Music Features

Coachella 2010 – Countdown to the Event

By S.P. MacIntyre Apr 12, 2010, 12:55 GMT

Get ready to follow S.P. MacIntyre\'s adventures at this year\'s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

There are four days left until the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.  I’m so eager to be there that I can’t help but mentally conjure in anticipation the fragrant odors of patchouli and BO wafting in the desert breeze.

It is an image of the clamoring throngs of people all simultaneously trying to move 15 feet closer to a wall that may or may not be a stage, the dehydration-inducing claustrophobia that comes with being smashed against scantily clad concertgoers covered in sweat and oily sunscreen looking at you with their dilated pupils and thinking that you’ve become some malformed monstrosity with n-number of tits growing asymmetrically on your back because of the odd combination of neurochemicals that occur when LSD blends with Sunstroke.

S.P. MacIntyre

What’s the quote?  “It’s not that I don’t like people, I just seem to feel better when they’re not around.”  Nothing promotes misanthropy more than a whole weekend of peace and love and rock and roll.

But there will be bands there!  Lots of bands and performers!  And art!  Sounds and visuals (and, glory beyond glories, Festival Food) and every conceivable kind of stimulation a person can legally experience in California.  Which is like 2 to 3 times the amount of stimulation a person can legally have in, say, some unnamed place that I don’t want to offend!  (Missouri.  F*ck you, Missouri.  California rocks your balls off.)

I’ll be there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with my photographer, Chance Knecht, giving a wholly subjective and entirely unreliable account of the concert for Monsters & Critics. 

Like 2007 and 2008, I’ll be running from stage to stage, trying to pull Chance out of the electronica tents to take pictures of other performers, asking other concertgoers for their opinions about bands I didn’t get the opportunity to see, making overly-broad generalizations using really long sentences concerning the quality of individual performances because I could only see one or two songs before having to go to the next stage, and generally making comments that are sure to piss at least some people off even if they’re meant in jest!  (I didn’t really mean it, Missouri.  You’re OK in my book.  I like you and your…two Federal Reserve Banks?  And…limestone?)

Rhetorical posturing and lame attempts at humor aside, Coachella is always a very special weekend.  It’s easily one of the best gatherings of Alternative (and Mainstream) music in the world.  People come from all over this planet — and some from other planets — to share in the sights and sounds unique to the Empire Polo Fields during this part of the year. 

I’ve never known a person to have a bad time at Coachella as long as they stay hydrated, wear sunscreen, and enjoy hearing new music.

This is the first year that the concert requires people to spend the $270 on a 3-day pass, but the line-up I’ve listed below should be enough to make you want to shell out the shekels.  And if you’re interested in only one day, there might be 1-day passes available at the box office on the day of the event.

I’ve put an asterisk next to every band I absolutely plan on seeing below — barring, of course, any scheduling conflicts.  If you, reader, have any recommendations or requests for a specific performer or group, just post a comment below with the band you think I should check out (and I’ll try to convince Chance to take some pictures as well).

Hippies, freaks, frat boys, artists, music lovers, Missourians: I’ll see you at the festival. 
 
Friday, April 16th:

Jay-Z*, LCD Soundsystem, Them Crooked Vultures, Vampire Weekend, deadmau5*, Aeroplane, Alana Grace, As Tall As Lions, Baroness, Benny Benassi*, Calle 13, Ceu, Deer Tick, DJ Lance Rock, Echo & the Bunnymen*, Erol Alkan, Fever Ray, Gil Scott-Heron, Grizzly Bear, Hockey,  Iglu & Hartly, Imogen Heap*, Jets Overhead, Kate Miller-Heidke, La Roux, Little Dragon, Lucero, Pablo Hassan, Passion Pit, Perry Farrell vs. Steve Porter, P.O.S., Proxy, Public Image Limited, Ra Ra Riot, She & Him, Sleigh Bells, Street Sweeper Social Club, The Avett Brothers, The Cribs, The Dillinger Escape Plan*, The Specials, The Whitest Boy Alive, Wale, Wolfgang Gartner, Yeasayer

Saturday, April 17th:

Muse*, MGMT, Faith No More*, Tiesto, 2 many DJ's, Aterciopelados, Bad Lieutenant, Band of Skulls, Bassnectar, Beach House, Camera Obscura, Coheed and Cambria*, Corinne Bailey Rae, Craze, David Guetta, DEVO*, Dirty Projectors, Dirty South, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Flying Lotus, Frank Turner, Frightened Rabbit, GIRLS, Gossip, Hot Chip*, John Waters*, Kaskade, Klever, Les Claypool*, Major Lazer, Mew, Old Crow Medicine Show, Porcupine Tree*, Portugal. The Man, Pretty Lights, RX Bandits, Shooter Jennings & Hierophant, Sia, Steel Train, The Almighty Defenders, The Dead Weather, The Raveonettes*, The Temper Trap, The xx, Tokyo Police Club*, White Rabbits, Z-Trip, Zoe
 
Sunday, April 18th:

Gorillaz*, Thom Yorke*, Pavement, Phoenix, Orbital*, B.o.B., Babasonicos, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Club 75, De La Soul, Deerhunter, Delphic, Florence & The Machine, Gary Numan*, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble*, Infected Mushroom*, Jonsi, Julian Casablancas, Kevin Devine, King Khan & the Shrines, Little Boots, Local Natives, Matt & Kim, Mayer Hawthorne & the County, Miike Snow, MUTEMATH*, One eskimO, Owen Pallett, PAPARAZZI, Richie Hawtin presents Plastikman Live, Rusko, Sly Stone*, Spoon*, Sunny Day Real Estate*, Talvin Singh, The Big Pink, The Glitch Mob*, The Middle East, The Soft Pack, Yann Tiersen*, Yo La Tengo