Coachella 2016:No Money for the Undercard

Lush is out: pitchfork.com/news/64844-lush-forced-to-cancel-coachella-show-due-to-visa-issues

Hope Lush makes it for Weekend 2.

[/quote]You are a pretty conspicuous cat.
[/quote]

I guess so. And then people are always so surprised when they find out I'm not on any drugs. "No, I just act like a lunatic naturally".

Perfect example. I ran into a co-worker at Big Gigantic last night, wearing glowsticks and dancing as always. I wear a tie as part of my superhero costume (I am a Director of Finance), so it took her a little while to make the connection. Then we both busted out laughing, I was like "surprise!"

Was so much fun meeting you, esteban, and radiatebased down at Buku! Inforoo is so great.

You are a pretty conspicuous cat.
[/quote]

I guess so. And then people are always so surprised when they find out I'm not on any drugs. "No, I just act like a lunatic naturally".

Perfect example. I ran into a co-worker at Big Gigantic last night, wearing glowsticks and dancing as always. I wear a tie as part of my superhero costume (I am a Director of Finance), so it took her a little while to make the connection. Then we both busted out laughing, I was like "surprise!"

Was so much fun meeting you, esteban, and radiatebased down at Buku! Inforoo is so great.
[/quote]


Fuck yeah. Peter came up from the bayou to go to Umphrey's last night and busted up that 10 year old barley wine. Haha. I took a swig and it was pretty rank. He didn't give a fuck and drank it all. Probably was a good move that 10 of us rode the steetcar.

Years and Years just covered my song

It was discussed in the Couchella thread

Reworked some things.

So I'm sitting at LAX waiting for a flight (only 4 more hours due to a delay FML) and I thought I'd share my thoughts on my first Coachella while it's all still relatively fresh in my mind. I've been to Lolla and Bonnaroo in the past few years, and I couldn't believe just how much better AND worse Coachella was, it was sometimes being at 2 different festivals depending on where you were located.

Pros
Sound 
When it was on, it was crystal. Sia, Sufjan, GNR, and LCD Soundsystem all sounded amazingly clear. The detail with which you could hear even the slightest nuance on Slash's solos was great. There were a couple times when the sound did seem very weak though, Kanye's mic during ASAP's set was a joke, how do you give the guy a mic that doesnt work? Also, during Robert Delong there were some sound issues, a couple times on the Outdoor the sound was just missing that low-end.
Venue
Easily one of the most picturesque festival ground when it comes to background. The mountains and desert gave it a special feeling around sunset each day.
Food
Amazing selection, however the prices were quite high, but you have to remember a lot of these restaurants are 4 and 5 star places from the LA area, so reasonable prices aren't to be expected.
Production/Staging
The tents were excellently staged, I'd say slightly larger than the ones at Roo. The chandeliers and such in each one gave it a nice touch. Also, the Sahara is MASSIVE and the production/lighting inside was top-notch. The main stage had a very cool curved video screen on each side that really added to the performances when it was utilized right, however many acts seemed to not really take advantage of this. The Yuma was great but the Despacio was a little of a let-down, however I won't hold this against the fest since James Murphy brought this along.
Crowd
Or should I say lack thereof? I steered clear of most of the cheese and other EDM and I must say Iv'e never seen a festival crowd so sparse for many acts. For example, you could've walked up to the main stage about 5 mins before LCD and found a spot within the first 10-15 rows from the stage. There were many acts I saw in crowds that were easily less then 5k, maybe even closer to 2k a couple times. On Friday Foals attracted maybe 2k people to the main stage, The Kills followed them on the Outdoor and it was the same thing. Even for GNR you could get a good spot without no effort at all. The only time I encountered massive crowds were Ellie Goulding, Jack U, Major Lazer, Disclosure, ASAP Rocky, Calvin Harris and Zedd. Essentially if the act you wanted to see had guitars and drums you could show up 5 mins before the set and be within 50 feet of the stage.

Cons
Crowd
Ok, so you can tell me that every festival has it share of terrible people in the crowd, but NOTHING compares to some of the stuff I saw this weekend. While most of the sets I went to had dedicated fans who seemed into it, they were very far and few at times. At Sufjan I was surrounded by 4 or 5 separate groups all taking selfies the entire show and "prepping" for Jack U afterwards. Same thing happened at Beach House when the Zedd crowd began to roll in, literally. The amount of high-waisted jean shorts, flower crowns, and fringe tops was nauseating, it looked like a solid 70% of the girls were all wearing the same outfit. You could tell a lot of LA-area youth use Coachell as more of a annual social gathering than a music fest. I can safely say Bonnaroo and Lolla have much better crowds, and you could tell some of the artists seemed bewildered by the lack of energy. Allison from The Kills seemed over the crowd after the first few songs due to the disconnect.
Curfew
Not any fault of the fest but the 1am curfew really sucks. Imagine if this fest was able to go all night? I can't imagine the possibilities for late night sets. Also, too many times this weekend I saw acts get their last song cut short. I understand that the acts have to be responsible with their time due to the strict curfews but this really sucked. ASAP, Foals, and Bob Moses all had their sound cut at the end of their sets during their last song.
Security
The people working the entrances to the fest were extremely thorough and it created a stressful and long process to get in each day. Granted, I was probably trying to enter at peak times, the invasive search practices were a little extreme. Also, if they're this strict at the gates I don't understand the lack or security in the Sahara. I only ventured over there a couple times but the second time was during Snails and I saw 4 fights in a matter of 20 mins all in the same area, all of them were broken up by bystanders but one of the guys came out pretty bloody.
Vibe
I'm going to get crucified for this but there truly was a lack of community vibe. Granted, this may not be important to others but I just didn't see the 'we're all in this together" type vibe that some other camping fests have. I don't know if it was because only about 25% of the attendees are camping but it just seemed very cold and blah in the campgrounds. Very similar to the bro-centric camping situation at Firefly. However, the campgrounds are very nice, but I don't know if I'd call a large flat, manicured polo field a campground?

Best Acts
LCD Soundsystem - GREAT energy, awesome performance, but only a 15 song headlining set?
M83 - Very tight musically, would've liked to hear more than 2 new songs but they only had 50mins to work with.
Sufjan Stevens - Never listened to him before, but the show captivated me. Def gonna check out his material now.
Bob Moses - Very vibe-y, perfect set to let loose and groove along with. Being during the day kind of hurt the atmosphere a little.
GNR - Slash ruled, every solo was spot on. Axl's voice was surprisingly good, the Angus Young apperance was awesome.
Alunageorge - Nice set, great vocals.
Run The Jewels - High high high energy, they brough it. Surprisingly small crowd though.
Rancid - They brought it, Tim Armstrong was ready to go from the start. Small crowd, but the first band to geta  circle pit going all weekend.
Pete Yorn - Nice to finally see this guy coming back into the scene, nice nostalgic set.
Beach House - Beautiful, gorgeous....
Miike Snow - Loved it, the new material sounds better live than on record.
Sia - This was a spellbinding performance, not sure if it was quite right for a festival though. She lost about 80% of the crowd due to it being more performance art than a live show. She sounded perfect and the visuals were striking though.
The Vandals - Fun set, small crowd, felt like Warped Tour 1997, which wasn't a bad thing!

Worst Acts
Jack U - Seriously, whoever let them run over their time and cause some soundbleed with LCD should be fired. This was the biggest, dumbest EDM set of the weekend. 
ASAP Rocky - Not a terrible set, but the technical issues really made it bad. You couldn't make out 1/3rd of the vocals and the low-end bass would drop out randomly.
CHVRCHES - I'm really hoping this was an "off" show for their singer. She really struggled for most of the set, maybe it was the sand in the air? Heard a couple other acts complain about it.
Halsey - This was like watching a second-rate Lorde, and the guest spot from Panic At the Disco was pretty awful.
Calvin Harris - This seemed like an itunes playlist, it was mostly single-after-single with 45-50 secs of transitions. I mean if you like his stuff you probably loved it but I have no idea what he was actually doing up there, nothing sounded like it was mixed on the fly.
The 1975  - Michael Hutchence from INXS has to be offended in death by this band. 

Ultimately, I had a good time. Not my favorite festival I've been to but it def holds its own against Lolla and Bonnaroo. I'd probably still rather rough it and go to Roo due to the longer sets and late night shows. Also, I felt like they were missing additional activities, a cinema tent or comedy tent would go a long way in filling this gap. The curfew creates a lot more brutal conflicts and it's tougher to catch partial sets due to them only being about 50 mins. I'd say this will probably be a one-time trip but if they book an amazing lineup sometime (*cough*Daft Punk*couch*) I'd probably go back, but I don't know if it is worth the $1550 (air, car, ticket, etc) it cost me to attend.

So how was Despacio.

Weekend 1 people, how packed was the Sahara for Underworld? Should I just go with 2manydjs > Underworld, or could I squeeze St Germain between them?

It was awesome. Made it easy to not see 2manydjs at the Sahara because I could just see them there in a much better environment

cool! It'll probably come down to a game time decision but it's good to know we could probably get back into the tent if we left in between.
Also, if you saw Sia and Sufjan, how big we're those crowds? Should I get there early for them?

For Sufjan, I got a pretty good spot showing up right after TLSP. For Sia I left about five songs into Beach House. As much as I loved Beach House, Sia was well worth missing probably half their set for. Also I should note that sound bleed will be an issue with Beach House from Major Lazer

good to know!