Recently in Coachella2011 Category

Death From Above 1979

When it comes to adventures in music, you can do a lot worse than Coachella - a kaleidoscope of bands and fans spanning all manner of genres and scenes. Rhapsody sent its rock editor, Justin Farrar, out to the desert to get his take on the whole big mess. Dig his wrap-ups in this space from the past three days.

As Stephanie Benson, my intrepid editor here at Rhapsody, pointed out while covering Coachella last year, Sunday is all about haggard faces and genuine exhaustion. Driving in for the fest's final day (and by the way, check out Moritz von Oswald Trio's Horizontal Structures album—it's the perfect desert soundtrack), I pass a Mobile station just as a rainbow-infused chillwaver oh-so-slowly crawls out of her car, grabbing ahold of the gas nozzle and letting out one of the more extreme yawns in the history of human fatigue. It encapsulates the day perfectly.

Important to keep in mind: This exhaustion doesn't require good-times boozing, necessarily—the chief instigator isn't beer and liquor, but that blazing ball of radiation in the sky. Not to riff like your mother, but don't take the sun lightly out here in the desert. It will, without mercy, destroy you. Also, sunscreen: Apply it liberally and with regularity.

Now that I'm on the grounds for the day, I'm busy knocking back not one, but two açaí smoothies. That's because I have some tremendous sounds to take in, from hardcore badasses OFF! to the mighty Lighting Bolt. Then there's a trio of dubstep DJs—Joy Orbison, Kode9 and Ramadanman—over at the Oasis stage, which I haven't been back to since Friday. After all that, it will be time to get suburban and check in with the Strokes, before concluding with who else but the one and only Kanye West.

Time to kick OFF!

Bright Eyes

When it comes to adventures in music, you can do a lot worse than Coachella - a kaleidoscope of bands and fans spanning all manner of genres and scenes. Rhapsody sent its rock editor, Justin Farrar, out to the desert to get his take on the whole big mess. Dig his wrap-ups in this space over the next three days.

Saturday at Coachella: before digging into the jams, we need to address two of the festival's most potent demons: heat and traffic. The former is worse today, a blistering 98 degrees. Yowsa. The latter is, however, less intense. Yesterday, cars were backed-up to Jefferson Street, which isn't anywhere near the festival grounds, in all honesty. If I were a Coachella veteran, then I'd tell every newbie seeking my highly prized wisdom to utilize one of the many shuttle services. Or even better: rent a bicycle. Then again, there is one upside to driving, and that's getting to park in the outer lots. From there, the path to the grounds leads attendees through the all too colorful car-camping grounds.

For the anthropologist in all of us, these campsites -- the totality of which can rightly be called a modern day Bartertown for 24-hour party people -- contain a motley assortment of sub-cultural tribes that offer quality observation along the way: beefcakes with leathery pecs boozing and whooping at the scantily clad pop tarts passing by, indie kids dressed as neon Native Americans knocking back Jell-O shots, classic Deadheads just chillin', punks standing around looking bored and Burning Man types flying pirate flags while maintaining snazzy encampments laced in all manner of disco lighting. The car-camping grounds are also home to its own bundle of food stands and oddball activities, including a makeshift roller-derby rink, what looks like a space designed for bicycle jousting and a tiny stage for impromptu jam sessions.

Robyn

When it comes to adventures in music, you can do a lot worse than Coachella - a kaleidoscope of bands and fans spanning all manner of genres and scenes. Rhapsody sent its rock editor, Justin Farrar, out to the desert to get his take on the whole big mess. Dig his wrap-ups in this space over the next three days.

Though I don't step foot on the festival grounds -- an obscenely picturesque nexus of severe desert landscape and artificially verdant oasis -- until early Friday afternoon, my Coachella 2011 experience commences the evening prior, over 2,000 miles due east. To be specific: gate B27, in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

While waiting for a direct flight to Ontario International Airport, the closet hub to the festival, about 5 hours west, I overhear the C-word over a half a dozen times. The plane, as it turns out, is littered with college kids and young folk all gearing up for a killer weekend of music, sun, fun and sundry activities too risqué to itemize here. I end up sitting next to two Coachella kids: Raj, a student at Georgia Tech studying aerospace engineering, and a girl sporting a Jason Mraz straw fedora, whose name now escapes me, sadly. We don’t talk much; everybody rocks little white ear buds for the most part. But near flight's end the ice is broken, and we rap about whom we want to see perform, how many times they’ve gone to Coachella (several) and what's the best approach to lodging, hotel or camping. When asked whom she is excited to catch the young lady replies like a true teenie bopper, “Um, The Strokes and Arcade Fire and… um… I can’t think of anybody else right now.” Raj, who is from The OC (his three-day pass was a birthday gift from mom and dad), answers without hesitation: English indie-folkies Mumford & Sons and German electro-dude Boys Noize, whose 2008 mix Bugged Out! Presents Suck My Deck serves as his soundtrack while studying for a test on Monday (Raj will hop on the red eye back to The ATL Sunday night).

The sense of pilgrimage I feel during the flight carries over to the drive into the California desert. Already, Interstate 10 is packed with cars rocketing toward the festival, making their way past giant wind turbines and an absurd number of identical Stevie Nicks billboards promoting her upcoming appearance at the nearby Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio. Some of these cars contain four, even five, bobbing heads; others are tattooed in raw neon graffiti: "The Strokes Rock," "Carpoolchella" and my personal favorite, "Indie Rock Rocks!"

On to the festival, boys and girls…

Coachella 2011 sold out in record time. If you weren't quick enough (or rich enough) to snatch tickets, here's your next best thing -- a playlist featuring nearly every act (that would be over 160 of 'em), including headliners Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, Kanye West and The Strokes. Dig in further and you'll get a lot of great electronic artists, up-and-coming indie rockers, and even reunited bands like Death From Above 1979, The London Suede and Big Audio Dynamite. So, kick back, press Play and enjoy your own little Coachella.

For the uninitiated, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is a sprawling, three-day musical festival held in California's Inland Empire, not far from the mythical Palm Springs. It's a uniquely Californian event: a blend of hip modern music, green culture and, as scholar Erik Davis would put it, "creative hedonism" — all-night party camping, neon hula hoops, sweaty drum circles, freaky light installations, dreadlocks, etc.

Imagine a massive soirée merging the original Lollapalooza (say 1991 to '94), Burning Man and a "Jerry Brown for Governor" rally circa 1973, and you're not far off.

The thing about Coachella is that you have to prepare for both the jams and the weather. Remember, this is a desert we're talking about. Shifts in temperature are extreme, as is that flaming ball of radiation in the sky. Because of these intense peculiarities, the average Coachella prep list is one schizophrenic creature, a mess of bullet points covering everything from sunblock and nutritional reminders to wardrobe necessities to must-see bands and on-the-fence alternates.

To get an idea of what I'm yapping about, here is mine, along with some helpful notes.