Coachella Music Festival
Empire Polo Grounds
Indio, California
April 29 & 30 2006
By Victoria Joyce
Photos by: Victoria Joyce
Sunday
At the Coachella Music Festival the dilemma is not who do you want to see, it’s who do you want to miss? Forty six artists were scheduled for Sunday. Tremendous advances have been made in cloning but still only one me. Better get going. Giant Drag, local LA favorites were on the Outdoor Theater first thing Sunday. We hate Emo but we love Giant Drag. A deadpan delivery from the tiny girl with the big voice, half stand up comedian, half lead singer, Annie is very Psychedelic Furs when she sings: - “Love, love, love, you wouldn’t know it - if it hit you.” Ya can’t give it away, can ya?
Indie 103 is playing the Be-Jesus out of their Chris Issak cover, ‘Wicked Game.” Which now belongs to Giant Drag, Annie and Micah that it is. Just the two of them, her and him, real simple guitar and drums. A perfect opener for Coachella 06, Day two.
Besides that song “This Isn’t It,” the GD did another goodie, “Kevin is Gay.” Cute as hell in her pink tank and plaid skirt, Annie told the fans, “We’d like to thank you. It’s a real pleasure despite what you’ve read.” They went into “My Dick Sux.” Great title or what? And wrapped it up with “365-7-50.”
We passed the Gobi Tent and caught just a bit of the Murs and 9th Wonder. Coachella expanded its pallet this year to include some Hip Hop and Rap artists. The smarter, cooler stuff. Like Kanye West (“George Bush does not care about black people.”) and assorted others. Different.
We kept moving to hear The Dears in the Mojave Tent. Real cool and dark in that big tent. Went real nice with their haunting song “Lost in the Plot.”(“Don’t Mess With Our Love”) Lead singer is very Morrisey, all dreamy, not caring and existentialist. And then comes back with a vicious ripping texture. How do you sound that bored and be from Belize? The Dears killed us. Our favorite of the Festival. See the interview we did we these guys in “On the Record.”
Next up on the same stage was James Blunt. Oh, no, here come the girls. This tent got very crowded very quickly. This was the day that the festival officially sold out, 60K plus. (Blame Madonna.) Mr. Blunt is a classic singer-songwriter, model gorgeous and a divine voice that got screams and whistles. He’s got a sense of humor too. “Here’s a special song from the 70’s” with his whispery falsetto, Blunt into’ed his radio hit “Beautiful.” Yeah, it was. And he is.
The crush of the crowd was getting to us. We sought refuge in the dance tent. Caught a little bit of Louis Vega, a very jazzy DJ out of NY. “In my house, there is only original house music and no sequences!!” This got a rave review from the few who were dancing in the dance tent. Most were sitting and cooling off.
Rolling back to the Mojave to catch a measure of Metric (heh heh), another Canadian band, recommended by The Dears. Can’t be bad. Edgy, crazy, punked-out, pseudo-violent, what’s not to love. Like most of the bands playing at this festival, it’s not all about the white boys anymore. Metric is girl-fronted and several flesh tones.
We crossed the field to the Main Stage for Matisyahu. Initially, we weren’t really that interested. In case you haven’t heard, he is a Hassidic Jew who sings rap and reggae. We thought, oh, yeah, that’s a cute gimmick.
But nooooo. This guy is serious about his shtick. No joke. Ever hear the one about the Ethiopians being the lost tribe of Israel? Halie Salassie? Ok get the connection now? Jumping and hopping around like M&M but with a yarmulke. Oy. No, seriously, the music is beautiful. His voice is little bit Chili Peppers/Anthony K, very white boy-soul and then right into the Marley-like reggae. Lyrics are all Zion and Jerusalem. Eyes closed and hand to his head, he’s praying on stage. “Lord, won’t you raise me up. I’ve been here too long.” It was very beautiful. The crazy quilt audience was swooning with all the tattoos, Mohawk, jeans, tube tops and dripping eye make up. America! Love it or leave it. We love it and we ain’t leaving soon. Too many more bands to hear.
Checked out DJ Jamie Lidell in the Gobi with his steam roller machine beats, very factory with a stream of consciousness rapping that was confusing and wonderful. By now we and just about everyone else was dizzy with the heat. High 90’s for most of the day gave way to the shadows getting longer.
Here we go across the big field again, grab a few waters, sit down for some Korean BBQ and a couple of red-hot songs from the amazing Sleater-Kinney. They used to be grrrrrls now they are big grrrrlllls. They still rock viciously. We stayed for two songs and one story. Everybody was buzzing about Madonna. “My first concert was in 1985. I was in the 5th Grade. It was the Virgin Tour. The Beastie Boys opened for her and they were booed off the stage.”
“Something glorious is about to happen,” is what we heard as we approached the Outdoor Theater with Bloc Party taking the stage. Crowds were really starting to swell now and the band screamed into “I’m on Fire.” Kele Okereke, lead singer and guitar stopped long enough to say, “Reckon you could fry an egg on this stage!” Yeah, it was hotter than hot on that stage.
This year’s Fashion must-have was definitely a parasol. Pretty Chinese ones. Just how many bands could we fit into one day? We were limiting ourselves to two or three songs and then moving on. Like we said up front, it’s not who do you want to see, it’s who do you want to miss?
We needed some more water and some chill time in the Winter Dome. This concept piece was perfect. Center stage we had a big white pirate ship and the big white pirate both covered is glittery white snow with sparkly flakes hanging from the ceiling The audio had speakers blasting an arctic wind. It worked.
We could not miss Gnarls Barkley. No. We couldn’t. We are Cray-Zay about that song of his “Crazy!” OK, so they are on stage and big old Gnarles is in a big old white tee and pants and everyone else in the band is dressed like the Wizard of OZ, like the Wicked Witch and Dorothy.
OK, maybe we’ve been out in the sun just a leeettle bit tooooo long. Are these guys for real? Very very White Stripes, if you know what I mean. Are these two guys brother and sister or married? Doesn’t matter. If you’ve heard their stuff you know they are as infectious as spyware. Love Gnarles Barkely! Gnarles followed the radio hit with a cover of the Violent Femmes’ “Gone Daddy Gone.” Or were we on mushrooms? G’s voice is smoother than soy milk. Reminds us of Sylvester, the disco star outta San Francisco, but with a world beat and a little more slam-bam, thank you mam.
Seu Jorge was highly recommended to us. We had seen him in the “Steve Zisko” movie where he did the French acoustic Bowie covers. After a very long sound check, he played in the Mojave with a 7 piece backup band including three percussionists. That Talking Drum was pretty cool. “Allah be praised.” Very Gil Scott Heron. Sophisticated and in Portuguese.
We were intrigued by the legendary Editors. Very nice stuff. We caught a few of their chatter clatter punk songs and attempted to see a bit of Madonna.
The crowds had been swelling all day for Madge who wasn’t even on the main stage. That was a big kicker. All those fans and she’s in the dance tent? No jumbo tron? Like we said she was a half hour late and 8 turned into 8:30. We were done. On our way to the parking lot we hear the roar when Ms. Ciccone took the stage. We heard she did six songs and snapped at some fan who spilled water on the stage. In our opinion the Madonna vibe and hype was just not in the Coachella direction. Except for the fact that this festival re-invents itself as often as she does.
http://www.myspace.com/giantdrag
http://www.mawrecords.com/bios/louievegabio.html
http://www.ilovemetric.com/news.html
http://www.editorsofficial.com/