We continue our coverage from our writers, Bill & Laurie Fanelli, who are continuing to bask under the hot sun, despite feeling the onset of sun poisoning, all to cover Indio, California’s Coachella Music & Arts Festival. As we mentioned yesterday, in our first day of coverage, we’ve been receiving short little updates, and here is a collection of Saturday’s. Stay tuned for today’s, readers.
We started out by seeing Carbon/Silicon, the band that Mick Jones from The Clash is in. While they were a good show to start the day with, it all seemed a little cheesy, but hey, it’s Mick f’n Jones! Luckily, we managed to catch at least the tale end of Man Man in the Mojave tent, though it seemed like we missed a really good show. MGMT followed Man Man and they were surprisingly good. They started out a little slow, but finished strong, jumping through the audience during the song “Kids”. They have to work on their harmonies a bit, but for a first time festival appearance, they did a great job.
We were pretty exhausted from the night before, so we sat in the back of the tent for Kate Nash. She sounded good, and the audience dug her set, even though it was the one time that there were more woman than men at one stage. Shortly after, we traveled over to check out country star, Dwight Yoakam, and he and his band were all wearing blue jeans and jackets. Given the heat, I don’t know how they made it without passing out. Despite being a tight band, they, all and all, were not our cup of tea, so we stopped back at Mojave and checked out Scars on Broadway.
Scars on Broadway were better than I expected. Daron Malakian, lead guitarist from SOAD, was sporting a bushy beard, bearing similarities to both Silent Bob and Rick Ruben. Unfortunately, they started really late, so we only managed to catch a couple of songs, but I was really excited about what I heard.
As we headed back to Sahara, wanting to get there early to get a decent spot for M.I.A., Hot Chip sounded like they put on a fabulous show… though we were too late. As we’re nearing the end of the festival weekend, we’re realizing that they are the band that we regret missing the most. Though to our luck, Junkie XL was amazing. He was non stop, with crowd moving beats. His stage presence was great too, constantly encouraging everyone to go crazy.
Not surprisingly, given her presence at festivals these days, the tent was inordinately packed for M.I.A. We were squished in body to body and when she took the stage, the place erupted, as she opened with “Road Runner.” While she invited the audience on stage during “Bird Flue”, there was some sort of miscommunication between security and the venue. M.I.A was asking to turn the lights off and it looked like the stage manager kept insisting the lights stay on. Eventually, the lights went out, and M.I.A. continued to shake her butt all over the stage.
For fear of missing the band, we rushed over to the main stage, and made it to see Portishead, who were phenomenal. Their was sound was nothing short of perfection. The lighting was eerie and enhanced their show completely. It was quite the experience and a great way to segue into the real show everyone was waiting for, much to the disappointment of Portishead.
As if to torture those that had been waiting all weekend, Prince took the stage about 20 minutes late, but it was worth it. He played for over two hours, and it was hit after hit, including “1999” and “Little Red Corvette.” He even did a fabulous cover of Radiohead’s “Creep.” What really delighted the audience, however, was early on, he brought out both Morris Day and Sheila E. That went over well with everyone. For the encore, he played “Purple Rain” and “Let’s Go Crazy”, solidifying his worth of 4.8 million dollars, the alleged price tag for the pop sensation. If anything is to be taken from this, it’s that the man is a music genius and a pure showman out of this world.
For more coverage of Coachella, keep checking back as we’re getting the feeds. And don’t forget to check out the AT&T Blue Room for video feeds of your favorite artists. The weekend draws its curtains soon, so stick around to see the final acts!