Thai's Coachella 2007 Review!
May 9, 2007 13:16:34 GMT -5
Post by salmonjunkie on May 9, 2007 13:16:34 GMT -5
Once again, another Coachella Music and Arts Festival has passed, and once again, it was an amazing event. This year's event was my 6th time, and I'd rank this year's Coachella up there with the best of them (2006, with Daft Punk's mind-blowing pyramid, and 2004 with Radiohead, Kraftwerk, a 2-hour Cure set, and the triumphant return of The Pixies). Ok, enough of the intro, let's get straight to the nitty-gritty.
Jason, Whitney, and I arrived late Thursday night to the campgrounds where they gave each of us a free bottle of water on arrival. Jamie was already asleep and Will had stayed up to make sure we'd find him so we could pitch tent by them. By the time we were done setting up the tents and canopy (which I inherited last year from a couple from New York), it was about 4am. Time to have a few drinks before we head to bed. We didn't smuggle in vodka and Jack for nothing after all.
The heat woke us up at about 8am, as it was to be the rest of the weekend. The campgrounds were only about two-thirds full at this time, so people were throwing footballs, softballs, and frisbees in the unoccupied areas. New to the campground this year was a tent that had internet kiosks, massage chairs, and big screens showing other concert DVDs. I met up with Sean and Aaron who came out from Ontario, Canada, and invited them to kick it with us in the canopy. It was their first Coachella (it's never too late, y'all). They would end up giving us their cooler, tent, and sleeping bag since they didn't want to take it with them on the flight back. The people camped next to us, Alex, Karen (I think that was her name), and Jamie brought a boom box with them and had a great selection of tunes that they kept on throughout the weekend. Alex brought cold Corona on Saturday and shared. They also had a glass bong. It's good to make friends, kids.
On to the music!
DAY 1
We walked over to the entrance where security was lax. It appears that the “no liquids” rule was dropped as they let us bring in sealed bottled water this year. Good to know for the next two days. I left my festival-mates and made it to the Coachella Stage where underground albino rapper, Brother Ali finished up the last 15 minutes of his set. I had seen him open up for Atmosphere last year and recently heard his new album (which is really good, BTW), so I was excited to see him do his thing to this responsive crowd.
Afterwards, I walked across the field to the Gobi tent to check out the Comedians of Comedy. No, it's not the name of some new indie band, it's that wacky group of comics that went on tour together and had the Comedy Central show last year. Comedy at Coachella? I do believe this is a first (unless you consider booking Jimmy Eat World a few years ago as comedy. I thought it more of a tragedy). Anyways, I went over there, and caught the last 10 minutes of Brian Posehn's set (very funny), and got to see Patton Oswald's entire set. I laughed my ass off. And kudos to them for filling up the Gobi tent. They had more people in that tent then many of the other acts this weekend. Not too shabby considering this was the early slot in that tent. Choo choo indeed.
After I had my full share of guffaws, I went back to the Coachella stage to see Perry Ferrell's new band, Satellite Party. They weren't too bad, but nothing amazing. They had Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme - as in “More Than Words” Extreme) on guitar and the boy can shred. His wife, Etty Lau Farrell, is an absolute crap singer. Their song “Wish Upon A Dog Star” produced by Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook is pretty cool. Their live set was decent, but nothing special and certainly not as special as the band that followed them on the Coachella Stage, the Silversun Pickups They just started getting attention as the newest hot indie band from Los Angeles, with a very noticeable Smashing Pumpkins influence on their album, Carnivas, and their hit song “Lazy Eye”. They played their asses off and it showed. These kids have a good shot at making it big.
Now it was 6pm, and a good time to eat, so I had the most mediocre gyro ever from the food vendors. Bleh. I could hear Circa Survive playing from the Mojave Tent from where I was sitting, and they didn't sound too bad. I'd never heard of them before, and decided to go in the tent to get a better listen, when I ran into Jason and Whitney. Jas told me that the singer of Circa Survive is the former singer of Saosin, a band Will and Jason like that registers a “meh” with me. Circa Survive sounded good, though. A bit like Sparta. Afterwards, we headed over to the Outdoor Theater to check out a bit of Stephen Marley with Jr. Gong. Damian Marley (who was at last year's Coachella) was on stage singing his hit “Welcome to Jamrock”. The flag-waving guy was also back from last year's reggae set, waving that red gold and green in all it's Rastafarian glory for the entire 50-minute set. He's gotta have some strong triceps.
While Stephen wasn't bad at all, we weren't in the mood for reggae, and I was curious to hear UK's super-sensation the Arctic Monkeys perform at the Coachella Stage. And they were what they were. Poppy, catchy, at times good, at times sucky. I left Jason and Whitney for them to watch Peaches. I have no interest in seeing an ugly woman who can't sing take her clothes off throughout the set and pretend to be Mick Jagger. Even if Ron Jeremy introduced her to the backdrop of Europe's “The Final Countdown”. Not while The Jesus and Mary Chain were performing for the first time in 8 years. I was never into them, but liked their radio hits. They sounded good. And for a special treat, Scarlett Johansson was brought on stage to perform “Just Like Honey” with them. Unfortunately, the mini-dress she had on was not very flattering. I like to think that hideous outfit was comfortable and kept her cool, though. It was pretty fucking hot in that desert heat. Let's not have our gorgeous Scarlett suffer from trying to look as hot as she normally does.
Being pleased with The Jesus and Mary Chain reunion I dashed over to see former Faith No More singer, Mike Patton's new project Peeping Tom (they made my top 20 albums last year. Peep it. It's good). I found Jason and Whitney again in this tent - Jason is a Patton worshipper, by the way - and out comes… Danny DeVito? What's with the celebs this year? Actually I thought it was pretty cool, since DeVito is known to show up at Coachella every year, and that he was out there introducing a small band in the small tent. Small band, maybe, but a big noise they did make. Mike Patton came out in a clean white dress shirt, a bullet proof vest, and a stocking cap, and sang like the madman that he is, but with the motions of a hip-hop MC. His backing bang included a rhythm section, Dan The Automator on the turntables and samplers (Peeping Tom is not a hip hop album, BTW), a backup singer, and this cute thin 21 year old light-skinned black girl, Butterscotch, who was also a monstrous beat boxer. He gave her an instrumental solo, where she busted out deep-ass bass hits, mimicked a trumpet, and sang a Nina Simone song while dropping a beat at the same time. SAY WHAT?!?!? We were floored. Patton delivered the quote of the day “Let me hear you all laugh! (manic laughing). I've got something else that'll make you laugh… The Arctic Monkeys!” Mike, you cheeky bastard! Peeping Tom had taken our hearts, pissed on them, put them back in our ribcages and kissed it to make it feel better. And we still had another two and half hours of Day 1.
We head over to Interpol, who I had seen a few times already, and start inching our way as close to the front as possible, as Björk was playing afterwards. Interpol was as good as always, with Carlos D sporting a very manly 'stache. I will forever love the bass line to “Slowhand”, especially live. Jason had previously had a negative opinion on Interpol, but was converted by their live set. Their new songs were pretty good, but I do fear that it sounds a bit too much like their last two albums - almost indistinguishable. We shall see when it comes out, I suppose.
After 25 minutes, Björk hit the stage in a strange big hat and robe with her opening number “Earth Intruders”, the first single off her upcoming album Volta. On the video screen, we saw the music programmers performing live with ALIEN TECHNOLOGY! IT was basically a touch-screen pad that tracked multiple fingers at the same time, enabling very dynamic live sound manipulation. In addition to that Star Trek shit, she had an all female horn and chorus ensemble, and a live drummer. They were earthlings as far as I could tell. Björk's planet of origin, however, is up for debate. I swear Iceland's just a ruse. Anyhow, she shed her hat and robe for an equally strange sort-of-feathery mini-dress for the rest of the set, that included classics such as “Hunter, “All Is Full of Love”, “Pagan Poetry”, and “Army of Me” while our little elfin queen danced in her adorably seizure-like fashion, telling us excitedly “THANK YOU!” (but it sounded more like SANK YOU!) in between nearly every song. My favorite was when she belted out “YES! YES!” like she had just one a close game of Mortal Kombat. “Joga” sounded just wonderful with the horns taking the place of the normal string arrangement. She closed out the set with a fantastic rendition of “Hyperballad” that merged into her manic dance hit “Pluto”, where they busted out more ALIEN TECHNOLOGY in the form of this big radar-looking table thing that pulsated to the beat and made all these delicious electronic sounds when these modules were placed on it. The cubes, when moved around, modulate and manipulate the sound. You know, I lack the capacity to explain this without visual aids, so here's a youtube video of its use on “Pluto”.
(video can be found HERE)
Here's another during the encore, “Declare Independence”
(video can be found HERE)
Bonkers? Yes. It was. It's also called a Reactable, and demos of it can be found on youtube. And that was day 1.
Day 2 and Day 3 (including the triumphant return of Rage Against The Machine) can be found at
Daddy Monkey Lives
Jason, Whitney, and I arrived late Thursday night to the campgrounds where they gave each of us a free bottle of water on arrival. Jamie was already asleep and Will had stayed up to make sure we'd find him so we could pitch tent by them. By the time we were done setting up the tents and canopy (which I inherited last year from a couple from New York), it was about 4am. Time to have a few drinks before we head to bed. We didn't smuggle in vodka and Jack for nothing after all.
The heat woke us up at about 8am, as it was to be the rest of the weekend. The campgrounds were only about two-thirds full at this time, so people were throwing footballs, softballs, and frisbees in the unoccupied areas. New to the campground this year was a tent that had internet kiosks, massage chairs, and big screens showing other concert DVDs. I met up with Sean and Aaron who came out from Ontario, Canada, and invited them to kick it with us in the canopy. It was their first Coachella (it's never too late, y'all). They would end up giving us their cooler, tent, and sleeping bag since they didn't want to take it with them on the flight back. The people camped next to us, Alex, Karen (I think that was her name), and Jamie brought a boom box with them and had a great selection of tunes that they kept on throughout the weekend. Alex brought cold Corona on Saturday and shared. They also had a glass bong. It's good to make friends, kids.
On to the music!
DAY 1
We walked over to the entrance where security was lax. It appears that the “no liquids” rule was dropped as they let us bring in sealed bottled water this year. Good to know for the next two days. I left my festival-mates and made it to the Coachella Stage where underground albino rapper, Brother Ali finished up the last 15 minutes of his set. I had seen him open up for Atmosphere last year and recently heard his new album (which is really good, BTW), so I was excited to see him do his thing to this responsive crowd.
Afterwards, I walked across the field to the Gobi tent to check out the Comedians of Comedy. No, it's not the name of some new indie band, it's that wacky group of comics that went on tour together and had the Comedy Central show last year. Comedy at Coachella? I do believe this is a first (unless you consider booking Jimmy Eat World a few years ago as comedy. I thought it more of a tragedy). Anyways, I went over there, and caught the last 10 minutes of Brian Posehn's set (very funny), and got to see Patton Oswald's entire set. I laughed my ass off. And kudos to them for filling up the Gobi tent. They had more people in that tent then many of the other acts this weekend. Not too shabby considering this was the early slot in that tent. Choo choo indeed.
After I had my full share of guffaws, I went back to the Coachella stage to see Perry Ferrell's new band, Satellite Party. They weren't too bad, but nothing amazing. They had Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme - as in “More Than Words” Extreme) on guitar and the boy can shred. His wife, Etty Lau Farrell, is an absolute crap singer. Their song “Wish Upon A Dog Star” produced by Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook is pretty cool. Their live set was decent, but nothing special and certainly not as special as the band that followed them on the Coachella Stage, the Silversun Pickups They just started getting attention as the newest hot indie band from Los Angeles, with a very noticeable Smashing Pumpkins influence on their album, Carnivas, and their hit song “Lazy Eye”. They played their asses off and it showed. These kids have a good shot at making it big.
Now it was 6pm, and a good time to eat, so I had the most mediocre gyro ever from the food vendors. Bleh. I could hear Circa Survive playing from the Mojave Tent from where I was sitting, and they didn't sound too bad. I'd never heard of them before, and decided to go in the tent to get a better listen, when I ran into Jason and Whitney. Jas told me that the singer of Circa Survive is the former singer of Saosin, a band Will and Jason like that registers a “meh” with me. Circa Survive sounded good, though. A bit like Sparta. Afterwards, we headed over to the Outdoor Theater to check out a bit of Stephen Marley with Jr. Gong. Damian Marley (who was at last year's Coachella) was on stage singing his hit “Welcome to Jamrock”. The flag-waving guy was also back from last year's reggae set, waving that red gold and green in all it's Rastafarian glory for the entire 50-minute set. He's gotta have some strong triceps.
While Stephen wasn't bad at all, we weren't in the mood for reggae, and I was curious to hear UK's super-sensation the Arctic Monkeys perform at the Coachella Stage. And they were what they were. Poppy, catchy, at times good, at times sucky. I left Jason and Whitney for them to watch Peaches. I have no interest in seeing an ugly woman who can't sing take her clothes off throughout the set and pretend to be Mick Jagger. Even if Ron Jeremy introduced her to the backdrop of Europe's “The Final Countdown”. Not while The Jesus and Mary Chain were performing for the first time in 8 years. I was never into them, but liked their radio hits. They sounded good. And for a special treat, Scarlett Johansson was brought on stage to perform “Just Like Honey” with them. Unfortunately, the mini-dress she had on was not very flattering. I like to think that hideous outfit was comfortable and kept her cool, though. It was pretty fucking hot in that desert heat. Let's not have our gorgeous Scarlett suffer from trying to look as hot as she normally does.
Being pleased with The Jesus and Mary Chain reunion I dashed over to see former Faith No More singer, Mike Patton's new project Peeping Tom (they made my top 20 albums last year. Peep it. It's good). I found Jason and Whitney again in this tent - Jason is a Patton worshipper, by the way - and out comes… Danny DeVito? What's with the celebs this year? Actually I thought it was pretty cool, since DeVito is known to show up at Coachella every year, and that he was out there introducing a small band in the small tent. Small band, maybe, but a big noise they did make. Mike Patton came out in a clean white dress shirt, a bullet proof vest, and a stocking cap, and sang like the madman that he is, but with the motions of a hip-hop MC. His backing bang included a rhythm section, Dan The Automator on the turntables and samplers (Peeping Tom is not a hip hop album, BTW), a backup singer, and this cute thin 21 year old light-skinned black girl, Butterscotch, who was also a monstrous beat boxer. He gave her an instrumental solo, where she busted out deep-ass bass hits, mimicked a trumpet, and sang a Nina Simone song while dropping a beat at the same time. SAY WHAT?!?!? We were floored. Patton delivered the quote of the day “Let me hear you all laugh! (manic laughing). I've got something else that'll make you laugh… The Arctic Monkeys!” Mike, you cheeky bastard! Peeping Tom had taken our hearts, pissed on them, put them back in our ribcages and kissed it to make it feel better. And we still had another two and half hours of Day 1.
We head over to Interpol, who I had seen a few times already, and start inching our way as close to the front as possible, as Björk was playing afterwards. Interpol was as good as always, with Carlos D sporting a very manly 'stache. I will forever love the bass line to “Slowhand”, especially live. Jason had previously had a negative opinion on Interpol, but was converted by their live set. Their new songs were pretty good, but I do fear that it sounds a bit too much like their last two albums - almost indistinguishable. We shall see when it comes out, I suppose.
After 25 minutes, Björk hit the stage in a strange big hat and robe with her opening number “Earth Intruders”, the first single off her upcoming album Volta. On the video screen, we saw the music programmers performing live with ALIEN TECHNOLOGY! IT was basically a touch-screen pad that tracked multiple fingers at the same time, enabling very dynamic live sound manipulation. In addition to that Star Trek shit, she had an all female horn and chorus ensemble, and a live drummer. They were earthlings as far as I could tell. Björk's planet of origin, however, is up for debate. I swear Iceland's just a ruse. Anyhow, she shed her hat and robe for an equally strange sort-of-feathery mini-dress for the rest of the set, that included classics such as “Hunter, “All Is Full of Love”, “Pagan Poetry”, and “Army of Me” while our little elfin queen danced in her adorably seizure-like fashion, telling us excitedly “THANK YOU!” (but it sounded more like SANK YOU!) in between nearly every song. My favorite was when she belted out “YES! YES!” like she had just one a close game of Mortal Kombat. “Joga” sounded just wonderful with the horns taking the place of the normal string arrangement. She closed out the set with a fantastic rendition of “Hyperballad” that merged into her manic dance hit “Pluto”, where they busted out more ALIEN TECHNOLOGY in the form of this big radar-looking table thing that pulsated to the beat and made all these delicious electronic sounds when these modules were placed on it. The cubes, when moved around, modulate and manipulate the sound. You know, I lack the capacity to explain this without visual aids, so here's a youtube video of its use on “Pluto”.
(video can be found HERE)
Here's another during the encore, “Declare Independence”
(video can be found HERE)
Bonkers? Yes. It was. It's also called a Reactable, and demos of it can be found on youtube. And that was day 1.
Day 2 and Day 3 (including the triumphant return of Rage Against The Machine) can be found at
Daddy Monkey Lives
[My5:]
