Coachella 2004!
So I realize I've not given ya'll a proper wrapup of the AMAZING weekend we had down at Coachella... well here it goes :)Jem, Tania, Rick & I all cruised down on Friday night. With a mean set of tunes at our disposal we had fun on our *first* road trip together! woohoo!!
We arrived in Palm Desert (after an 8 or 9 hours trip, with a few stops) around 11:30 or so and Jem & Tania dropped us of at Susan's house where we were staying with Cameron & crew for the weekend. Susan was an absolute sweetheart and had already set up a tent with an air matress in it for us - WOW! Soo sweet! She is Cameron's half-brother Jared's Mom. Got that?
Well we couldn't have asked for better place to stay.. with air conditioning and a fridge stocked with food for us, we were in heaven!
We crashed out Friday night since none of the other peeps had arrived yet, and we wanted to be well rested for our weekend ahead.
Saturday: Day 1 of the Festival
After seriously lathering up with the SPF45, we hit the polo grounds for our first day of music and fun in the sun!
We got there around 2 and hit Sahara Hotnights first. We're big fans of their CD Jennie Bomb, not to mention the fact that they're 4 hot swedish chics! If you like Sleater Kinney, The Donnas, or (one of my absolute fav's) Seagul Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her (SSKHKH), then you'll dig this CD.
They were good, but they didn't play enough off Jennie Bomb... I think they either played new stuff or really old stuff.. either way, we wanted to hear more of what we knew. And honestly even what they did play of what I knew, didn't sound as good to me as the CD... but it was still WAY kick ass to see them live.
Next up was StellaStarr*, who we've now seen 4 times! The first time I fell in love with them when they opened for The Raveonettes last September, then we saw them at SXSW (albeit not much of them cuz it was packed! but it still counts :) and then 2 weeks ago right before Coachella and then AT Coachella! I'm a big fan!! :) I think people who are discovering their "big hit" on MTV or whatever will be pleasantly surprised to find out the ENTIRE album totally rocks. Their big hit isn't even the strongest track IMO.
So just to give you an idea of how incredibly hot it is, we're in these tents for some of the shows, which is great, because the sweltering sun is off of you... but it's also a bit of a sauna. In a lot of my photos you'll see the good ol' Heineken fan, which was a savior!! We'd drip water on eachother & fan eachother the whole time to keep cool :)
After StellaStarr* we decided to find a spot of shade & listen to Trail of Dead. We shared a little ice cream and enjoyed the quality people watching. We tried to head over to the Beck tent, but it was packed - so we caught a little of Deathcab for Cutie while we were grabbing a quick bite to eat, and then cruised over to The Black Keys.
These guys are talented! It's very bluesy, and it's just a 2 peice with the lead guitar/vox guy, Dan Auerbach (who I think will be around for a long time, he's got a great voice) and a kick ass drummer, Patrick Carney. And Rick will have you know - they're from Ohio! :)
It was fun to see them live, but with being pretty close and in the middle, I got hot fast & didn't last to the end of their set, but we saw a great deal of them, which was cool cuz we missed their show here last fall.
After that we went & hung out with the peeps in the beer garden till the Pixies came on. We had just been drinking mass amounts of water all day, so now that it was cooling down (under 106 that is), it was nice to have a cold beer.
The Pixies were totally the highlight of the weekend for me. They sounded AMAZING and it was just awesome to hear them kick out so many of our favorite songs. AWESOME!!!!!
After that we caught a little of the Rapture, which sounded great - I'd like to go see them in a smaller venue sometime, their whole CD is a lot of fun. And then Radiohead!! was awesome!!!
And then we all headed over to Kool Keith, then Kraftwerk and then Phantom Planet! woohooo!!
SUNDAY: Day 2
We partied at the house for awhile and didn't end up getting over there till quite a bit later. Then we tailgated and had a blast running our own obstacle course for all the passers by :) *video of that coming soon* The parking lot was a lot less insane on Sunday - apparently Day 1 had oversold to thousands more people, and you could tell the difference on Sunday. I hadn't minded the crowds at all though on Saturday.
Anyway so we finally made it in, hit the beer garden with the peeps and then headed over to catch Bright Eyes where we ran into Jem & Tania. We all hung out & listened to a little AIR and then headed over to the beer garden before Flaming Lips.
I wanted to try to get close for Flaming Lips, but that meant taking a good 1/2 hour to spider up through the crowds, before we just hit a wall around the 125th row. Much closer, but still so far away compared to our 3rd row shows here in small venues :) But it was cool ... Wayne Coyne was on fire as always and he talked a ton about how f*d up our government is, namely George W. - and at one time had us all chanting F* Bush! F* Bush!! It was awesome.
He'd walked out on the crowd in a plastic ball in the beginning, but I think we missed that part on the way there and into the crowd. We did however get to see them play the 3 songs they did play (yes, only 3 since the whole plastic ball/wayne coyne jabbering took up so much time :) and it was epic as always. I love them!!!
Last show on tap for us that night was The Cure. I had been really psyched up to see the Cure, I couldn't believe it honestly. I used to listen to them in H.S. aall the time, so seeing them live was so exciting!
We went down in the crowd to get closer on that one, and here's how it went:
"oh my god, we get to see the cure play!"
to
"wooohooo, the cure!!!!!!"
to
"wow.... Robert Smith, your songs really *are* depressing"
to
"awww, can you please play something off of "Staring at the Sea"?
to
"zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
Talk about not goin out strong, it was a bit of a dud ending to such a kick ass weekend... I know it's selfish, but I just wish they woulda played more hits for those of us who had their cd's on repeat 15 years ago! But oh well... It was still cool to see Robert Smith all white, bloated and with his gelled up curly hair everwhere, up on those big screens. :) And I'm sure serious serious die hard fans had a good time, so that's cool!!
We said goodbye to our peeps (who had once again set up camp in the beer garden, hilarious! :) and Rick & I then went & rounded up Megan & Chris who were already crashed out in the car waiting for us - and we all headed back to the house to try to get 4 hours of sleep before our taxi arrived the next morning to take us to the airport!!
We had SUCH a fun weekend!!
And now as a reward for your actually reading through that entire post, check it out:
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