Music Features
Coachella 2010 – Saturday - Faith No More, Muse, Les Claypool, Devo
By S.P. MacIntyre Apr 18, 2010, 14:33 GMT
Wake up. Wash the dirt off. Head back to the grounds. Do it all over again.
Today, a low haze was blocking the sun and a cool breeze was sweeping in. It was humid, but tolerable throughout the day.
I made it a point to get to the festival early so that I could see the RX Bandits and I definitely do not regret the lack of sleep that came as a result. That band played the stage like they knew what they were doing, and I was certainly surprised to see them go on at such an early hour - well before most people in the camp grounds had even woken up.
If I had to predict, they’ll be invited back again but given a better time slot. A lot of their songs have difficult timing, and they all nailed it with laser precision. During the song “Only for the Night,” the guitarist and bassist sat down and played percussion. Moving clockwise, each of the three took the lead rhythm.
Between songs, someone from the audience called out, “You’re the best band here.” The lead singer replied, “I don’t know about that, but we’ll take the Pepsi Challenge against any of those other fuckers.”
A Look At RX Bandits’ Coachella performance (©M&C. All photos by Chance Knecht.):
Feeling curious, I walked over to the Mojave Tent to check out John Waters. It was just him, pacing the stage and telling stories like David Sedaris about movies and rock stars. I’ve only seen one comedy act at Coachella before, but hearing John Waters tell stories about “Pink Flamingos” and new Christmas-themed sex terminology he was trying to invent after the Republicans usurped teabagging (The Snowman: when you ejaculate on a person’s face and they go out into the snow and let it freeze) was quite an experience.
In between stories, he took the opportunity to rant about men who dress in baby garb for sexual excitement (“I’m not marching for them,” he said) and losing the fight for gay marriage (“Instead, we need to start fighting to make heterosexual divorce illegal”).
Porcupine Tree, the other band I woke up at the crack of noon to see, played wonderfully intricate, elaborately long songs that alternated between metal and downtempo rock. The morning crowd is a hard one to play to, and it didn’t help that the vocals and the synthesizers were poorly mixed and just a little too loud and garbled.
“Blackest Eyes” was easily the best song they played, taking, like in all of their songs, long instrumental interludes. Between songs, the singer mentioned that they were “privileged to be one of the few British bands that could make it” to Coachella because of the volcano.
Towards the end of their set, they talked about their new album and how it contains a 55-minute long song, which “presents a problem when playing at a festival,” and so played a truncated version of “Time Flies.”
A Look At Porcupine Tree’s Coachella performance (©M&C. All photos by Chance Knecht.):
About this time, maybe around 3 in the afternoon, I decided it would be a good idea to go over to the Sahara Tent to see Jason Bently whom I knew from playing late on a Los Angeles radio station (KROQ).
He played a long set, remixing Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place” and mashing up The Beach Boys’ and C&C and the Music Factory’s “Good Vibrations.”
Unfortunately, I cannot tell you more about him or about any other band that afternoon because I fell asleep in a pile of what I assume to be the offal left over from someone else’s philly cheesesteak sandwich.
The next band I saw was The Raveonettes. This is the second or third time I’ve seen the Raveonettes in concert, and I’ve always been a little disappointed with their performances in the past. When I heard their first album, which was a stripped down, lo-fi, constrained to one key (“Booming Bb Major”), I was absolutely blown away.
But everything after that felt…overdone, perhaps? Their whole band, however, was stuck in Europe, so it was just Sune Wagner and Sharin Foo performing. Listening to them together, I was reminded of their early work, which was loud and distorted and gritty and perfect. This, for me, was the best way to see them.
A Look At The Raveonettes’ Coachella performance (©M&C. All photos by Chance Knecht.):
And then, after another long interlude where I saw no bands play (I was busy riding a Ferris wheel), I watched Faith No More take the main stage.
The lead singer took the stage in a blood-red suit, holding a cane, and the band opened with a beautifully soulful rendition of “Reunited at Last” (if that’s the title, I’m not sure). After that, Mike Patton screamed “Coachella” and the band broke in with a furious guitar riff.
I was really impressed with Patton's vocals the entire time, his range is phenomenal. And at one point he was screaming into two microphones, and at another he was screaming into a megaphone facing a microphone. Even though the crowd at the front seemed intent on waiting for Muse, by the time Faith No More played “We Care A Lot” everyone was moving.
Responding to the seeming lack of energy, though, Patton said, “I know we look like we’re 80 years old but give us a fuckin’ break,” then broke into “Friend in Me,” going down into the crowd (at one point having to hold the microphone in his mouth while he crowd surfed).
A Look At Faith No More’s Coachella performance (©M&C. All photos by Chance Knecht.):
I couldn’t get very close to MGMT because I had never before, in 8 years of going to Coachella, seen that many people at the Outdoor Theater. What I could hear was impressive, and I was blown away that tens of thousands of people were singing “Electric Feel” in unison.
When Muse came on stage, the audience absolutely erupted. To be honest, my expectations were fairly low since I’m not much a fan. They won me over really quickly, though.
The freakout solos for “Supermassive Blackhole” I think might have been the thing that made me say, Okay, Muse is good. Then it was the laser light show - easily the best and most complex that I’ve ever seen - during “New Born” that made me say, Okay, Muse is amazing.
The stage was set up with three large video screens and a - was it silver or transparent? - piano set back a little bit. For this show, they brought in a fourth person to play keyboards which I’m assuming is a departure from normal practice.
Matt Bellamy, before one song, played a Hendrix-esque version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and later on did a cover of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.” They ended with “Knights of Cydonia” and I don’t think there was a single stationary body within a thousand feet of the stage.
A Look At Muse’s Coachella performance (©M&C. All photos by Chance Knecht.):
While the crowd was still drawn to Muse, I made a mad dash for Les Claypool, the lead singer of Primus. His stage set up was the same as it was for The Oddity Faire, a tour that he’d recently organized.
Les Claypool sang and played bass alongside a cellist, a drummer, and another percussionist who absolutely rocked the xylophone. Les said that this was the first year that he’d been invited to play Coachella, which was surprising since he’s “a festival whore.”
Not very many people showed up, and a lot of those that did didn’t seem to know Les Claypool at all. But when they finished up with “Bee’s Diner,” they got the whole group shouting along with the song.
I’m not familiar with very many of the songs he’s released post-Primus, but he definitely played “Precipitation,” during which he played his stand-up bass by percussively striking the strings with the bow while wearing a pig mask.
A Look At Les Claypool’s Coachella performance (©M&C. All photos by Chance Knecht.):
Immediately after, I went to see Die Antwoord - a South African rap group that was given a 20 minute set a couple of weeks before the festival and has never played in the US before. Some people say they were terrible. I say the Sahara Tent was nearly brought down they were rocking it so hard, rapping in English and Afrikaans and generally cursing up a storm.
When they played “Enter the Ninja” I half expected them to bring out Leon Botha - an artist and one of the longest survivors of progeria. Admittedly, Ninja, the lead singer, does look like Vanilla Ice, but only if Vanilla Ice spent a few years in prison.
By the end of the set, Ninja was down to his boxers and they were joined onstage by, I think, 2plumpDJs dancing around in their underwear as well.
I have some family history with DEVO. In the 80’s, my uncle was at a Devo concert in Houston. When the band brought out their mascot - a sort of giant, ambling Bob’s Big Boy reminiscent of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters - a riot erupted and, somehow, my uncle ended up handcuffed, facing a wall next to Mark Mothersbough.
When they came on stage they were in matching jumpsuits and had choreographed all of their movements to be jittery and robotic. They introduced “Whip It” as “one you might remember” and tossed out the red tiered caps that were present in the music video to the audience.
They left the stage for a few minutes and came back with jumpsuits made out of paper, which Mark Mothersbaugh went around tearing before playing a cover of “Secret Agent Man.” It was an impressive show, but by that time I was so exhausted from the day I could hardly keep standing.
A Look At DEVO’s Coachella performance (©M&C. All photos by Chance Knecht.):
Of course, I didn’t get a chance to see everyone, but my photographer was able to get some shots of Coheed and Cambria, Dirty South, Tiesto and some other Coachella sights for your viewing pleasure.
Again, I find myself at 4:30 in the morning typing this to you. And so goodnight until tomorrow, I suppose. CLICK HERE to read about Friday's Coachella adventure with Jay-Z, Them Crooked Vultures, and Echo and the Bunnymen.
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