Coachella 2007: A NowPublic roundup

by Kaitlin | April 30, 2007 at 09:18 am

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This weekend's Coachella festival has been hailed as its most successful yet, (supposedly) drawing upwards of 100 000 attendees--in triple digit weather--to the desert in Indio, California. Net coverage of the event is extensive, but in my mind the best coverage of the weekend was by Boing Boing, who anchored their Coachella coverage in a map of one man's wanderings around the site. They also covered a lot of the artsy/cultural stuff (not just celeb sightings and show reviews) that can get ignored when talking about the diverse fest. Still, they weren't the only ones paying attention. Check out our roundup, below. If Coachella is the model, it looks like this is going to be a very successful summer festival season.

After the roundup, watch some of the weekend's best performances from Rage Against the Machine, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Regina Spektor and Amy Winehouse.

Hours before, during the festival's first day, they had swayed happily to stellar performances by Bjork, music's eclectic chanteuse, and raunchy rapper Peaches. On tap for Saturday were, among others, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Arcade Fire.

"I went to Coachella three years ago. It's the pit of hell, but every year there's something stunning," said 18-year-old musician Jordan Deherrera, who was wearing a trucker's hat over a bandanna.

More than 50,000 concertgoers braved the scorching temperatures, traffic jams and long entrance lines to see 37 bands and DJs on Friday. There were 25 arrests, mostly for alcohol, drugs or unruly conduct, Indio Police Department spokesman Ben Guitron said.

On Rage Against the Machine's reunion set:

So many docile-looking folks were wearing Rage Against the Machine clothing today. It's just funny to see these happy and smiling people, sipping lemonade, and waering these shirts that proclaim "RAGE."

It's not like "Bristle Against The Machine." Or "Seethe Against the Machine."

It's RAGE.

Do these people have that much rage? I wonder what they all do the rest of the time. Bankers, maybe? Insurance salesmen? Pre-med students?

There were so many people migrating to the stage for that show, at one point I wondered if you could see it from space. It looked like one of those dense and spiraling weather systems.

On the Kaiser Chiefs and misbehaving in the campground:

6:30 pm - The Chiefs play "I Predict a Riot," which reminds me, we talked to some people working the show who mentioned there was some sort of riot in the campground on Saturday night, possibly involving fireworks being mistaken for gunshots and police firing beanbag things into the crowd. As if camping in the parking lot could be any worse.

On crowd favourites the Arcade Fire:

Our most anticipated band at Coachella did not disappoint. They mixed their new songs off the amazing "Neon Bible" with your faves from their debut, "Funeral".

And although we love love love "Neon Bible", the best moment in last night's performance was when singer Win Butler jumped into the crowd during "Rebellion (Lies)", never once wiping a smile on his face. Lighten up Win, they're cheering!

And a nice bit of summing up from the Onion:

Haplessly missing a huge chunk of a set of music from a quartet of heroes felt a little pathetic, but you really have to accept the Bad with the Good (so to speak) at Coachella. With five stages of simultaneous music, Coachella isn’t really a venue where you go to see bands. It’s a venue where you go to get a taste of more bands than you can handle, in order to ferret out which bands you will return to later.

Put more succinctly, Coachella is one giant iPod Shuffle, spewing out the ultimate mix of au courant singles to an attention-deficit-disordered generation.

To which I belong.