« salty.org | Main | Jenny Made Me a Cake »
April 30, 2001
Coachella
We went to the Coachella Festival this weekend. It's in a Southern California desert town called Indio, about an 8 hour drive from my home.
The idea behind the festival is to create a performance area where Rock, DJ, Rap and Electronica can coexist and people can enjoy their favorite and be exposed to new shit. It was quite a bit like that, but the way the acts were structured it was difficult to get a sampling of what was out there. Too often I found myself running from one act to another part of the park to see a second act only to wait around for them to start. Meanwhile, other acts were playing all over the place.
The standouts of the show were two extremely different bands - Ozomatli and Sigur Ros. Ozomatli is a super group made up of tejano musicians, rap guys, rock guys, punk rock guys, and everyone it seems is a percussionist. On stage, they proclaimed that there was a "fucking rainbow" on stage. And it's true, Asian, Black, Latino, White, a representative from many, many backgrounds. And they rocked. They were great, seamlessly mixing Latin American rock with Rap, and creating a totally unique sound at the same time.
They start their shows by parading through the audience, playing percussion, horns and snaking their way through the crowd to the stage. Once they made their way to the stage, they began a non-stop beat and melody heavy set. They had a number of special guests, including David Hildago from Los Lobos, and Perry Farrell who played a piano solo (!) in the Salsa style. They were absolutely amazing.
Sigur Ros couldn't be any more different. They come from Iceland (incidentally, the place where geneticists gather their baseline data - Icelandics are known for their general genetic purity), and play a style of music that soars. The singer plays guitar mainly with a violin bow. The guitar roars more than anything else, and his voice is unlike anything I've ever heard. What is it with Icelandics and their unique voices? Long, dark, cold nights I suppose. Sigur Ros played an very short set, about 45 minutes, pulling heavily from their unpronounceable second album.
Other acts that were interesting - Squarepusher (I caught the last five minutes of his laptop driven set), Janes Addiction (watched about five songs from approx. a mile away), St. Germain (great jams, but the music in general was a little uninspired), and numerous DJ's in the rave tent.
The festival as a whole was pretty fun. It was incredibly hot, the sun was incredibly intense, and the crowd was tolerable. One thing that was oddly absent - trash cans. There were no trashcans anywhere to be seen, and what happened over the day was an amazing thing. The trash began top pile up, then spread around, and by the end of the day it was blowing full-speed across the festival grounds.
Posted by tdotjay at April 30, 2001 8:19 AM
