Coachella Saturday

Coachella Music Festival

Empire Polo Grounds

Indio, California

April 29 & 30 2006

Saturday

By Victoria Joyce

Photos by Victoria Joyce

SugarBuzz Magazine

This thing is in the middle of nowhere. Or next door really. Drive east from LA, exit Highway 10 at Palm Springs and drive for 35 miles. If you hit the Salton Sea, you’ve gone too far. As soon as we got past the dusty parking lot and all ticketed and scanned we knew the first thing we needed to get was a hat. This sun was serious.

Coachella is an arts festival. How can you tell? Everything is art. Walking past the painted Port-O-Potties (we said everything) to the vendors, we heard the beautiful strings of The Section Quartet. We knew we were in heaven. Sigh. Yeah, Coachella is heaven. Or as close to it as any music fan will get to here on earth.

But it was too hot and that sun needed to be dealt with. A hat, cheap and cute. Cruising the vendors, we discovered Neighborhoodies; custom printed tees, etc. These guys really know their crowd. We loved the sample shirt on display: Interpol Wants Revenge. That set the tone for the weekend. Informed and irreverent.

There were no MC’s on any of the five stages, no single personality or voice. It is all about the music. Multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-gender and ageless. This ‘independent” music festival is biggest and best in the world in some opinions. The term headliner is re-defined. Scheduled early or late, big stage or small, all of these bands were huge. Left of center, the NY Times called it “more of a trade show” because of the sophistication of the diverse audience and the artists.

OK, we got our hat, now onto the main stage to check out The Section Quartet. “You’ll wish all the bands playing today tuned this much!” Stopping between the songs, leader of this chamber music group, Eric Gorfain excused his band. You’ve heard them on National Public Radio, big favorites. The Section Quartet is out of LA. We caught them at a Led Zeppelin tribute a while back. TSQ’s big closer was their cover of Led Zep “Rock and Roll.” Heaven.

We stopped off in the Do-Lab Dome to check out their performance-dance. Very cool. Literally, we had to get out of the 90-something sun. This Dome was laced with vines and plants, dripping with man-made rain while the dancers danced and spanked each other. And the DJ spun from a tree. Swear to God he looked like a Keebler Elf up there.

Coachella did the same set up as years hence: Sitting on a Polo practice field, we got a main stage, Out Door Theater (little stage) and three tents towards the back (Gobi, Mojave, Sahara) rounding out the L-shaped layout. Food courts, beer gardens, vendor’s domes and sculptures filled in the rest. The cross-playing was minimized. And the entire weekend ran on time like the trains in Mussolini’s Italy. (Except at the end, Sunday night, Madonna went on a half hour late.)

Like last year, only one problem. And it was a biggie. NO CEL RECEPTION. There was some coverage but the saturation delayed calls and messages. “Jesus, I got all seven of your messages when we got to the parking lot.” Yeah, you and everybody else. And the ID Check lines were long late in the afternoon for the beer drinkers. Other than that, heaven.

We moved on to the Mojave Tent to catch Rob Dickenson doing his acoustic thing sitting on a stool. . Really lovely. Walking in we heard that pretty “My Name is Love.” This ex-Catherine Wheeler introduced a couple of his new songs “Handsome,” “Oceans,” and told a sweet story about writing the final song in his parents house and thanking the California fans for making it special. He was right, we dig this one. We were singing “My skin is Black Metallic” through the rest of the day.

“You’re not the first, you’re not the last,” was the song from the Brit band, Nine Black Alps right before they went into the hit “So Shock Me.” They played it a little noisier and faster than the radio version. The lyric “Dead by sunlight,” rang true. Their lead singer’s voice was shot to hell. All business, this frantic and very Sex Pistols band didn’t say much other than “Cheers, Kids.” And then off.

And, hey, these kids were alright. This crowd was beautiful. Like Halloween in West Hollywood. Punks and parents (we saw several babies), teens and twenties, Goths and Glams, cow girls and gay boys, tatts on everyone, gangsters and hippies, buzz cuts and dred locks, mohawks and shags, with and without streaks and everybody wearing shades. Starlets in heels, frat boys and robots. Yeah, really, a couple of robots. The fashions of Coachella; besides the expected faux vintage rock tees, tanks and jeans; baseball hats, sneakers and sandals; we saw a lot of sundresses. Indian prints were big and asymmetrical sheer layered skirts were the smartest choice for this white hot, blasting sunny weekend. A couple of dudes went in Kilts. Would you believe fairy wings? And the very LA look, short shorts with cowboy boots. You desert tramp!

Time to seek shade, so we ducked into the Film Fest Tent and low and behold, we caught a bit of the documentary by Stuart Copeland, "Police," Dang, this thing sold out the week before in LA. So cute, we watched for about a half hour and caught a bit about shooting video in New Zealand. They hired sheep as extras but neglected to hire shepherds. Hee hee.

The art was not limited to music. They go all out with film, painting and big time sculpture and environment type stuff. We wandered past the autumn dome with a 30 foot tree made of rakes and wind chimes. So pretty and so cool. Later on we found the summer and winter domes (by artist Keith Greco). Breezy and freezy! Big on the interactive side of things, the Summer Dome had a central table of Gnomes with cels in front of each one, that when hit, cued a music sample. Yes, you could be the freaky DJ! Salvador Dali was never this surrealistic.

We saw a huge crowd gathering outside the Mojave tent. It turned into our favorite and we never wandered far. Wolfmother was up next. Why do people say they sound like Steppenwolf? Is it the ‘wolf’ name? Must be. ‘Cause we are hearing vintage Zeppelin in the radio hit “Wooooo-Man.” Which they did in front of the biggest crowd of the day. Love the guy with the big ‘fro. Punked-out with a touch of the Psychedelic, this UK band did a scorching set and played their hearts out to a packed tent. Good old fashioned long guitar solos, ala Hendrix with Ozzy-like vocals.

The crowd really started to swell toward sundown. A lot of people opted to come late to the party in order to miss the mid day sun. It made it easier to stay later. This fest was so big, the challenge was selecting which of the one hundred acts (count ‘em, one-zero-zero, a hundred rock and roll bands on five stages in two days!) did you need to see. And then pacing yourself against the elements. Ninety plus heat. Damn, you could only take so much, ya know?

A plane buzzed the crowd pulling a sign saying “Napster is now free.” Like we care. We walked over to the Outdoor Theater, aka the second stage, to catch My Morning Jacket. Ain’t they sweet? With their long hippie-hair and classic rock roots, all twangy and folk rocky. These country boys outta Louisville were perfect for the late afternoon. Dug them a lot as the shadows got longer.

Stage hopping now and in full gear, we went back to the Mojave for TV on the Radio with their multi-world-beat jazzy rap rock. Oooh, real pretty voice on that lead singer. He’s got a lot of frenetic energy; holding the mic with one hand and playing like he was swatting flies with the other. Is it us or do they sound like vintage Zappa? Back up vocals from the very falsetto guitar player with the big old ‘fro added a nice texture. They had a lot of fans in the tent who knew all the words. Then they broke out the accordion. Talk about a World Beat.

Next door in the Gobi tent, we checked out Imogen Heap with her Bjork-y look and her haunting whispery-breath, girl voice. Very Enya. We headed back to the main stage for Sigor Ros, the Icelandic rockers or is it Finland? More strings and more of that world beat. It’s like, jazz, man. We took a right turn and caught the last half of Damian Marley’s set. With the Wailers behind him. The party lights were on and if this wasn’t a reggae crowd, there never was one. Waving a huge Jamaican flag and playing like his daddy, Damian earned his last name big time. Whoa-oh-oh, Exodus!

By now the crowd had a life force of its own. There was a mass exodus from Marley on the side stage to the main stage for Franz Ferdinand. Talky-singing, punky-pop, wordy gurdy lyrics are signature this big and getting bigger Brit band. With more than one hit off their album, "The Fallen," "Walk Away," "Do You Want To" & "Take Me Out" and they did em all.

Cat Power was going on in the Mojave. We’ve heard such good stuff about her for years and now she’s got a big hit album. Hey, sometimes it’s happens. In a pretty little sundress with a great back up, The Memphis Rhythm Band, she packed the tent. We loved the violins. Again with the strings. She’s got a nice style, kinda Ricky Lee Jones, rock with some blues and a lot of brains.

Stopping off at the AT&T Blue Room to check our email (check our email?) We by the Outdoor Theater where the Eagles of Death Metal were doing that old 70’s gem, “Stuck in the Middle With You.” “Jokers to left of me, jokers to the right, stuck in the middle with you.” Love that one. These guys have a number one album, “Death by Sexy” and they couldn’t get any hotter. Goofing with the crowd, “I’m so scared and nervous!” was quickly followed by “Are you ready to rock?” What a silly question.

OK, Depeche Mode on the main stage and we are out of here. Veteran rockers, this beloved band was the big draw of the evening. They kicked out the new song “Precious” and Dave Gahan was in excellent voice and all over the stage with a leather vest over a bare chest looking not bad at all. Jagged screens hung askew with broken images of various textures. Very Depeche. “Precious” is the new album and the hit single. Nice one too. Typical haunting, gorgeous imagery, ‘things get damaged, things get broken, I thought we manage with words left unspoken’ The Mode did several unprecedented encores. A perfect close to a magnificent day.