Here are my favourite newly discovered bands from the festival:
Foals
Sleigh Bells
Trentemoller
To conclude my Coachella 2011 coverage, I’ll leave you with this remix of Ellie Goulding’s Under the Sheets that serves as the opening track on a Coachella mixtape I picked up by Las Vegas DJ Silent John.
Thanks SJ! Also, thanks to all the hard-working Coachella organizers! Hope to see you next year.
<3
Some blogs have suggested that Australia’s Empire of the Sun should have appeared on the main stage at Coachella before Arcade Fire. This would have had them replacing psychedelic prog-rock outfit Animal Collective. The Animal Collective show was visually creative, but the music hit only two notes: monotone and emotionless, and because of this, it made everyone restless. I was surprised by how bored I felt, cus I love Merriweather Post Pavilion. Anyway, though I was glad to have caught those guys, their performance was ultimately a fail. And given I’d already nominated our very dear Robyn for their honoured set-time, upon my return home I thought I’d check out Empire of the Sun to see what all the fuss was about.
So I did:
Ya…
I don’t get it.
All the visual artifice, make up and bug-eyed space camp-y-ness was really distracting. Sure, their show was interesting to watch with all the effort put into their DIY costume esthetic, and the far-too-numerous nods to David Bowie, but as I watched I found myself forming a look of horror on my face.
It just seems so vapid.
And in the music video below, the dudes look like they’re on a pill cocktail.
I will say the Empire of the Sun show at Coachella presented something different than all the other acts. They really went above and beyond in terms of creating a set onstage. And I like the lights on the guitars. But this band reminds me too much of Flight of the Conchords — both musically and aesthetically — only sincere (wait, is this sincere?). Anyway, the music isn’t that great. And, it’s been done.
Another negative is that the band appears to have influenced a buncha guys to sport feather headdresses… and makeup… at the festival. Is this a bad thing? Debatable, but I thought so. I know guys wore eyeliner in the 90s a la Billy Corgan, but the sheer arrogance they gave off this time around seemed like too much.
Perhaps the thing that really horrifies me is that this music is for a new crop of kids that are of a different generation than myself. Maybe marketers will start showcasing young men wearing coloured makeup and headdresses to sell things, and one day I will assimilate and it will become normal for me to see these makeup/headdress men on Coke bottles, cupcake wrappers and the like.
Or maybe I’m just not that cool anymore.
But I’m really not very old…
Download music by Empire of the Sun here. And you really should check out Animal Collective’s vast musical archives here.
Photo courtesy of lastfm.com.
Cee Lo Green was more than half an hour late for his set. And leaving a mass of hipsters cooking in the desert sun with nothing to listen to at the main stage is not a good thing.
Everyone around me was grumbling, “Where’s Cee Lo? He was supposed to start 15/20/25/30 minutes ago.” My friends and I contemplated leaving several times. “Let’s just wait five more minutes,” we said — three times.
By now the grumbling had switched to outspoken rage. “What the fuck Cee Lo?!” shouted a dude behind me.
Then people started pointing at a helicopter hovering overhead… Cee Lo?
It was Cee Lo.
He rushed onstage, sweat already glistening on his brow, and launched into Iron Man (a Black Sabbath cover).
“I’m angry too!” Cee Lo said at the beginning of his short set. “I’ve only got 20 minutes left!” He played a few Gnarls Barkley hits and his famed Fuck You, where audience members got a chance to finger the stage and stick it to Cee Lo a lil’ bit.
Supposedly he was not satisfied with his daytime spot so he made up for it by showing up late and trying to cut into Lauryn Hill’s set. He even threw down the start of a cover of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing, but the Coachella organizers cut off his power. So Cee Lo was left shouting at the crowd for a few more minutes while people started to disperse with shaking heads.
You’re angry, Cee Lo?
Well maybe you should have gotten in your personal helicopter a little earlier.
If you’re not angry, you can download Cee Lo’s music here.
Photo courtesy of hollywoodgo.com.
When DFA fans read the announcement of the Coachella 2011 lineup, the first words out of our mouths likely were: ”Holy shit, Death from Above 1979 have reunited. Who’s coming to Coachella??!”
The Toronto dance-punk duo consists of Jesse F. Keeler (of MSTRKRFT fame) and Sebastien Grainger (of sexiness fame). DFA broke up in ‘06, but announced a reunion in 2011 (!!!). The most significant thing you need to know about this band is that dudes play just bass, synth and drums – no guitar.
And they rock so hard.
During Going Steady, Cold War and Black History Month, my friends and I were thrashing around with the best of them, and were clearly enjoying ourselves. So much so that a guy cutting back through the crowd took one look at us and said, “Go up there.”
So we moved forward, pushing our way through the crowd towards… well, we didn’t know.
But we found a kickass punk-rock pit going on!
Due to my recent musical tastes veering more towards the indie rock, shoegaze, chillwave and electronic genres, I don’t see mosh pits very often anymore. But this brought me back to my punk-adoring days of the ‘90s. Everyone was standing around in a circle giving the pit a wide berth, and those inside were shoving and thrashing with giant grins and reckless energy. The pit doesn’t discriminate — both guys and girls were in there (including our badass friend with a BROKEN ARM!) showing us how the pit spreads love, not hate. Everyone had an amazing time.
Then, everyone around me lost their shit during the screaming climax of Romantic Rights. Sebastien was wailing on the drums with his shirt off, exposing his adorably bad tattoos. I liked how they set up his drum kit to face the audience sideways so we had a better view of his sexy body. Both members of DFA are sexy, actually. Let’s not forget Jesse — hot. Anyway, everyone was shouting out the words and going nuts with arms and legs akimbo.
It was dirty. It was sweaty. It was loud. It was exhausting. It made me feel like I’d drank 1,000 Red Bulls.
It was just the way a festival set should be.
Click the links to view the full set list here and download music by Death From Above 1979.
First photo courtesy of http://sidewalkhustle.com; all other photos by me.
Ratatat-tat-tat-tastic!
New York’s Ratatat are an awesome live act. Their instrumental-only style works surprisingly well in a live setting because they play live guitar, bass and drums — all while showcasing their large-scale silhouettes on top of a bright display.
Also, they’ve nailed the delicate art of how to match a multimedia display with the tempo and sentiment of their music.
The visuals were really freaking cool.
Case and point:
The guys, Mike Stroud and Evan Mast, both have long scraggly hair and penchant for over-the-top rockstar antics. Note these look awesome when silhouetted atop their twisted visuals. Ratatat played their video for Mirando during that song, which worked well on the big screen with its brilliantly (and cryptically) edited bits of Predator. At the end of Wildcat, they both wailed on two drums all primitive-like while everyone went nuts in the audience.
Both Mirando and Wildcat also had people dropping some saucy dance moves, reminding us that notwithstanding their great driving/daydreaming music, Ratatat is fucking good at making dance music.
Then, during Drugs, the audience was treated to a phantasmagoria of creepier-than-life stock photography. The images were were projected onto transparent screens that had bright lights in behind, and were layered with giant shadows of the band members.
Oh, and the characters they’ve created for their videos! You should have seen the lovely smiling black woman hula’ing during the set’s closer Seventeen Years (my personal fave). The live version of that song delivered a thousandfold. Everyone had arms in the air and was jumping with the beat. I don’t think I’ve seen a more amped-up crowd at an instrumental show.
And it made my pre-Kanye wait that much easier.
Download Ratatat’s music here.
Top photo courtesy of http://soundcheck.ocregister.com; all other photos by me.
Yelle! Yelle? You mean Yellay? No! YELLE!!
So much energy. So much enthusiasm. So much Yelle. Her high-pitched vocals popped in perfect sync with everyone’s hyperactive neck-shoulder twists. This is club-kid, European synthpop at its finest.
Yelle, the band’s frontwoman and namesake (orig. Julie Budet) was prowling and leaping across the stage in a hot pink cheetah-print hooded onesie. She has that lithe, fairy figure that French women so easily embody. And this paired with her peppy athleticism worked perfectly to create her slinky cat creature.
When the band first took the stage, Yelle was dressed in a ghillie suit, and her bandmates were decked out in safari hats and jackets building on themes from Safari Disco Club (see video below). Then the guys started wailing on drums in unison, and they had the rigid appearance of Ken dolls displaced from the savannah. They looked like plain-clothes members of the Blue Man Group moving their arms like machines! It was rad.
Yelle busted out all their best stuff: Je Veux Te Voir, Que veux-tu, Safari Disco Club and Comme un Enfant – the latter delivered with such force that the entire crowd, all the way to the back, was jumping as high as they could with their arms in the air while the sunset streamed into the tent.
It was like we were one organism – one dance club pop virus – taking over the polo field, and the sun was giving us her blessing.
“Go see Yelle.”
First photo courtesy of http://www.oh-yelle.com; middle photo courtesy of http://buzzbands.la; last photo by me.
“Don’t F*****g Tell Me What to Do!”
Robyn should have played the main stage. Her set was way too powerful for the Mojave tent. But that’s not the way it went. Whatever. Robyn!!! I’ve waited so long to hang with her!
A giant Swedish flag obstructed my view of the athletic pop princess for a large part of her show, so I didn’t get many photos. I’ve had to rely on You Tube clips to get a better glimpse of what she was wearing. But what I could see was this glowing body jumping and fist-pumping in time with the music like a militant aerobics instructor. She was a human firework set against giant pinwheels lazily spinning with the breeze.
The woman is a dance-pop machine. A regular fembot!
My friends and I were giggling before the show about how if we were friends with Robyn, then we could hang with her wherever she went, and it would be. So. Awesome. And after seeing her live, all I could think was that if I did hang with her, I’d be freakin’ buff!
Fantasies aside, nothing beat dancing my arse off to Robyn with my five girl friends. Fembots. Dance setting!
She threw down everything we wanted to hear and more. Hang With Me, Indestructible, Don’t F*****g Tell Me What To Do, Bad Gal, Fembot, and even With Every Heartbeat. With all these hits, it’s easy to see how the woman owned 2010 with her Body Talk series. Each album is a synth-pop tour de force.
Robyn’s commanding energy paired with a maniacal light show and throbbing techno beats made it an unforgettable dance-music experience. I would absolutely love to see her in a stadium setting.
Check out this crowd!
When the throbbing synth beats of Dancing On My Own started up, a roar emitted from the crowd. Everyone was singing along to every word and hip-thrusting to every beat. And when the chorus started up, right behind me I heard a chorus of deep male voices shout: “Yeah I know it’s stupid. Just gotta see it for myself. I’m in the corner. Watching you kiss her. Oooooh!” And when I turned around, I saw a bunch of frat boys with their arms around each other’s shoulders! It was hilarious!
“Ooooooh!”
So in short: If I were to fucking tell the Coachella organizers what to do, it would have been to get Robyn on the main stage before The Arcade Fire, goddammit.
First photo courtesy of http://idolator.com/; middle photo by me; last photo courtesy of Billboard.com.
I must admit I missed the first half of The Strokes’ show due to a jumping + backpack on the ground + portable-mandarin-oranges-in-sticky-syrup incident at Ratatat. So while feverishly cleaning my belongings and the inside of my bag, I unfortunately wasted part of their show.
But so it goes with music festivals.
From what I saw, NYC’s The Strokes were an excellent live act. Front man Julian Casablancas’s scratchy vocals were pitch perfect, as were the poppy guitar riffs this band is so well-known for. Casablancas’ voice in particular sounded fantastic as he moved easily between throaty, testosterone-induced yells (Take it or Leave It) to melancholy crooning (Under Control). People were dancing and swaying as far back as I could see.
And the rest of the band brought it too. For anyone who may have forgotten, The Strokes have come out with some unforgettable hits. When they played Reptilia, the audience devoured it and everyone went temporarily insane. I actually feel as though my limbs went crazy from so much past time spent playing Rock Band. Because of that I know all the words! I’ve shouted that song out so many times and to do it with a zillion other people at Coachella while hopping and air-guitaring all over the place was possibly the closest thing to a natural high that I felt all weekend.
Then they played another signature track: Last Night – and the insanity and air-guitaring continued. What fantastic songs! Fucking brilliant live.
As a whole, The Strokes were the perfect band to get everyone revved up before Kanye. I will say that Casablancas was dressed rather douchey sporting a shiny trucker hat, shaggy hair and annoying sunglasses, but he was easily forgiven.
And The Strokes were easily one of the top three acts I saw the festival. Definitely try to catch them if you can.
Click the links to view the entire set list and download The Strokes’ music.
First photo courtesy of Bilboard.com; second photo by me.
Omg where to start – There were bird dancers and ballerinas! And Kanye came out in the crowd on a giant cherry picker! And there were three “acts” like in a play! And they had an on-stage costume change under a giant white parachute! AND KANYE WAS THERE!!!
The buildup to both Kanye and his opening track Power was epic – like Daft Punk epic – with out-of-control guitar riffs accompanying slow, building bass. Kanye needed to have a long intro to accommodate him climbing from the cherry picker to the stage, and he used every second of it as buildup. This really showed what a fantastic producer he is.
And speaking of production, the stage production was fantastic as well. The bird dancers onstage were phenomenal, and Kanye’s interactions with them showed he’s been taking some dance or at least tumbling lessons. At one point he collapsed on the ground while still rapping into the mic. Near the end of Power, everyone did a fast “power clap” with Kanye and the dancers, which under any other circumstances would have been totally lame (like, say, at a party), but in the moment it was quite invigorating.
Alongside fireworks, cascading sparks, a costume change and multiple dance numbers, Kanye unleashed an arsenal from his deep catalogue of hits. Jesus Walks, Can’t Tell Me Nothing, Monster, Flashing Lights, Good Life, Love Lockdown, Homecoming, Golddigger, All Falls Down, Stronger, Runaway: these are all songs that can stand on their own as great pop/hip hop tracks. I regularly listen to several of Kanye’s albums and I thought the set list was incredibly well put together.
Kanye and his people also did an on-stage costume change under a giant parachute, which is a first as far as I can recall.
And Hazzah!
During All of the Lights, there was a frenzy of booty shaking, fist pumping and seizure-inducing strobe lights. I had this image of myself doing my insane dance during this song, as I officially dubbed it the best track of 2010, but I didn’t. Don’t know why, but I just didn’t. Maybe it’s because I was pretty close to the stage, and there wasn’t much space for insane dancing. But maybe it’s because the larger-than-life emotion of the song somehow didn’t translate into a live performance.
Rumour has it Kanye even shed a tear while dedicating the show to his mother, but I didn’t notice. Well, at least he tried to connect with the audience. To be fair, he did honestly try, declaring this Coachella performance his “most important” since his mother died, so that made us all feel pretty good.
And then near the end when Kanye told us, “This is the last song of the night y’all,” I looked at my friend and asked her what was left? We’d just heard so many hits!
And then came Lost in the World featuring Bon Iver, who was clad in all white and standing on a white pedestal surrounded by dancers. Instead of featuring Rhianna during All of the Lights (and we all know she was at Coachella) Kanye decided to feature an indie-rock darling.
It was perfect.
Though, by not featuring any other big names, this was likely a deliberate ploy to keep Kanye in the spotlight.
And after that, Kanye played Hey, Mama, and everyone had their arms around each other or up in the sky saluting Kanye. It was a great comedown.
Then, Coachella was over. Boo. I guess it’s normal to feel sadness at the end of such an awesome experience. But true to the lyrics of the set’s opener Dark Fantasy, “Can we get much higher?” Kanye’s performance left me wondering if this is the best we’ll ever see of him. I sincerely hope not, but if so, then he went out with a spectacular bang.
This is my first time catching him live, but compared to older live clips I’ve seen of Kanye online, it’s plain to see that he’s really come into himself as a performer. What a professional.
But he still has work to do to overcome being labeled the second-best show at Coachella.
See what you think:
Note the audio is off during Dark Fantasy.
Click the links to view the full set list, and download Kanye’s music.
First photo courtesy of Billboard.com, all other photos by me.
The Arcade Fire put on the best show of the festival. I know many might disagree, but those people are wrong. Yes, Kanye West was unbelievable, but Montreal’s The Arcade Fire was just so jubilant and humble and overflowing with emotion that I felt a better person for having seen them.
The stage was set up to look like a suburban movie theatre from the 50s, and vintage clips of roadtrips, old films, home movies, etc. flashed across the screens before the band took the stage.
And then The Arcade Fire trotted out, waving with giant smiles – and with Regine Chassagne in her trademark-sequined dress — like 50s movie stars. They started off with some old stuff (yay!) like No Cars Go and Rebellion (Lies), which were delivered with breathless energy. When they played Haiti, my personal favourite Arcade Fire track, I melted. If I had an album of anthems, Haiti would be at the top. The set turned into a tropical paradise with palm trees gently fluttering while the audience swayed back and forth experiencing their own personal luaus, some likely oblivious to the gravity of the song’s meaning.
Soon I noticed everyone around me was beaming from the bandmates’ infectious grins. The band was clearly giddy about performing at such a significant venue. “This is definitely the biggest festival gig we’ve ever done,” gushed front man Win Butler. “Maybe one day I’ll come and party like you guys.” To which a few “boos” were heard. I agree: The Arcade Fire is not allowed to come to Coachella and not perform!
The band didn’t play much from Neon Bible, but that was fine because both The Suburbs and Funeral are masterpieces; I wanted to hear every song on both of those albums, and I did, pretty much. Classics like Neighborhood #2 (Laika) were meshed with newer stuff like We Used to Wait and Keep the Car Running.
The band members also quite adept at switching instruments, with Regine straddling the drums in her sequins, and Win tinkering nostalgically on the piano. And each song had everyone singing along and swaying in unison. We sang out loud to all guitar riffs in Rococo, and we woahed along to every woah in Wake Up.
And this is when the magic happened — a giant crane raised a big black box above the stage. People were pointing at it with laser pointers and everyone was muttering about what it was. So right before the cathartic release in Wake Up, the box opened and all these big white beach balls tumbled out. Everyone started jumping up and down in a total frenzy. The giant balls were bouncing every which way an arms-length above our heads. Then the balls lit up with different colours! And the colours started flashing in time with the music!! It was AMAZING!!!
The set’s closer, Mountains Beyond Mountains, was a total climax. The song had everyone twirling and reaching up to a sky streaked with moonlight, floodlight and spotlights while red and purple glowing balloons hovered an arm’s length overhead. It was surreal.
And this is why The Arcade Fire put on the best show of the festival. The competition was stiff as both Kanye and The Strokes put on fantastic shows, and I will acknowledge I missed out on The Black Keys. I’m sure Black Keys would have been a contender, but I’m also sure they wouldn’t win had I seen them.
There was something just so contagious about The Arcade Fire.
For someone who’s loved this band since the debut of Funeral in 2004, and who’s read such depressing feeds as Who is Arcade Fire??!!?? (i.e. “Who is this band The Suburbs?”), it was a fantastic experience to see them headlining such a massive festival. For me, to experience this kind of audience participation with so many others who obviously love the band’s music — this filled me up beyond anything Kanye West had on offer.
The Arcade Fire’s performance made my heart feel full. Why? Because the heart is where their music started from.
Please watch:
Click the links to view the full set list or download music by The Arcade Fire.
First photo courtesy of Billboard.com; last photo courtesy of http://whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com/; all other photos by me.
