Its 2:42 am and I just arrived back at our lovely vacation rental after my first day of Coachella ever. It was an interesting and exhausting day to say the least. Here’s what’s gone down thus far:

- Good: My uncle gave us directions to take the scenic route through the mountains from San Diego. It was pretty nice, to say the least. Here’s a picture from the airplane on the way to SD, as well as a nice panoramic shot from our drive overlooking all of Palm Springs

- Bad: We finally arrived to the festival gates around 3:30 PM. We knew we already were going to miss Sleigh Bells (sad) but thought we would be inside for Yeasayer for sure. Because they weren’t supposed to go on til something like 4:20. But then there was a huge gathering of people outside the gates, and we weren’t quite sure why. Especially since the line wasn’t moving at all. Word on the street was that they ran out of wristbands at the gate. Don’t ask me how that happens. All I know is that it was about an hour before we finally got inside.

- Ugly: As soon as we finally got inside, we went immediately to the Mojave tent to see Yeasayer, and of course it was bursting from the seams. So we stood outside, and not two minutes later, a girl collapsed and landed RIGHT at my feet. Her friends tried to get her to respond to anything, and after a few minutes the medics came in and carried her out on a stretcher. Not a good omen.

- Unfortunate but unavoidable: Quite a few bands have had to cancel for various reasons. Mew (one of my must sees) had to cancel for health reasons, and quite a few other bands have canceled because they were unable to fly out of Europe due to the Icelandic volcano. I learned just before Fever Ray’s set began that Delphic was one of those bands. Delphic was perhaps the second most anticipated band on my list, mostly because I LOVE exciting, high energy early afternoon sets and I knew they would throw it down. I know there’s nothing anyone could have done about it, but it was still kind of saddening.

But then the day got substantially better and stayed that way.

Met up with my internet friend Julia and her friend Libby. It might go down as the easiest/least complicated meet up ever. I’m rather happy that I recently made the switch to Sprint, because I was able to send/receive messages all day, and the folks with AT&T weren’t so lucky.

Then we went to check out Aeroplane for my first taste of the famous Sahara tent (on the way stopping into the Mojave tent again to catch Peabs and Mrs. Peabs, another far too easy meet up). And boy did it live up to all expectations. Aeroplane was playing maybe some of the best tunes ever, including a few recent dailybeatz favorites. As we approached the tent, I heard the familiar sounds of Tensnake’s “Coma Cat”, which was shortly thereafter followed by Flight Facilities “Crave You”. Other notables were Phoenix “If I Ever Feel Better”, a sick remix of “Girls & Boys” by Blur (perhaps an homage to Blur/Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn?), and that song from the 90s that goes “La da di la da dai”. You know the one I’m talking about. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Next up we went to check out the areas we hadn’t really seen yet, which included about 10 minutes of The Specials and Passion Pit, before deciding to get some grub and head back to Sahara for Pretty Lights, where I was supposed to meet my friend Sarah. We grabbed a DELICIOUS slice of pizza, and after I couldn’t find Sarah I decided it was time to try to catch up with our housemates for the weekend/friends I haven’t talked to or seen since high school. We had a quick rendezvous in the beer garden, and it was getting close to the time I’d been waiting for all day. Staking out a spot in the Mojave for Fever Ray’s day-ending performance.

We got there a bit early with enough time to catch the end of Imogen Heap’s set. I have to say, I was really impressed by her. She might be the hardest working musician in the biz when she’s performing, wearing a sort of headset microphone and literally running around the stage throughout her songs going from piano to keyboard to keytar to even drums, all the while continuing to sing. Very impressive Ms. Heap, you’ve won me over.

We got pretty darn close after that set ended and sat on the ground for the hour wait that stood in front of us. In the meantime we met some cool kids from all over the place whom I thought at first we were going to get in a fight with. It was a great metaphor for how awful our day began and what it turned out to be. There was Sophia and Buster along with the guy from the UP (that’s “upper peninsula” for you non-Michiganders) and another friend whose names escape me. We talked Michigan and even Michigan football for a while before one of the weirdest/greatest hours of my live music life thus far. It’s this meeting strangers who are really cool that is what music fests are all about.

Finally. My girl Fever Ray lived up to and surpassed all of my expectations on the live stage. I expected it to be an exercise in dark sounds and visuals with occasional rockin beats. But seriously, this chick threw down some next level dark shit on that stage. There were old fashioned lamps all over that would light up with the beat (it was very Disney Haunted Mansion looking) along with the whole band dressed in what I would describe as zombie tribesman outfits. And, oh, the powerful color changing laser beams. They get me every time. The best way I can describe her performance is that it was sort of a totally over the top and avant-garde performance, but perhaps rather than it taking the form of a bird’s nest around one’s face (a la Lady Gaga), the avant-garde manifested itself in a sort of beautiful nightmare, both musically and visually. And I do mean that in the very best way. I walked away just saying “Wow, that was…wow.” And I heard others saying the same all the way to the car.

The only bad part of Fever Ray’s set was the weird kid who showed up in front of me near the end. When the last song began, he was turning to everyone around us screaming, “I WANNA FUCK TO THIS SONG!!” multiple times. Have some class, good sir.

Then, more ugly. After making a wrong turn walking back to our car (leading to probably an additional half mile of walking, at least), we finally got back to our car at 1:30, only to sit in non-moving traffic for a while. Luckily someone had taken down a piece of the fencing so there was an additional exit and we finally got out around 2.

So here’s a summary of my thoughts thus far.

- Things that were good: The whole overall atmosphere. After being used to festivals in big cities, it was so great to look around and see nothing but mountains and palm trees as far as the eye could see. And then at night, wow, that place really transformed. Besides all of the huge art installations being illuminated, the outskirts of the entire Coachella grounds are surrounded by huge spotlights which occasionally all converge overhead, forming a sort of blanket over the festival. It sounds really lame, but it’s really cool to see in person.

Also good were several of the cool people that I’ve met already, and I look forward to meeting some more.

- Things that were bad: The fest running out of wristbands and schedules. It’s really hard to be at these things without your trusty pocket schedule. And the traffic situation at the end of the night needs to be fixed somehow.

- Regrets: Not doing everything in my power to make sure that my camera was still functional for Fever Ray.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got right now. Here are a few pics (very few). Mostly of the festival grounds/atmosphere. I was trying to obtain random pieces of video footage to splice together a nice recap video at the end of the fest (I already have the music/theme/cadence figured out in my head), apparently taking video is a massive drain on this camera’s battery. I’m using my roomates for various reasons, and I didn’t really take the time to figure it out, so maybe I can fix it for tomorrow. In fact, I killed most of the battery during Aeroplane I think. Today I will make sure to save battery power for evening shots, because that’s the real good stuff. But I wanted to give you an inside look at what went down today for those of you who could not attend. Hopefully I can keep up the next two days as well.

Diagnosis: So far I really like Coachella.

Fever Ray – Triangle Walks

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