Dealing with the headaches a part of Coachella Festival
By MICHAEL J. TITTINGER l Daily Press Staff Writer
I Reflect on Arcade Fire’s rousing performance amid the setting desert sun? Forget it. That’s precisely when the surge begins. No sooner did Win Butler and Régine Chassagne lay down their guitar and hurdy-gurdy than the push of thousands toward the main stage to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers begins. You can’t stand pat. You can go against the grain in an attempt to reach the beer garden, go up and let the crowd pass you backwards atop their hands or just roll with it.
RIGHT TO CHOOSE Welcome to the Coachella Valley Music & Arts festival, where making memories is all about making choices.
The annual indie rock festival, which marked its eighth year this past weekend, showcases bands on five separate stages at the Empire Polo Grounds, regularly pitting novel acts against one another and forcing the sweaty throngs to make some hard decisions. Schedules in hand, none of the approximately 60,000 daily attendees wants to miss that seminal breakout performance of the festival. Then again, everyone likely had their own — The Black Keys; Amy Winehouse; the Kings of Leon; the Good, the Bad and the Queen; Rodrigo y Gabriela...
The list is endless, which may be part of the problem as Coachella experiences some growing pains. What began as a quirky desert music fest intended to showcase unheralded alternative rockers has simply outgrown its roots. All three of this year’s
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 3, 2007. Read the original PDF.