Tale Coachella

Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2008 @ 12:11 in Music by Daiana Feuer

Experiences tend to begin before you get there. Travel ventures especially. I took off on mine Thursday night at a show in LA where a fledgling band took its shirt off before sweating, pre-emptively sending me to the outdoor patio, where, among pleasant mingling, boy matters poked a hole through my heartstring paper towel soak test...which basically turned my motor on, cruise control to party hardy...can't wait to be in the desert, drink slushy lemonade and get my boots mud-sullied with music.

An all access pass already had me spiked kitten-curious to traverse the backstage road less travelled. The first thing I did was test it out on a water run during John Butler Trio on Friday afternoon. I checked out the mainstage. Lots of containers with names on them, stacks of musical boxes and no people...where were they (I wouldn't discover until the last dang night of the fest)? With three ice cold waters I counted my first mission successful and headed to the URB booth for a Man Man interview.

In their plain clothes (as opposed to the psychedelic war paint they wear on stage), Man Man was a little lost. We discussed armpit stains and the disintegration of clothing over prolonged use. Asked what's the difference between a "man" and a "man man," the group pointed fingers at each other but zipped their lips, heroically concealing their weapons, instead stroking their scruffy chins.

Test 2 all access pass: getting on stage? Dan Deacon could lead sheep to slaughter. The pied piper set himself up on the ground floor with a table of gadgets and guided the packed tent through follow the leader recess activities. London Bridge (that winded around the entire tent) and a game of tag. Backstage, sidestage in this case, meant onstage, providing my first bird's eye view of Coachella frenzy. At Deacon's show, it was amazing, like watching a CD explode in the microwave. But at Architecture in Helsinki, Vampire Weekend and the Raconteurs, being on stage was a lot like standing in line. The crowd beyond the band goes nuts dancing while you wiggle gingerly, mostly sweating (while not getting as stinky as being in the mob is nice), pondering if Jack White really is staring at your hat and wondering who the heck just took your picture.

Other observations: Chris Baio of Vampire Weekend takes two steps back then two steps forward as if Paula Abdul is keeping time for him in his head. Pink frolicked around backstage, red cup in hand with tailgate spirit, during their show, clad in a very serious tan under a black leather vest and short mustard yellow hair. She either really loves boys in pink club shorts and high socks or she ate a few too many cocoa puffs for breakfast. She also likes Tegan and Sara, who woulda thunk she was so soft?!

Architecture In Helsinki had the best outfits of the day, half dressed for a beach party, the other half for a picnic in Central Park. This pretty much describes their music's bubbly groove. Tegan and Sara win the Miss Congeniality prize. The little anecdotes coming out of nowhere could get a 7-heaeded Hydra to roll over like a house pet. "Oh this one time in Canada, it was sunny and my apartment is across the street from a school and a bird flew by and then my sister called me and I was wearing a shirt not a tank-top because I'm too shy [crowd squeals], and this girl walked by me in the park one day because her dog hopped on my blanket and she was wearing a tank-top and I don't usually do this but I got her number [more squeals] and then I went to the grocery store..."

The Raconteurs are second best-dressed of the day. In their brown vests and skinny ties, they were dandies tinged by Newsies. Their live rocking far surpasses the CD experience. The bluesier parts meshed best with the last embers of sunset as the Raconteurs, pretty much engulfed in their own bubble on stage, provided a glimpse into their dignified this-is-not-a-side-project-this-is-for-real-rock-n-roll-seriously- unanimous worthiness.

On the other side of the park, Santogold bobbed her lollipop romper-wearing tailfeather to the boomth degree for the enjoyment of an A-list backstage crowd and a gaggle of sun-burnt happy people. Santogold's two dancers put poofy side-ponytails on what was "Simply Irresistible" when Robert Palmer did it, and added some ridiculous dance moves to the vision of robotic glossiness. Santogold's "doppleganger" MIA was back there (and she is really short). After watching the show, I don't see what drives people to equate them aside from skin tone. They're both great, political, yes, but you would not mistake a Starburst for a Jolly Rancher. Apples to oranges, water guns to water balloons.

Datarock is so cheerful and bouncy (in the pants), it's hard not to watch. Jumping up and down in those red tracksuits...Earlier Fredrik Saroea gave me a zealous interview where I felt the material firsthand. We were trying to figure out where the sweatiest part was located (see the vid). I watched the show from a safer angle by a cooler-ful of cold ones.

Aphex Twin surprised me because he sat in a chair. I expected him to multiply into his creepy video persona. The tent, a recurring symptom, was packed beyond capacity. Behind equipment on the side was as close as I could get, which gave me a clear view of his feet tapping and his elbow jostling. His head bent over between his shoulders like a vulture over his table.

As the Verve added their light beams to the 90s motif running across the festival line-up, I made my exit out of day 1, to hit up the Flaunt party. Remember that the Rolling Stones sued the Verve for riffing off their 1965 song "The Last Time" in 1997's "Bitter Sweet Symphony?" That was lame. Rolling Stone named Bitter Sweet Symphony the 382nd best song of all time but the band of the same name had to shove the Verve's career into a toilet clog for the last decade. That sort of semantic irony is just too much.

So we toiled around the various desert towns forever trying to get to this Flaunt party, the first of several times going in circles would take its toll on time's short window of luck. As I started nodding out, hypnotized by passing the same closed McDonalds for the umpteenth time, we took another U-ey and headed to the chateau URB, for a wild afterparty of Ranch Doritos and Hot Pockets, where we learned from the TV that some people like to pretend they're horses while they make sweet love.

Go on to Part 2

Then proceed to Part 3 

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