be playing the festival (again, actually). I like bands that looked as awed by Coachella as I am. It makes it even more fun to watch.
PJ Harvey was really good, but was caught in one of our conflicting times so we didn't catch her whole set. She was a nice contrast to Kanye who started right after her. You know, because she was good.
Gogol Bordello had the crowd with them the whole time in spite of the extreme heat. 4 pm mainstage is a brutal time slot but they had everyone in a frenzy with them. This was the only show I was at where I considered that it might be just too hot out. And I might need to lie down.
the Joy Formidable. To be fair I only saw the end of their set. It sounded pretty good, and then they busted up their instruments, which was fun to watch. They get to go on the good list.
The Kills. They nearly made the Amazing list, but we had to leave halfway through, though I did so reluctantly. I love Allison Mosshart. She's phenomenal. If they ever come to edmonton, I'll be there.
The Amazing:
Arcade Fire. But of course, they were fantastic. The guy in front of me was jumping around and stomping on my feet, and the girl next to me was hitting me with her bag. And it was still amazing. They dropped these LED giant balloon balls on the crowd. They thanked the festival repeatedly. They played The Suburbs with the outro. I was so happy. They played for an hour and a half and I loved every minute.
The Strokes. I LOVE JULIAN CASABLANCAS. Now that that's out of the way, they were awesome. They suffered from "new album I don't like" syndrome as well, but they played lots off of "Is This It?" and they would have been phenomenal closers for sunday. They should have switched set times with Kanye. I also may have yelled "Bring back the strokes" a few times during Kanye's set. Maybe.
The National. This was the band that blew my mind this year. During their set some clouds had come up, and the sun was setting and it was beautiful and they played fake empire and i just went to pieces. That moment will sustain me through another year of not being at Coachella.
Death From Above 1979. They were loud, and awesome. Their set was fun, and since we never thought we'd see them again, that made it even better.
Things we missed that I am sad about:
I missed Ariel Pink's meltdown because we were at Tame Impala. I got there for the last few minutes to watch him have a mild mumbled hissy fit and stomp away, but I just figured he was being weird at the end. Nope, evidently he had a full on tantrum with storming off stage and everything.
Foster the People. Dammit! They overlapped with The National and Death From Above 1979.
Phantogram. Why they would put them at the same time as The Strokes is beyond me, but there was no way I was missing The Strokes. Ever. So no Phantogram for us.
Duran Duran. That could have been fun! We caught Rio when we were walking between acts, though, so it was okay.
I probably missed some, but I mean, it was like 38 degrees down there. I can't be blamed for having a hazy memory. The coachella food was pretty good too. I had a lot of lemonade, Owen got his spicy pie, we had crab fries. Their avocados are amazing and I decided that guacamole and tortilla chips was a meal. Twice. We got sushi at the hotel and it was freakishly awesome.
I really, really, really did not want to leave.
Seriously. I might just go fly back. And be a Palm desert hobo. It's actually a good thing for me that our airport is so far out of the city. If it was closer I might attempt to escape.
This year was amazing. I had a fantastic time, everything I disliked about the last trip was fixed right up. We stayed at a freakishly gorgeous hotel that is pretty much for wealthy golfers who seemed mildly baffled by the influx of hipster twenty somethings. ( This is the hotel. Holy shit, right? http://www.desertspringsresort.com/ ) We took the shuttle to the festival. 35 minutes and we were there, no lines at the entrance. No terrible lines ANYWHERE.
We had no major problems at any point, though a wasp did start building a nest on our balcony on the last day and it attempted to dive bomb anyone who went out there. Also, when we left they had to de-ice the plane, so we were a little late getting out of the frozen north, but that was all okay because after that we were in Palm Desert. And then came the festival. There was good, there was bad and there was amazing.
Let's get one thing out of the way: many people like bands that I hate. I know that. I watched tens of thousands enjoy these shows I'm about to rip apart. You can get all "well people like them!" or you can just take this as one person's opinion. So I'll start with the bad, then move to the stuff I loved.
The Bad:
Alright, so I didn't interrupt Kanye or anything, but I didn't let him finish. Critics are lapping up his performance and praising it with lofty statements like "one of the best hip hop sets of all time at coachella". I know that I'm not a huge fan of music like that, but Jay-Z last year was pretty awesome. Kanye this year really gave me the feeling that I was watching a boring performance that was hiding behind an expensive spectacle. Lots of fireworks, lots of crazy sets, and yet, there were people pouring out of the festival before he finished. I know this because I watched them leave. Way more people than left Gorillaz last year, or Jay-Z. The Jay-Z crowd stayed put. We finally left early too, it wasn't worth sticking around for. There were bands who put on amazingly crazy shows that felt so much less like bullshit. A lot of fancy effects, but in the end, he was just a pretty bad rapper who has amazing beats but it wasn't enough.
Mumford and Sons. My god, they are so boring. Why are they so popular? I feel like if they just threw on mumford and sons we would no longer need anesthetic during surgery. Seriously. I fell asleep on the grass.
Kings of Leon. At one point they said "We're tired of playing the new stuff, we'll play some old stuff" and I yelled "thank fucking christ!" without really thinking about it, but holy their new stuff is brutal. Just boring and overproduced crap. They look and sound like an everyband and they used to be cool and kind of weird. This was probably the saddest show because I used to love those guys. Aha Shake Heartbreak was such a kickass album. This Come Around Sundown bullshit is just upsetting.
Cee-Lo Green. Showed up half an hour late, had twenty minutes to play and spent about five badmouthing the festival and his time-slot. Not a good move, Cee-Lo. He tried to play over his time limit and they just shut the sound down on him. Which was kind of too bad, because once he actually played it was pretty good, but seriously, he had months to plan to be there on time. And failed.
Jimmy Eat World. Good god, we weren't even there. We could just hear them sucking from afar. Not far enough!
A general complaint, repeated by many people? Lots of the stages/artists were running late this year. That was irritating because it usually made the conflicting times even worse. We missed more of The Kills than we had to.
They still need to shut the do-lab up, and they inexplicably set up some kind of satellite location, called the Oasis Dome by the food court so that it was like being in a noisy "shit sandwich"-Owen. Goddamn. Shut up, do-lab.
The Good:
New Pants. They're from China, it was the first time they've played in the states and they were freaking great! They were super enjoyable, and since they were the first act we caught that's important. You don't want to start with garbage. I wasn't even expecting them to be as good as they were, their youtube videos had filled me with some doubt.
CSS. Their show was awesome, and they seemed super glad and grateful to be playing the festival (again, actually). I like bands that looked as awed by Coachella as I am. It makes it even more fun to watch.
PJ Harvey was really good, but was caught in one of our conflicting times so we didn't catch her whole set. She was a nice contrast to Kanye who started right after her. You know, because she was good.
Gogol Bordello had the crowd with them the whole time in spite of the extreme heat. 4 pm mainstage is a brutal time slot but they had everyone in a frenzy with them. This was the only show I was at where I considered that it might be just too hot out. And I might need to lie down.
the Joy Formidable. To be fair I only saw the end of their set. It sounded pretty good, and then they busted up their instruments, which was fun to watch. They get to go on the good list.
The Kills. They nearly made the Amazing list, but we had to leave halfway through, though I did so reluctantly. I love Allison Mosshart. She's phenomenal. If they ever come to edmonton, I'll be there.
The Amazing:
Arcade Fire. But of course, they were fantastic. The guy in front of me was jumping around and stomping on my feet, and the girl next to me was hitting me with her bag. And it was still amazing. They dropped these LED giant balloon balls on the crowd. They thanked the festival repeatedly. They played The Suburbs with the outro. I was so happy. They played for an hour and a half and I loved every minute.
The Strokes. I LOVE JULIAN CASABLANCAS. Now that that's out of the way, they were awesome. They suffered from "new album I don't like" syndrome as well, but they played lots off of "Is This It?" and they would have been phenomenal closers for sunday. They should have switched set times with Kanye. I also may have yelled "Bring back the strokes" a few times during Kanye's set. Maybe.
The National. This was the band that blew my mind this year. During their set some clouds had come up, and the sun was setting and it was beautiful and they played fake empire and i just went to pieces. That moment will sustain me through another year of not being at Coachella.
Death From Above 1979. They were loud, and awesome. Their set was fun, and since we never thought we'd see them again, that made it even better.
Things we missed that I am sad about:
I missed Ariel Pink's meltdown because we were at Tame Impala. I got there for the last few minutes to watch him have a mild mumbled hissy fit and stomp away, but I just figured he was being weird at the end. Nope, evidently he had a full on tantrum with storming off stage and everything.
Foster the People. Dammit! They overlapped with The National and Death From Above 1979.
Phantogram. Why they would put them at the same time as The Strokes is beyond me, but there was no way I was missing The Strokes. Ever. So no Phantogram for us.
Duran Duran. That could have been fun! We caught Rio when we were walking between acts, though, so it was okay.
I probably missed some, but I mean, it was like 38 degrees down there. I can't be blamed for having a hazy memory. The coachella food was pretty good too. I had a lot of lemonade, Owen got his spicy pie, we had crab fries. Their avocados are amazing and I decided that guacamole and tortilla chips was a meal. Twice. We got sushi at the hotel and it was freakishly awesome.
I really, really, really did not want to leave.
Seriously. I might just go fly back. And be a Palm desert hobo. It's actually a good thing for me that our airport is so far out of the city. If it was closer I might attempt to escape.