Cool LA#4: Coachella (a review of sorts)
MARK RONSON!!!!!
Coach-HELL-YEH!! Well let me tell you. I was like country come to town yesterday at Coachella.
LOVED IT!
It was such an awesome set-up and so well done. Five stages, light shows, out-there (in a good way) art installations, billowing tents, and everything all pretty and designy-looking. SO PRETTY. There was this whole area of jewel-toned tents made of a parachute-like material and I swear it was an Aladdin-themed Bouncy Castle for adults.
I tried to play it cool (like I play everything, natch) but I just haven’t been exposed enough. I can’t lie. I was just so happy to be there that honestly it didn’t even matter at first if I actually got to see anybody play. I was just in it and content. For once I was in it! Oh I mean I know it’s a big hipster scene and I forgot to wear my leather headband so maybe I wasn’t as cool as some of the other people there but I wasn’t playin’ my outsider crap for once and it was good.
Anyway, I didn’t get to see everybody or as much of the people I wanted to (them’s the breaks) but here’s who I did get to check out:
- Boys Noise: Man, the music was just calling us! We were watching MGMT but it was waaay too crowded and it’s just not cool to be so close to people when it’s 100 degrees out (human smells no good) so we followed the beat to Boys Noise and they rocked it out. Don’t know much about electronic music (not my favourite) but they knew how to pump up the crowd and put on a good show. Well done.
- Hot Chip: More electronic music. I was pleasantly surprised at how melodic they were though. Definitely good party tunes.
CraftworkKraftwerk: Apparently, they’re gods. You can definitely hear their influence in Daft Punk but their pace is slower and maybe a little bit more reflective? German? I’m no expert but that’s my two cents. Two thumbs up.- Mark Ronson: Definitely my highlight of the night! One of the reasons is that we were so close to the stage so the vibes were strong and he was just rockin’ it out. (Did you see the kick-ass pic from the bf above? INSANE! He’s a cutie, right?) The first song he played was Toxic and then RhymeFest joined him on stage and he really got me jumpin up and down and whoopin and yelling. Unfortunately, someone else we really wanted to see was on at the exact same time so we only got to hear wo songs before we moved on to…
- MIA: Man, I wished we had been there earlier (although I don’t think I would have given up seeing Mark Ronson). Her tent was soooo crowded that honestly it was a little hard to get the full power of the music but from the looks of the crowd she did it up right.
- Portishead: So many people seem to worship this group and I never really got it. I mean, all I knew really was that one song from like 10 years ago that went big (Nobody loves me) so i was really curious to take a good listen and see what the fuss was about. OMG Beth Gibbons has the most hauntingly beautiful voice I have heard in a long time. She is mesmerisingly good. I want to be her.
- Prince: The headliner! This was another bit of disappointment as we left about two songs into the set to beat the crowds. Hey when you’ve been sitting in the sun for 8 hours and have to drive 2 more to get home sometimes you have to make sacrifices. It is what it is. I can’t say too much since I really didn’t get to hear enough but I’m sure he rocked it out good and hard.
So all in all it was an amazing first outdoor concert/ music festival experience. I absolutely cannot wait for next year. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll have a reggae-type artist on the line-up.
Oh!!! And lest I forget, celebrities for DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYS. I didn’t take pictures of any of them. I’m too much of a coward to try to sneak shots and way too cool (ha ha) to actually acknowledge them by asking to take their pictures.
Seriously, though, it was a lot of fun checking up on D-Listed and Perez today so I could be like: I saw her! I saw him! For those of you who care, here’s who crossed my path:
- Kelly Osbourne (really pretty, actually)
- Dita Von Teese (petite, looks like 12)
- Brody Jenner (douchie but cute)
- Nicole Richie (a bone twig)
- Joel Madden
- Rachel Hunter (not bad for an old chick, says the bf)
- THE HOFFFFF
(suuuuuuuuper tall) - Melanie Griffith
- Dude from Flight of the Conchords (complete with tourist-esque bermuda shorts, v-neck t, and straw hat)
- Machel? I could have sworn I saw him… anybody knows if he was there?
Update: Best Week Ever thinks I’m awesome
