I've been reading a lot of online reviews crapping on this year's Coachella (long lines, high prices, traffic, blah blah bullshit) and felt compelled to add a preface to my review of the bands I saw this year.
Coachella is the best organized, smoothest running festival I have ever been too (and I've been to a ton). The lines move quickly, the food options are much higher quality than other fests (a few more bucks for quality), the parking lot empties orderly and quickly, and the town and roads around the fest are a pleasure to visit and drive on. If you read
some crap about Coachella being too expensive or logistically fucked up do not take that review seriously. It is being written by someone who doesn't know how to pre-plan or how to shop for bargains. These people are convenience obsessed idiots who think they can make last minute plans to attend one of the biggest musical events of the year. Of course if you try to get a hotel room or flight the week-of the event you will get price-gouged (unlike us reasonable folk who buy discount tickets and rooms and rental cars months in advance).
Phew - just had to get that off my chest. On to the music!
Tokyo Police Club - I watched 3/4 of their set. They put on a pretty fun punk-dance kind of show and write genuinely interesting tunes for being in a rather vapid genre. The keyboard player has a cool backing vocal in the live setting and the flying Karmozov Brothers-esque tambourines trick was cool.
Satellite Party - Whatever you think of Perry Farrell as a human being, as a recorded musician, or as a drug-burned wasteoid - the man always puts on one hell of a live show. He is a consumate showman and his latest project Satellite Party was a real treat. They rocked out the main stage early in the afternoon. I mean really rocked! I had read that this was an electronic project but in actuality it was the closest thing to Jane's Addiction that Farrel has done since. They even played a rousing rendition of "Stop". I liked it a lot and would probably go see them if they came to DC.
Silversun Pickups - These guys are obviously inspired by early Smashing Pumpkins and Ride; and that is a very good thing. They are a young band that were thrilled and humbled to be playing the main stage at such a huge festival. They played a great set introducing the larger world to their radio-friendly wall-of-sound rock. Plus it's always nice to see a band genuinely smiling while they play.
Arctic Monkeys - The current kings of new-Britpop proved their title with an absolutely mind-blowing set at sunset. They ripped through sped-up versions of all their highlights from their debut and then slowed it down for some new numbers that showed off a lot of class. Now that I have seen them live I feel safe in officially declaring them phenoms. Arctic Monkey's rule!
The Jesus and Mary Chain - After being blown away by
their show the night before in Pomona, I expected nothing less then greatness at Coachella. However silly me thought that maybe the large open-air field would diffuse some of the small-club noise/intensity of the night before. How wrong I was! The main difference between the Glasshouse and Coachella's main stage was volume and clean sound. JAMC rocked so hard and nosiy on the main stage that I thought it might collapse and crush all of us diehards in the front section of the field. OMG it was incredible! In comparison the night before had an almost punk feel to it, whereas the Coachella set was epic rock-gods in action. Jim Reid (wearing the same shirt from the Glasshouse show!) looked like a grumpy bad-ass lord of darkness as he spit out lyrics to tighter versions of all the songs from the night before. Only this time the songs were played at such noisy volume that even folks who never heard of JAMC were stunned into worship. Highlights were seeing Jim Reid signal his brother into the extended version of "Sidewalking:" and then hearing him scream "I want to die" over and over to a crowd of 50 thousand people to close the set with "Reverence".
Oh yeah and Scarlett Johanssen was there to sing back-up on "Just Like Honey".
Jarvis Cocker - Played the second stage and went on late and appeared to be drunk all of which added to his leacherous, British, geeky, sex-god thing. He didn't play any Pulp songs, but no one seemed to mind as he ripped through his new solo album full of decepitve britpop rockers. I've always wanted to see Jarvis because he is supposed to be the best of the Britpop frontmen (who are all very good) and he proved his status with his bizarre Jack Skelington dancing and between songs drunken tirades, curses, and self-deprecating humor.
Sonic Youth - Umm...awesome. Opened with "Candle" then played a bunch off the new album. Half the crowd left for Bjork so I got up front and center for the rest of the set. They rocked it out but good. Did an awesome super-heavy double-bass version of "100%" with Thurston singing like a teen-chick pop star. Even at the festival level they embraced the noise as well by doing a right-proper speaker humping and guitar jerk-off session smack dab in the middle. At the end of the set there was some confusion as to if they were done or not (due to Jarvis going late the stage times were off). So the sound booth shut off Kim's gear right as she was about to start the next song. Then the back-up bassist walked off stage. Then Thurston said "are we done or not!?". Then Lee realized his mic was on and so was his guitar. Thurston picked up a bass - it was still on. Then the back-up bassist wasn't allowed back on stage. So Lee, Kim, and Thurston launched into an insane rendition of "Shaking Hell" to close the set. It was the most empassioned performance I think I've seen by Kim Gordon ever and it was also very cool to see Thurston rocking the bass.
Bjork - I caught the last 45 minutes of Bjork's 1h15min set to close the main stage. It was pretty damn impressive. Visually stimulating, aurally insane. Bjork puts together one hell of a show that is unlike anything I've ever seen. She closed it all out with kick-ass epic dance versions of some of her songs that made me feel like I was at an Underworld concert (which is a place I am always happy to revisit).
Summary of Day One - pretty friggin awesome.