Shake and Bake
At the Song- and Sun-Blasted Coachella Music Festival, Gang of Four and SPF 30
By Sean Daly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 4, 2005; Page C01
INDIO, Calif.
O n a lush plot of paradise in the cruel heart of the California desert . . . in a logic-defying wonderland where you can drink 14 bottles of water in one day and somehow never need the bathroom . . . where half of the crowd looks like porn stars and the other half looks like porn renters :
More than 50,000 of the nation's young, hip and Coppertoned (Cameron Diaz included) and 90 of the world's hottest rock, rap and pop bands (Coldplay included) invaded this sun-baked, dust-caked retirement town last weekend for the sixth annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, a two-day endurance test and the ultimate concert-going experience on the planet.
You think the HFStival is a long day? You think braving the Warped Tour takes courage? Try scampering across an oven-hot 80-acre field and darting among two outdoor stages, three concert tents and various performance-art installations, all the while ducking and weaving through swarms of music freaks who are just as hyper as you to hear Weezer play brand-new music.
Now repeat this over and over for 24 hours .
Like skydiving, streaking and driving across the country with annoying friends, Coachella (a bargain at $150 for both days) has become one of those things in life you just gotta try once. It's rewarding, but it's a slog, too. Since its humble beginnings in 1999, when it was modestly launched by longtime Los Angeles punk promoters Goldenvoice, the event has taken on mythic status. Think rock-and-roll at the end of the world -- aka the Empire Polo Fields, a well-manicured ocean of lawn caught between the majestic San Jacinto Mountains and the Mojave Desert.
They don't sell shade at Coachella, but they could. Until the sun goes down, of course, when the temperature drops into the low 60s and suddenly sweat-shirt sales are outnumbering concert tees.
Although the end of the world was 20 degrees hotter last year -- a satanic 106 -- the milder microclimate this time in no way diminished the drama. First of all, there are the palm trees, hundreds of the cinematic suckers, like God's green darts perfectly framing the grounds; at night, the desert wind blows through the trees (many of which are illuminated by red, yellow, and blue spotlights), and you can hear a collective life-affirming sigh from the half-naked masses.
Everyone is beautiful: the men, the women, the folks selling the roasted ears of corn, the dudes running the 10-foot-tall Tesla coil that shoots out bolts of electricity and freaks out the stoners. Even the people trying so hard to be twisted -- the pierced, the tattooed, the curiously hirsute -- are foxy underneath all that posturing. Check yourself out in the mirror: You're not looking too shabby either, my friend.
Plus there are all those reminders of mortality spread across the grounds. Signs and announcements and tsk-tsking security: If you don't slather sunblock and guzzle water throughout the day, there's a very good chance YOU COULD DIE. Death in the desert: How rock-and-roll is that!
"I don't even like festivals. I hate 'em," Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy said during his band's Saturday set. "But I'm happy to be here. Really. This is so cool. So awesome ." Tweedy is not a man known to gush, but who could blame him: Wilco's abstract musical musings have left a lot of people bored of late, but darned if the band's odd jazz-country breakdowns didn't make beautiful sense as the sun was setting behind the mountains.
Rock stars love Coachella: for the scenery, for the exposure, for the chance to see other bands without having to worry about getting mauled by fans. This is laid-back Southern California, after all. Drooling over, say, Keane's cherubic frontman Tom Chaplin while he gets a beer is a serious party foul.
Coachella is the kind of place where a crowd will demand an encore not from Weezer or Gang of Four or the Futureheads but from M.I.A., a young, lanky, relatively unknown Sri Lankan rapper whose childlike enthusiasm is just as infectious as her loopy techno-meets-reggae rhymes. Like Salt-N-Pepa with a social conscience, M.I.A. used the event as her own coming-out party, and "Did you see the M.I.A. show?" became the festival's favorite catchphrase.
Of course, Coachella is also the kind of place where you can be sitting on the grass, enjoying British synth-rock heroes New Order work through "Blue Monday," when all of a sudden Melissa Rivers (Melissa Rivers?) walks in front of you, blocks your view and starts yammering away with her pals, like she's back on the TV Guide Channel breaking down Oscar Night fashion with mummified mom Joan. But she's not. She's just a fan. Or something.
Although not exactly a sign of the apocalypse, Melissa Rivers is a clear signal that Coachella is changing.
Whereas the event started as a sexy little secret six years ago, it is now the place to be not just for hungry music fans in their twenties but also for Hollywood celebs hankering for some bold-face attention in the gossip columns. The sprawling VIP section at Coachella is its own curious universe: a series of tents, sparkly bars, plush black leather sofas and bouncy fake breasts. Many concertgoers spend as much time trying to sneak into the VIP area as they do listening to music. At any second, you can gaze across the top of your pina colada and scope out a mingling of A-, B- and C-listers.
Look! There's Cameron Diaz, in green shirt and jeans, waving to her public. Cameron Diaz, it should be noted, looks just like Cameron Diaz.
Click. Click. Click. Thirty-one-year-old Marty Lopez, who lives nearby "in the desert," is snapping away with her disposable camera, giggling as Diaz gets closer and closer. A tall, pretty blonde, Lopez is attending her fourth Coachella. A few years back, she arrived at the show seven months pregnant. "It was pretty cool," she says.
Look, there's "America's Next Top Model" judge Janice Dickinson. The tall, tan brunette is surrounded by muscular men 20 years her junior, perhaps because she's wearing a barely there miniskirt and a too-tight bikini top.
Look, there's beleaguered "Insider" host Pat O'Brien, fresh out of rehab. No one bothers him, perhaps because he's wearing a too-tight black T-shirt and has barely-there hair.
On one of the couches, a young blond woman, displaying as much of her skin as California laws allow, chats away into her cell phone: "Oh, there's much better-looking people back here," she says.
West Hollywood's Ben Chavez, 42, is one of those people -- well, sort of. The tanned, handsome federal worker says that even though he's back here, drinking and smoking in the VIP section, he doesn't agree with the "segregation" of the pretty and the not-so-pretty. "That's the thing that runs counter to the spirit of Coachella. It shouldn't matter if you're black or white, or gay or straight." He pauses: "And I'm gay."
Go ahead and laugh, but there actually seems to be such a thing as "the spirit of Coachella." The fest was founded the same year as the last Woodstock, which erupted in flames and violence. And while there certainly have been angry young men at Vans Warped and Lollapalooza, Coachella is mostly mellow. The promoters make it a point to keep metal bands to a minimum, and it's actually considered cool to brag about how much water you've had. The first-aid tent had a smattering of visitors, mostly sunburn victims and drunk little girls, not broken bones and smashed noses.
Chavez, who is attending for the fourth time, says the "passion of the music" and the "indie spirit" are what count at Coachella. The event's quickly growing reputation as a national to-do could change things. "It's a double-edged sword," he says. "If it gets too popular to the point that it's hard to get tickets, then it's a problem."
Outside the VIP section, among the commoners, the social order is breaking down at the portable toilets. The lines are getting long, smelly, aggressive. The spirit of Coachella is being sorely tested. Twenty-three-year-old Crystal looks terrified. "My brother said there weren't enough port-a-potties last year, so they started pushing them over," says the Salinas resident, who drove for 10 hours to see Weezer (and is not comfortable giving out her last name while in line for the toilet).
"I love Rivers," Crystal says of Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo. Now there's shoving. Cursing. Sweating. "Please don't leave my side," Crystal says. It isn't long before the "tip it over" chant starts.
And sometimes a music festival is just a music festival.
For most fans, Coachella is all about collecting, making lists, who you've seen, who you want to see, who you missed because you were standing in line for those awesome tacos. VIP tents aside, there is a genuine love of music here. Music writers can get jaded about the biz, but Coachella, despite displaying more cleavage than a Russ Meyer retrospective, restores faith in even the most cynical. The sound quality is pretty good considering all the different stages, and artists are accommodating with their set lists, showing off new bits but also closing with the hits.
In hindsight -- and using a program to help my weary brain -- I can see that Saturday had the better lineup of talent. But essentially I'll remember the weekend as a tasty blur of power chords and keyboard twirls, singalongs and shout-'em-outs.
So here's my collection, my lists:
Best Pure Moment of the Weekend: Coachella is a tightly run ship, with bands coming onstage and leaving exactly when the program says they will. But when her newfound fans started chanting "M.I.A.! M.I.A.!" at the close of her 50-minute set, the doe-eyed rapper (aka Maya Arulpragasm) returned for the weekend's rare encore. Never mind that she had worked through the entirety of her album and had nothing left to play. "I only have one album," she said by way of apology after messing around with the beat from Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'," "but I'll be back." That's for sure.
Bands I Can't Wait to See Again: As one of the festival's first acts, Nic Armstrong & the Thieves tore up the second stage with a Stonesian swagger and a surf-rock playfulness, a bunch of young, hunky Brits paying homage to the swinging sounds of the '60s.
Underground rap collective the Perceptionists -- MCs Mr. Lif and Akrobatik plus DJ Therapy -- unleashed their "black dialogue" on the big stage. The crowd grew as the set went on, indie kids asking "Who are these guys?" and sticking around for the answer.
Bands I Missed Because I Was Stalking Cameron Diaz: UNKLE, Stereophonics, MF Doom.
Bands Who Seemed Bored to Be There: Brit-pop trio Keane, family of folk-poppers Eisley.
Old Dudes Who Can Still Thrill the Kids: Punk progenitors Gang of Four, New Order.
Old Dudes Who Need Naps: Goth-rockers Bauhaus (although frontman Peter Murphy should get points for playing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" while hanging upside down like a wrinkled gray bat).
Biggest Surprises: All day Saturday and Sunday, rumors swirled about "surprise" acts. The White Stripes in the parking lot? The Gorillaz at the afterparty? No such luck on either of those, but there was a wee bit of trickery here and there. Under his DJ pseudonym Peretz, former Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell put together a way-trippy techno display in the Sahara Tent, the unofficial drug den where kids came to stop, drop and roll. "I would say this is the perfect place to beeeeee! It's nice and shady! It's shaking my booty!" Farrell said.
At the end of Z-Trip's guilty-pleasure set -- Z-Trip essentially being a wedding DJ who's really bored with his job, mixing AC/DC and Ray Charles with electronic beats -- he invited Linkin Park's Chester Bennington onstage to sing "Walking Dead," a moody cut from Z-Trip's new album, "Shifting Gears."
Biggest Freaks: Whoever created the art display featuring the exploding baby should probably seek counseling, and Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo is a power-pop nutjob who's increasingly making Beach Boy Brian Wilson seem like Mister Rogers. Cuomo has taken a vow of celibacy. He's alienated his band mates. He just seems so uncomfortable . That said, Weezer's new material -- including "Peace" and "We Are All on Drugs" -- are shimmering cuts of fun fun fun, proving that as Rivers gets crazier, his songs get better.
Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor is one intense son of a gun: He peered into the Sunday night crowd as if he wanted to eat us, and his new techno-rage songs are chock-full of Grade A self-loathing. Classic NIN love song "Closer" made for the most unlikely singalong of the festival, a pretty little hate machine to cut through all the niceties.
Best Claim to World Domination: "Is there anybody out there who is lost and hurt and lonely, too?" Coldplay's Chris Martin -- you know, Apple's dad, Gwynnie's hubby, heir to the Brit-pop throne -- is such a dope. But man, can that guy write some pretty music. There wasn't a bigger band at Coachella this year. (Pity poor Spoon and the Chemical Brothers and Fantomas, all of whom headlined their stages but had to play the same time as Coldplay.) Next month Coldplay will release "X & Y," and if the smattering of new tunes played at Coachella is any indication, the third album is going to be the biggest.
Martin, alternating between piano, acoustic guitar and standalone mike, displayed a newfound swagger and edge, brought on perhaps by marriage, fatherhood or bazillions of dollars. And if there once was concern that Martin was going to go the way of Radiohead's Thom Yorke (obtuse, difficult, cuckoo), you can forget about that. A master at writing sweeping melodies for the masses, Martin's mission is to pull close rather than push away. And does he have a flair for the dramatic. As a crisp wind whipped through the palm trees and across the grounds, the black night yawning overhead, Martin signaled the lovely piano pounds of "Yellow," the band's breakout hit: "Look at the stars / Look how they shine for you."
Rock-and-roll at the end of the world. See you next year.
