This Phoenix bands no-frills set fit the bill to perfection.
Yes just!, I thought.
How grand and appropriate that would be for such a noble setting!
Laura Marling is rather missed there.
he yelled.Wooo!the crowd responded.
See, I just say the name of the festival, and everybody goes crazy, he said.
COACHELLA!Wooo!I luuuuuuuuuv you!
Theyll grow into it, I suspect.
Those opening strums of Death to Los Campesinos!
Theyve all taken Campesinos!
before setting back about their violins and glockenspiels and whatnot.
We started this band three years ago, said Gareth.
We didnt expect to be here.
Then he paused, and asked, Can somebody turn the Hold Steady down, kindly?
gave me the days biggest emotional swell; set closer Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks wiped my tears away.
Gareth ended it on top of the speaker tower, shouting One blink for yes!
Two blinks for no!
That doesnt make what Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney do any less kickass.
(PS: Glad to see them functioning superbly as a unit after some solo dalliance.)
But Ididfind out from averyreliable source that the long rumored Ward/Oberst/Jim James Monsters of Folk collaboration is IMMINENT.
Not just in the works.
Right, so, Franz Ferdinand.
(Alex Kapranos kept referring to it as a big club foot.)
FF fans, whered you go?
Did you leave because they just keep writing the same song over and over?
c’mon explain, if you would.
Put down my backpack.
Closed my eyes as darkness fell and the searchlights met above my head, slicing the stars apart.
Dance Me to the Edge of Love.
Bird on a Wire.
Slow, methodical, the depths of his lungs scraping against the sky of his backing singers sweetness.
Okay, now Im just nattering.
It was really good, the Leonard Cohen set.
Im pissed I had to leave before he was done to go get in the photo pit for Morrissey.
I hope I dont have to wait 15 years to see him again.
Thanks a lot, friends, he said at one point.
To be sure, his voice is fairly unchanged by time, and his band was crackerjack good.
Uh,come again?
He made a series of gagging noises, sung a bit more.
Then: The smell of burning animals is making me sick, he said, gagging again.
I cant bear it!
I snickered, and broke out the beef jerky.
I know you believe that meat is murder.
(I think I read that somewhere.)
Unless youre really that hard up for money, and you needed this gig to keep your house.
Did you need this gig to keep your house?
I didnt think so.
Finally, wed reached the holy land, and McCartney was to come.
There was no way any human being could meet those expectations.
And so for the first hour and a half of his set, Macca kind of didnt try.
Then he launched into a spirited Drive My Car, and the energy picked up.
- (Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?
Quick, name the movie.)
Then he played Here Today and, of course, dedicated it to the late John Lennon.
Everybody was dead here for a while, including the crowd.
(We got there for Dont Stop.
We will never again underestimate the power of Daft Punks robot suits.)
Then we felt bad for leaving the memorial service walking away from aBeatle so we went back.
McCartney was playing Something, which he dedicated to the wife of the late George Harrison.
The crowd seemed thinner than ever before.
I thought about going fetal on the ground.
Except the man was nowhere near done.
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
As a good friend of mine always puts it, the Beatles were the original indie rock.
They led us here.
Its 5 a.m. Me and my personal life journey are going to bed now.
What about you, Mixers?
Anyone out in the field?
Anyone watching via webcast/twitpics/some technology I dont know about yet at home?
Suggestions for what I should do tomorrow besides maybe sleep in and not get there until 6 p.m.?
That would be bad?
Photo Credit: Whitney Pastorek/EW.com
