Coachella was AWESOME! I knew that I would have a good time, but the whole experience exceeded my expectations. We went with two friends and camped at the Polo Grounds. Camping was great, although we lucked out with our site in a few ways. Our neighbors were all pretty mellow and quiet, but not too mellow in a blasting Marley or the Beatles (seriously?) during the day type of way. We were also in the middle of a row, away from random foot traffic and, more importantly, large floodlights.
But the music, you say! Stop being so crochety and old and talking about where you slept. Boring!
On Saturday, we saw The Joy Formidable who have a guitarist/singer who is this really bad-ass pixie. Sean saw Two Door Cinema Club, whom he said were awesome and the “Irish Killers” so I definitely want to check them out at some point. New Pornographers and Bright Eyes were very good. Bright Eyes was followed by Mumford and Sons and they were awesome! We were really close to the stage for their show and the energy was through the roof! They played two new songs- “Blinded by the Light” which I heard at Belly Up and another that I’m blanking on right now. Finally, the night ended with Arcade Fire. They were great and I finally got to see them after my frustrating near-miss in Tokyo 3 years ago!
The last day was more mellow for us. We saw Twin Shadow, Jack’s Mannequin and Best Coast which were all new finds for us and sounded great. Nas and Damian Marley were great and Wiz Khalifa had really energetic fans especially considering there was a pot smoke cloud over the crowd the entire time. We ended our night with The National then headed home, totally tired but so happy.
The concerts were amazing. There were a few folks we weren’t as fond of but more due to our tastes rather than lack of musical artistery. I missed the advance sale for 2012 (boo!) but I’ll definitely be looking for tix in Jan, 2012!
Portmanteau Suitcase 