Another year, another Coachella.
For various reasons (most of ‘em financial), I only went on Friday. But by all accounts, that was the best of the three festival days. Temperatures hovered around 90 but didn’t rise any higher, the port-a-potties were as yet unspoiled, and festival attendees entered the grounds fresh-faced, optimistic and sunburn-free.
Here’s a rundown of the bands I saw:
Dear and the Headlights: Except for diehard fans, nobody really pays attention to bands who play Coachella at 1 p.m.; they’re getting the lay of the land and taking the opportunity to sit in the shade for a while before the grounds get too crowded. But if you’re going to half-listen to a band, it might as well be a band who plays inoffensive, generic, pleasant-enough-sounding indie rock.
The Courteneers: Hadn’t heard the Manchester quartet before, and I was pleasantly surprised–they made the best of their 2:00 time slot with a set of upbeat poppy Brit-rock.
We Are Scientists: These graduates of my alma mater, like later mainstage performers Franz Ferdinand, were kind of chewed up and spit out by the indie dance-rock craze of the mid-aughts. Which is sad, because they’re still making fun, smart, catchy music, and they’ve got onstage banter down to a, well, science. Plus, it was fun to hear kids in the crowd singing along to songs I heard on the quad just a few short years ago.
The Hold Steady: It was my first time seeing these guys live, and once I got over the shock of whiskey-voiced lead singer Craig Finn looking like someone’s embarrassing uncle who teaches seventh-grade English and gets tipsy at weddings, I thought they rocked.
Finn’s pipes sounded a little weak at first, like he was getting over a cold, but his voice picked up strength as the set went on. And guitarist Tad Kubler totally ripped, even pulling out one of those guitars that are like, double guitars on “Lord, I’m Discouraged.” Still, I got the feeling that it’s better to see the Hold Steady at a club surrounded by die-hard fans who know to sing that last “whoa-oh” at the end of “Slapped Actress” instead of clapping prematurely. I’m excited for the El Rey this July 7th.
M. Ward: After rocking out to the Hold Steady, it was nice to sit down in the grass and mellow out with the critically beloved singer/guitarist/analog fetishist. I only caught the last half of his set, but the mix of cuts from “Hold Time” and “Post-War” sounded fine, as did covers of “Roll Over Beethoven” and, um, “The Entertainer.” No Zooey, though–guess she was too busy promoting her latest role as a quirky free spirit who gives a brooding man-child a new lease on life. Just as well.
The Black Keys: I love the Southern blues-rock duo on record, but they sounded a little thin on the main stage. They may need to get themselves a touring bassist. Still, they provided decent accompaniment to eating something fried and delicious while watching the shadows on the field get longer.
Franz Ferdinand: Mmm, Scotsmen. Alex Kapranos and co. played a lively set on the main stage just as the sun was going down. They may no longer be the “it” band in indie rock, but they’re still consummate showmen and surprisingly tight musicians. Crowd-pleaser “Take Me Out” came fairly early on. I’m not sure how their set ended, as I spent the last few songs making my way over to the Outdoor Stage to see the second most anticipated veteran performer of the night.
Leonard Cohen: Really, there are no words…except maybe “Hallelujah.” Best performance of the night, hell, probably the single greatest live music moment I’ve experienced in 2009 thus far.
Morrissey: After Leonard Cohen’s set, which came from a place that was very deep and very dark and very real, it was quite the letdown to have to make my way through the (by now extremely dense) crowd to the primo railing spot my friend had managed to save, only to find myself faced with a petulant Englishman. I mean, “Girlfriend in a Coma” and “How Soon Is Now” sounded great live. But the 50-year-old multimillionaire acted like a little bitch throughout his entire set–”The smell of burning flesh is making me sick,” the known vegetarian moaned after catching a whiff of a nearby barbecue stand. Unfortunately for Morrissey, Coachella has multiple first-aid tents but no waahmbulance.
Paul McCartney: Okay, you could get nitpicky about all sorts of things, like how all the non-guitar/bass/drum parts were played by a guy with a synthesizer when really, countless professional string and horn players would’ve paid McCartney for the privilege of sharing a stage with him. A few lines and chords got flubbed, and Paul’s between-song asides often came across as eccentric or senile or both. And material from Fireman and other recent solo albums was met with little to no enthusiasm from the crowd.
But come on, the man’s a fucking Beatle. And the set list testified to that: McCartney played eighteen-odd Beatles songs, including “Yesterday”, “Blackbird”, “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, “Helter Skelter”, even “Something” and “A Day In The Life” (dedicated to George and John, respectively.) When he segued from “Birthday” into “Can’t Buy Me Love”, even the most hard-hearted of hipsters started screaming like it was the Ed Sullivan Show circa ’64.
And ya know, loopy onstage banter and a couple missed cues? Totally excusable when you’re a 68-year-old on the eleventh anniversary of his wife’s death. (Linda, natch, not the one-legged whore.) Paul repeatedly mentioned what an emotional night it was for him, and his entire set overflowed with sincerity such that even the cheesiest of Wings songs became tolerable. And the audience returned the favor: if you were on the Coachella grounds at approximately 12:25 a.m. that night and you weren’t belting out “Naaa naa naa na na na naaaa, na na na naaa, HEY JUDE!” then you were either dead or or coked out of your mind in the Sahara Tent. Either way, you weren’t a functional human being.
By the time Macca played the last few chords of “The End” at around 1 a.m., I had spent thirteen straight hours at Coachella, and I was just completely done. Of course, it took over an hour to get out of Indio and another two to make it back home, but that didn’t matter so much.
So the question now is: which well-respected, still-rockin’ veteran act will Coachella book in 2010? I mean, who could possibly rock an all-ages crowd of thousands better than Prince and Paul McCartney? I’ve got a few ideas…
