Just got back from California last night.  Here's my report.

Wednesday: Arrived in Vegas at 11:50 MT, met up with my little brother and his Aussie friends, and stayed up until 4 AM gambling away at Planet Hollywood's casino.   Lost about $350.  :(

Thursday: Woke up around 10 AM and continued to make donations to the casinos, until my losses reached about $650.  At that point, I was done.  Had to get the fuck out of Vegas.  Got in the convertible mustang with e1 and started the drive to California.   Stopped for food at Buffalo Bill's casino, and was bummed to find out their roller coaster was out of order.  Wound up gambling another $5 just for chuckles, and I wound up winning!  Cashed out with $6 and then headed to the hotel in Indian Wells, California.   We were all kind of surprised at how pimped out our hotel was.  Beautiful fountains, waterfalls, palm trees, posh concierges... you get the idea.  We found out right away that most of the artists playing at Coachella were staying there.

Friday: Woke up early and went downstairs with Mark (one of the Aussies I met up with) to have breakfast at the hotel restaurant.  We started talking to the table of hot girls next to us, and found out they were going to the festival as well.  Mark started complaining that Jack Johnson was playing, saying he sounded like elevator music.  The girl at the table next to us gave him the "shut up he's right there" look, since apparently he was 2 tables down from us, and could hear everything.   Lolz.  After breakfast we hung out by the pool with the girls from breakfast, and then headed out to the festival.

I immediately went to the Sahara tent (where all the EDM was), and caught most of Adam Freeland's set.  He kicked ass, other than when he decided to turn his set into a "Vote for Obama" campaign.   I did get a chuckle out of the announcement he had at one point in his set on the LED screen- "Don't ask people for drugs," and then a second later, "Bring your own."  Lol.  

The rest of the festival was all kind of a blur, but pretty much each day started the same, and we headed out to the show in the early afternoon.  These are the sets that stood out to me:

Pendulum: Wow.  First US. performance as a live act, and they ripped shit.   Granted, they were as much a rock band as they were a drum n bass act, but they rocked.  They played alot of my favorite tracks from "Hold Your Colour", including "Blood Sugar" and "Hold Your Colour".  They also played some of their newer material, like "Propane Nightmare", which I definitely enjoyed.   The crowd was going nutz the entire time.  This set made the whole trip worth it, and it was the first night.

Danny Tenaglia:  Kicked serious ass.  They gave him 2 hours, which was longer than most acts, but since he's known as the marathon man, that still wasn't a whole lot of time.  He kept the show interesting from start to finish, and I was really impressed with how good of a performer he was.  He grabbed the mic from time to time, singing, mcing, and just getting the crowd pumped up.  He did a ton of dancing, including playing around with a beach ball.  That part was cool, cause he used the ball to do a couple rewinds, and it sounded doPe cause he did them at just the right times.  (And if you're wondering, he was using CDJ decks, which i'm sure made it easier to use the beachball than it would've been with vinyl).  All in all, it was a set not to be missed, as he kept it exciting and full of surprises.

Sasha & Digweed:  I was worried they were going to play some super slow, boring ambient shit, because someone told me that's what they did when they saw them last.  Well, for Coachella they brought the heat.  They started with some trancey breaks, and played a dope set of progressive trance.  When they dropped the bass, the floor exploded. 

Fatboy Slim:  Opened with Willy Wonka music, and then went into "Praise You" for a couple bars, leading into about 15 minutes of ghetto tech.  That was some pretty hot shit.  Afterwards it seemed like the energy level died, as he played some more of his commercial tunes.  I took off about 20 minutes into his set.

Erol Alkin:  BanGin from start to finish.  I think he was using ableton or something similar, because I didn't see him matching beats or anything.  However, I didn't mind because it appeared like he was doing really sick remixes on the fly.  (Or it was a prerecorded set, who knows?  Either way it was sick)  He was looping different tracks, and mashing them up to make some real floor burners. Actually, after seeing this I decided that I'm definitely buying a laptop soon, and installing ableton (and prolly serato) on it.  I want my performances to be more than just matching beats.

Sandra Collins:  I wasn't very impressed.  She seemed to mix in new tracks at breakdowns alot, and mix out before the other rebuilds.  I didn't hear much mixing actually for her whole set.  The tracks were pretty good, though, and if you love trance you would have enjoyed her set.  It just wasn't really my cup of tea.

Justice: DOPE set.  Actually, I left Roger Waters early so that I could see Justice.  I think he actually had the biggest crowd the Sahara tent had the whole weekend, and he was on at the same time as "Dark Side Of The Moon".  Everyone went nutz the whole show, eating up their dirty basslines and super thick drums.

Roger Waters: What an experience, seeing the mastermind behind Pink Floyd perform "Dark Side Of The Moon", along with some other material.  They went all out with the video, sound, lights, explosions, stage props.... At one point they had a giant pig with messages in blood written on it float over the whole crowd.  Another time they had a floating space man.  The speakers had all kinds of crazy noises coming out in surround sound mixed in with the music.  It was definitely unforgettable. 

Prince:  Only caught a few of his songs, but he was definitely rocking.  Towards the end he covered Radiohead's "Creep",  which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

Jack Johnson- Lol, I just walked by him playing on my way out.   There was a mass exodus from the main stage while he was playing.  It didn't seem he was holding people's attention very well. 

I was kind of sad leaving the festival on Sunday night, cause i'd never had so much fun in 3 days, and I knew my trip was coming to an end.  Monday we drove back to LA, and along the way we stopped and rode some Go Carts for a little bit.  By the time we got to LA, we were in a rush, and so to avoid traffic on the highway we took the scenic route- straight through South Central / Crenshaw/ Englewood.   We were blasting hip hop with the top down, just staring at what seemed to be a third world country. 

I got on my plane alright, and flew in to Denver for a connecting flight.  I went upstairs for a quick cigarette in their smoking lounge, then came back and waited for my plane.  I soon realized that the plane should have been boarding already, so I asked an employee what was going on.  Apparently, they moved the flight to another gate on the complete opposite side of the airport.  ARRRRG.  So yeah, I missed my flight and had to get a hotel room in Denver.  Since my bag with all my clothes was on its way to philly, i got to hang in Colorado with shorts and a short sleeved shirt, which was pretty chilly after coming from 100 degree weather.

Now I'm back home and working, and fighting a nasty head cold that i must've picked up on my way back.